politealpaca

[politealpaca]

Can't believe I'm doing some Tumblr version of a chain email from the early 2000s, but I can't NOT try it....

ha?

every single person who reblogs this

every

single

person

will get “doot doot” in their ask box

[politealpaca]

The fun thing about being a pretty sparse Tumblr lurker is that you still become aware of the weird things going on on this website, but like, half a step behind. You hear about it before it gets to reddit and stuff, but only just barely.

And you still have no idea where it comes from.

The fairy vs walrus at your door thing? Yeah, I'm keeping up with the discourse now, but I have no idea why we're talking about it to begin with. I have no idea where it came from. I'm not quite out of the loop, but I'm not quite in the loop either. I'm just weirdly along for the ride.

And like, just to be clear, I've been on this website for years. Not always with this account, but I've been here for at least over a decade. I'm not like a refugee from the platform formerly known as Twitter who doesn't know how Tumblr works. I'm just bad at it. I would love to be in the loop more, but idk where the loop IS. Never been able to quite figure that out.

And I want to reiterate: I know how Tumblr works. Both technically and socially. I'm just bad at it.

[politealpaca]

URGENT: 🚨🚨EARN IT ACT IS BACK IN THE SENATE 🚨🚨 TUMBLR’S NSFW BAN HITTING THE ENTIRE INTERNET THIS SUMMER 2023

April 28, 2023

I’m so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this

What is the EARN IT Act?

The EARN IT Act (s. 1207) has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country.

This is the third time the Senate has been trying to force this through, and I talked about it last year. It is a bill that claims "protects children and victims against CSAM" by creating an unelected and politically appointed national commission of law enforcement specialists to dictate "best practices" that websites all across the nation will be forced to follow. (Keep in mind, most websites in the world are created in the US, so this has global ramifications). These "best practices" would include killing encryption so that any law enforcement can scan and see every single message, dm, photo, cloud storage, data, and any website you have every so much as glanced at. Contrary to popular belief, no they actually can't already do that. These "best practices" also create new laws for "removing CSAM" online, leading to mass censorship of non-CSAM content like what happened to tumblr. Keep in mind that groups like NCOSE, an anti-LGBT hate group, will be allowed on this commission. If websites don't follow these best practices, they lose their Section 230 protections, leading to mass censorship either way.

Section 230 is foundational to modern online communications. It's the entire reason social media exists. It grants legal protection to users and websites, and says that websites aren't responsible for what users upload online unless it's criminal. Without Section 230, websites are at the mercy of whatever bullshit regulatory laws any and every US state passes. Imagine if Texas and Florida were allowed to say what you can and can't publish and access online. That is what will happen if EARN IT passes. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of Section 230 because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)

This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” and LGBT online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal’s EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230. If this bill passes, we’re going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms. This will include anything related to LGBT content, including SFW fanfiction, for example. Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Tumblr, all of them will be completely gutted of anything related to LGBT content, abortion healthcare, resources for victims of any type of abuse, etc. It is a right-wing fascists wet dream, which is why NCOSE is behind this bill and why another name for this bill is named in reference to NCOSE.

NCOSE used to be named Morality in Media, and has rebranded into an "anti-trafficking" organization. They are a hate group that has made millions off of being "against trafficking" while helping almost no victims and pushing for homophobic laws globally. They have successfully pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. That's how SESTA passed. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.

The EARN IT Act will lead to mass online censorship and surveillance. Platforms will be forced to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, aything related to abortion, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSAM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.

EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please. The same way that right-wing groups have successfully banned books about race and LGBT, are banning trans people from existing, all under the guise of protecting children from "grooming and exploitation", is how they will successfully censor the internet.

As long as state legislatures can tie in "fighting CSAM" to their bullshit laws, they can use EARN IT to censor and surveill whatever they want.

This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.

This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.

Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of “protecting kids” to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids. Blumental doesn't care about protecting anyone, and only wants his name in headlines.

It will make CSAM much much worse.

One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works – without fear of liability for any “failure.” Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.

(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on “obscenity” as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)

The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill? EARN IT is actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.

I don’t know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the “make child pornography worse” bill, but here we are.

HOW TO FIGHT BACK

EARN IT Act was introduced just two weeks ago and is already being fast-tracked. It will be marked up the week of May 1st and head to the Senate floor immediately after. If there is no loud and consistent opposition, it will be law by JUNE! Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. There are already 20 co-sponsors, a fifth of the entire Senate. This is an uphill battle and it is very much all hands on deck.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.

