strangepersonthefirst

[strangepersonthefirst]

top 5 in reasons to hate yourself

1: your own father acknowledges that you are actively dangerous (I am trying to not be that way.)

mmm. whatever. I wish I was kidding too! and people say I fear/hate myself too much.

[strangepersonthefirst]

i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.

so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.

[strangepersonthefirst]

i think in a world where the political right is aggressively trying to portray all trans women as pedophile invaders, making it your job as a trans person to hunt down trans women who you personally believe to be dangerous (based on, let's be real, information gathered through stalking campaigns from people who have nothing but malicious intent) makes you also a fascist

[strangepersonthefirst]

Youtube is going to make you give up your government information to prove your age

Blow up YouTube's phone and email lines NOW before August 13th!

Well shit. It appears as though I have to do another post that isn't the one shot I wanted to write. So, in America, YouTube is going to try and use age verification AI to make sure you aren't underage.

What this means is that there will be an Artificial Intelligence looking over your watch history to judge if you are a child. So, if you naturally lean towards watching gaming videos primarily for children (or you just watch one too many of those), the AI will use that to say that you are obviously under 18.

If you are flagged as under 18, what will happen is that you will be cut off from anything that YouTube deems "mature", which, if you're even the slightest bit familiar with YouTube, that could mean anything.

If you have been falsely flagged, then guess what? You are going to have to: provide your driver's license, your social security number, your face, or your credit card to prove that you are in fact of age.

I will repeat that.

You will need to give this website your DRIVER'S LICENSE (YOUR ID), SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER, OR YOUR CREDIT CARD TO PROVE THAT YOU ARE NOT UNDER 18.

This is by nature extremely problematic, given how you're giving your government information to an incredibly insecure website, compared to one run by a government agency. Not only that, it will not stop children from entering adult spaces.

You can already see by how I'm describing it that this system is easy to trigger, and easy to cheat. The only purpose this serves is to compromise the security of millions. Make no mistake, that is explicitly the goal.

THE CRUELTY IS THE FUCKING POINT. THIS IS NOT SOME CUTE LITTLE MISTAKE.

Attempts to undermine anonymity and encryption by the UK, US, and Australian governments are specifically designed to make the internet unsafe by compromising the security of its users.

This not a mistake. It's not about protecting children, it's about control and fearmongering. And all the issues I've laid out makes it evident. It pushes children into spaces that make them vulnerable to predators. It forces victims of abuse to go silent online because their support group has been made inaccessible orthey're at risk of being witch hunted. And it's a dream for human traffickers.

Again,

Blow up YouTube's phone and email lines NOW before August 13th!

And if you are in a country legally requiring age verification to use websites, then you need to protest, protest, PROTEST and blow up the phone and email lines of government agencies until the law has been repealed.

Lives are stake here, this is not an exaggeration.

[strangepersonthefirst]

YouTube will use AI to monitor your viewing habits to determine if you're under 18 and require an ID for you to view certain content, yes even if you're in the US.

Now. I have some questions. Like if I watch kids shows from the 90s is that a mark for me being over 30 because it's an old TV show? Or under 30 because it's a kid's show?

Okay question aside.

There's legitimate reasons to have "odd" viewing habits. I for one have chronic fatigue. I've fallen asleep with Youtube's autoplay on and will wake up 3 hours later with the weirdest shit playing (sometimes it's kids stuff).

I'm learning 2 languages. I will watch kids shows in those languages to help me practice and pick up the language. (Muzzy in Gondoland is SO CUTE). But it's really helpful to watch shows that are like "Red orange yellow green! One two three!" To learn the basics like your colors, numbers, days of the week.

Also. Bronies... adults like kids shows. Sometimes they got a really good message like MLP. Sometimes for Nostalgia, I mean Pokémon is still going, and I watch that for nostalgia.

"No, but AI would be smarter than that!"

Is it? Is it really? Bitch if kids want to watch YouTube, that's what YouTube Kids is for. We don't need your 1984 bullshit monitoring our fucking watching habits.

"I don't understand why you're so upset. Just give them your ID." Because I'm a developer. I watch programmers increasingly use AI to fucking program their goddamn software every fucking day. And the thing is AI is really fucking bad at it. It leads to issues like the Tea app leak.

The Tea app was an app where women warned other women in the dating scene about red flag men in the area and they could ask other women if the guy that were dating was a red flag. That app had women upload their Drivers Licenses, and they recently had a leak due to shitty security protocols caused by AI coding causing a legacy database to literally be open to the public, with so security features to keep any old random person from accessing it. All of the data in that database what just... dumped to the open internet. Location data. IDs. All of it.

