RedEarthTiger1d ago
Electronic Frontier Foundation
When lawmakers and advocacy groups frame queer existence itself as a threat to young people, age-verification laws become ideological enforcement instead of regulatory policy. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/rep-finke-was-right-age-gating-isnt-about-kids-its-about-control
Rep. Finke Was Right: Age-Gating Isn’t About Kids, It’s About Control

What’s at stake is whether “protecting children” becomes a legal pretext for embedding government control over the internet to enforce specific moral and religious judgments—judgments that deny marginalized people access to speech, community, history, and truth—into law.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mar 22 at 6:58pmTypefully
Show threadKnightmare1d ago
@eff and data gathering.
Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH1d ago
@eff @WideEyedCurious The end of the “Inter-webs”. So be it. Probably all better off.
Show threadGlitzersachen1d ago

@donhawkins @eff @WideEyedCurious

I disagree. The "Interwebs" were and are not only Facebook, Whatsapp, Google and Xitter.

The Internet held promise. Which technically is not dead yet. I don't want the better future I once could see fall under the onslaught of greed (the tech bros) and totalitarianism (the state).

We shouldn't let it go silently and not without putting up a fight. The Internet is ours, not theirs.

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH1d ago
@glitzersachen @eff @WideEyedCurious I wish you the best of luck with that.
Show threadGlitzersachen17h ago

@donhawkins @eff @WideEyedCurious

Your bio certainly doesn't read as if you have given up already. I'd like to not that Signal and Libro.fm and Mastodon all exist on "the Internet".

But whatever. Everybody is entitled to give up when they like. But not to sarcastically which "best of luck" to those that haven't yet. Since everybody is entitled to continue as long as it makes sense for them, too.

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH16h ago

@glitzersachen @eff @WideEyedCurious I said, “I wish you the best of luck with that.”

Had I been ‘sarcastic’, it would have read more simply:
“good luck with that”.

Cheers & Beers!

Show threadGlitzersachen16h ago

@donhawkins @eff @WideEyedCurious

That's likely a difference that doesn't arrive at second language speakers --- like me.

But good. Thanks for clarifying.

Show threadDon Hawkins - W7DAH15h ago

@glitzersachen @eff @WideEyedCurious I thought perhaps it was lost in translation.

Honestly, I think this next bit of Americana is applicable to the “inter-webs” discussion:

The phrase "Turn out the lights, the party's over" originates from the song "The Party's Over," written and recorded by Willie Nelson in the mid-1950s. It became popular when former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith sang it during broadcasts of Monday Night Football in the 1970s, often when a game was decided.

Show threadbug1d ago
@eff thank you EFF for always being cool as hell, including in defending queer folk :3