This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.

(202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline. Here is a call script if you don't know what to say. Call them every day. Even on the weekends, leaving voicemails are fine.

2. Sign these petitions!

Link to Petition 1

Link to Petition 2

3. SPREAD THE WORD ONLINE

If you have any social media, spread this online. One of the best ways we fought back against this last year was MASSIVE spread online. Tiktok, reddit, twitter, discord, whatever means you have at least mention it. We could see most social media die out by this fall if we don't fight back.

Here is a linktree with more information on this bill including a masterpost of articles, the links to petitions, and the call script.

DISCORD LINK IF YOU WANT TO HELP FIGHT IT

TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven’t seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.

[politealpaca]

[politealpaca]

Whenever people throw the hypothetical put there like "what would you do if you found out the world was ending in two days?" or something, a bunch of answera flit through my head. I would spend time with my husband for sure. Would I try to go see my family? I live sort of far away, would I want to spend that much of a chunk of time traveling to see them? Would a video chat suffice? If the world was about to end, I wouldn't want to spend that much of it commuting, that's for sure, but I do love my family. Would I want to try to do things I've never done before? See places I've never seen? Spend our last few hours at home in my husband's arms, feeling safe and loved and content?

But right now, for whatever reason, the hypothetical came into my head again. And all I could think was "if I got word that the world was ending in 2 days while I was on my period, I would be so fuckin pissed."

Like what a shitty way to go. Imagine being told you only have 2 days left, and you're like "TODAY OF ALL DAYS?!? I only have like three days a month that I feel gross and bloated and uncomfortable and in various pains and bleeding from my vagina, and THAT'S when the last two days are gonna be?!?"

Anyway. I don't even know how to tag this.

[politealpaca]

Why yes. I DID start a book this morning and finish it by candle light this evening while drinking wine in the bathtub, thanks for asking.

[politealpaca]

just so you know, you have some followers who enjoy/write fanfiction. not saying their urls rn bc i don’t wanna air out dirty laundry in public but if you want them so you can block and report, just say the word and i’ll dm you a list

[politealpaca]

Don't

[politealpaca]

Galileo Galilei is one of the dumbest names I've ever heard.

I mean, great contributions to the world, obviously, and you know I'm going to be a big fan of just about anyone that gets called a heretic by the Catholic church as a result of their groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

But come on. Galileo Galilei. And I know that the name came from some Tuscan customs at the time, but come on.

Galileo Galilei.

[politealpaca]

Aight, someone's gonna have hook to me up somewhere to a summary of Goncharov (1973). Even after watching it, I'm just not sure I fully understood all of the nuance. Help a girl out?

[politealpaca]

So like. I fuckin love Tumblr, and Tumblr discourse is, as we all know, the best internet discourse. But I am also a generally shy and reserved individual, so instead of participating in conversations, I just lurk like a creep and then have the gall to complain about how no one talks to me on Tumblr, as if I expect them to specifically hunt down this nothing account and strike up a conversation with me out of the blue simply because it is my wish that they do so.

[politealpaca]

To all my friends who have new names and old names and dead names and identities they've left behind, I just want you to know that I practice when you're not around. With my husband, or sometimes just rambling, repeating things, talking to myself alone in my car. I try breaking the habit of calling you by the name I've known you by for so many years, and I try to build the new habit of saying the right name and the right pronouns. Sometimes I mess it up, but when I do, I practice even harder, because you deserve to have someone who does.

[politealpaca]

PISSES ME OFF that glass is actually a liquid but it acts like a solid because the speed at which it flows is slow enough that the universe will collapse in on itself before all the glass in it finally settles into puddles. That is literally just the worst most useless liquid in the world. Complete and utter failure at being liquid. What a ridiculous stupid idiot. How do you fuck it up that hard. And you can cut yourself on it?? That’s the opposite of what you ever want a liquid for. Bad job. Just not good.

[politealpaca]

Nicknames: when you shorten someone’s name affectionately

Nicholasnames: when you elongate someone’s name affectionately

[politealpaca]

sorry for having great tits and correct opinions on everything. as if its my fault

[politealpaca]

Erza: I joined Fairy Tail for the same reason people go to zoos.

*camera cuts to Natsu and Gray beating the living shit out of each other*

Erza: Look at that. Nature is beautiful.

[politealpaca]

A hundred percent something my DnD characters would say...

Natsu: Arson? Oh, you mean “crime brûlée”