i do not want to live in the fucking panopticon fuck the camera that blinks above me at work, the tv watching me at the store, the "smile you're on camera" signs, the ring cameras, the flock cameras, the apps to track your child or partner, the activist friends telling me "just assume everything you do in public is being recorded somewhere", the government building protester databases, the teslas recording every move all around them, the knowledge that everything i type or search or save is being tracked and logged, the ads and search suggestions that mysteriously know what i was just talking about, the way biometrics keep creeping into more places, the way my car spies on me, the way my phone spies on me, the way there is nowhere to go to get away from it!!! no wonder the internet is full of vindictive little stalkers and witchhunts when it's the water and the air of society from the culture to the infrastructure
Even if you don’t live there, if you still live somewhere in the states, please, listen up.
“The MA legislature and governor just proposed dangerous social media surveillance legislation that would require everyone in the state, including adults, to upload a government ID or submit to a face scan to create a social media account. If something like this passes here, it will spread to other states faster than activists can fight back.
I have an op-ed out in today's Boston Globe explaining why this legislation would hurt kids and help Trump attack LGBTQ youth and undocumented folks. You can read it here (no paywall) https://archive.ph/rAK4P
If you're in MA, please send this to your state senators and the governor! They need to read it! You can also use this tool to easily call the key lawmakers who will be making decisions about this: https://www.stoponlineidchecks.org/ma “
- Fight For the Future Signal chat
I encourage reading EFF’s article linked below as it goes into the greater details of the legislation aside from this, but key notes:
• Forces everyone (not just kids) to upload a government ID or submit to a facial recognition scan to create a social media account or post online, even on educational sites like Wikipedia
• Force parents to send even more sensitive information to Big Tech companies to “verify” custody in order for a minor to create an account (think: sending a birth certificate to Mark Zuckerberg to let your teen create an account)
• Allow unsupportive parents to lock queer and trans youth off the Internet, restricting access to life-saving community and information with zero recourse
• Expand the Trump admin’s surveillance capabilities, making it easier for them to persecute people organizing protests, monitoring ICE, and criticizing the administration
• Cost Massachusetts tax payers enormously, as the legislation is clearly unconstitutional and would face legal challenges.
• Specifically harm undocumented folks who use social media to warn communities about ICE activity and raise money for family members
• Fine smaller and non-profit tech platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky out of business, further expanding the monopolies of Big Tech platforms
It is one of many of the worst pieces of digital surveillance legislation right now in the states.
If you’re in MA, please call and write to your state senators and governor through EFF’s article below, and if you’re not, either spread the word or call them too, but, don’t give them your ZIP code so they don’t know where you are.
I’ve just read this truly harrowing article and thought it’d be important to share. Seeing Gaza devastated by bombs and famine has always been indescribably horrifying, but reading accounts on how drones are used to stalk women in their bedrooms while they sleep, and how phones are scraped through so thoroughly it’s not safe to text loved ones anything makes the situation unspeakably more terrifying and unsettling.
