As age-verification bullshit becomes more common, I am determined to simply not participate in any service or video game that requires it. The day I see the prompt, is the day I leave.
Maybe the government’s hope is that I stop participating in society, but I assure you that I will not. I’ll find or build alternatives, and refuse to comply with bad law.
I hope you will, too.
And as a silver lining, maybe the weird internet we end up creating as a result will suck less than the current one.
It may be inadvisable to put this in writing, but I’m serious about this: if I am ever required to put up an age-gate, I intend to defy that law.
You’re going to have to break into my house and physically remove the server, when it comes down to it.
And it’s not that I doubt they can. I don’t have the same kind of resources that the state does. It’s more that I intend to make them do so publicly, in the sunlight.
I solemnly swear to be the biggest pain in the ass for fascists possible.
At this point, I believe there’s more value in being loud and public about resistance.
The legal system already does not function, specifically for me. I have no reason to believe that the Constitution will protect me, or that plausible deniability will keep me out of jail. At this point, if the fash wants to put me there, they will reverse engineer a reason to do so, or even do so illegally.
But if others see me making noise, they might decide to push back, too. Corporations certainly aren’t!
All I know is that the internet is absolutely the most important thing humanity has ever created, and is maybe the only tool that we have today which is capable of equalizing the insane wealth, information, and power inequalities in my country.
Our ability to communicate freely, to exchange ideas, and to organize terrifies all of the right people. Good. It should.
I will not participate in destroying my own home— and yes, I do consider the Internet my home. I’m corny like that.
I understand that my own corner of the internet is not particularly important, but I only have to be one brick in the wall.
And I can even become a *couple* of bricks by extending those principles to the other sites and tools that I use, and refusing to participate in ones that cave to pressure to erode our civil rights.
No one will notice that I’m not using Floop or Glorm or whatever. It’s true that I won’t cause the owners to change their behavior. But neither will I help them build power.
So yeah, bottom line: I will not tolerate this identity verification bullshit on any platform.
I will not allow my absence from said platforms to dictate my ability to participate in public life.
And I will build spaces that respect and empower my neighbors.
It’s going to be inconvenient, but it’s also punk as hell, and the right thing to do.
Finally, to the authoritarian pricks trying to destroy my home, online and off; fuck you, I hope you choke.
@Haste Yeah, I really want to do this. I want to help work on something that developers and administrators could turn into a small business helping people maintain--sort of like a small plumbing business.
A grass roots hing with an agreed set of patterns or something so that we can all train each others' users and they can easily interoperate with each other.
I'd want to be defense oriented. We're all under attack trying to defend ourselves and each other.
I'm lost in it though. Too big.
@crazyeddie it does feel really big. I’d say just pick one small thing that you really care about, and know how it works. Focus on that and trust that the next thing will be someone else’s project.
You only have to be one brick in the wall!
EVHaste
derptron