So, no... I'm not gonna me uploading my ID anywhere BECAUSE I'VE SEEN HOW POORLY SOME OF YOUR ASSHOLES CODE. And by "how poorly you code" I mean you don't fucking code. You just give it to AI and the fucking dumbass system wouldn't know a security feature if it punched it in the face.

Suck my dick. You're not "keeping the kids safe" you're exposing everyone to identity threats.

-fae

[strangepersonthefirst]

world_of_engineering_75 on Instagram

[strangepersonthefirst]

Guys, it got so much freaking worse. KOSA is bad, but SCREEN is even worse, somehow.

"Sen. Mike Lee has introduced the SCREEN ACT, a bill that applies the "harmful to minors" standard used to ban LGBTQ+ books and resources in schools and libraries and apply it nationally to the internet.

Any site that has any amount of material "harmful to minors" would be forced to employ surveillance tech (biometric scans, ID uploads, background checks) to prevent minors from accessing "pornography."

You will not be surprised to learn that this is backed by the Heritage Foundation.

Unlike some of the state age-verification laws, many of which are being challenged in court, SC will be enforced by the FTC, which has the ability to levy fines, raid business and freeze bank accounts. Yes, meaning that even non-for-profits like Ao3 will suffer.

This is something for all US users to keep on their radar. Call your reps, call your senators, and spread the word to protect our archive!"

- When talking with Republicans play up the fact that this would force Elon to implement age verification systems on X (yes do call it X during the call). Elon's been threatening to primary Republicans who stand in his way so there's fear of him. Also play up concerns about "Liberals" doxxing people or Chinese hackers.

- When talking with Democrats, play up the connections to Project 2025 and suggest voters will not be happy to see Democrats siding with it.

Republicans:

Ted Cruz, Texas (Chairman) - Phone: (202) 224-5922

John Thune, South Dakota - Phone: (202) 224-2321

Roger Wicker, Mississippi - Phone: (202) 224-6253

Deb Fischer, Nebraska - Phone: (202) 224-6551

Jerry Moran, Kansas - Phone: (202) 224-6521

Dan Sullivan, Alaska - Phone: (202) 224-3004

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee - Phone: (202) 224-3344

Todd Young, Indiana - Phone: (202) 224-5623

Ted Budd, North Carolina - (202) 224-3154

Eric Schmitt, Missouri - (202) 224-5721

John Curtis, Utah - Phone: (202) 224-5251

Bernie Moreno, Ohio - Phone: 202-224-2315

Tim Sheehy, Montana - Phone: (202) 224-2644

Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia - Phone: (202) 224-6472

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming - Phone: (202) 224-3424

Democrats:

Maria Cantwell, Washington (Ranking Member) - Phone: (202) 224-3441

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota - Phone: (202) 224-3244

Brian Schatz, Hawaii - Phone: (202) 224-3934

Ed Markey, Massachusetts - Phone: (202) 224-2742

Gary Peters, Michigan - Phone: (202) 224-6221

Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin - Phone: (202) 224-5653

Tammy Duckworth, Illinois - Phone: (202) 224-2854

Jacky Rosen, Nevada - Phone: (202) 224-6244

Ben Ray Luján, New Mexico - Phone: (202) 224-6621

John Hickenlooper, Colorado - Phone: (202) 224-5941

John Fetterman, Pennsylvania - Phone: (202) 224-4254

Andy Kim, New Jersey - Phone: (202) 224-4744

Lisa Blunt Rochester, Delaware - Phone: (202) 224-2441

SCRIPT

Hi, my name is [], and I am one of Senator []’s constituents. I live in [city, zip code - leave your full address if leaving a voicemail].

I am calling in regards to a bill that was recently introduced in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transport: the SCREEN act.

I am asking Senator [] to either take no action or vote against this bill because of its implications for freedom of speech. [insert one of the other concerns listed above]. Thank you for your time and for listening to my concerns.

[strangepersonthefirst]

Because I really need to exercise my designer muscles again and because Collective Shout is bugging the crap out of me. (Like even on the off-chance that their intentions are pure, ham-fisting your way through this is not the way.)

There are so many other things I wanted to put on this shitty graphic, like the fact that in some circles, NSFW extends to ALL mental health concerns (Suddenly therapy is 18+ wtaf???), but I refrained from making it more crowded than it already is.

I miss the days when I could turn my head away, but now it really feels suffocating to the point that I no longer know how to.

[strangepersonthefirst]

they are barring wikipedia. they are barring spotify. they are barring important news - both national news and world news. they are barring mental health forums and LGBTQ related things and so much more. this is not about protecting children, it has never been about protecting children.

the online safety act is an insane privacy breach, and if that does not scare you then you need to think harder about it. it is going to end up in a massive data leak - all the information is getting collected by random third party systems. can we trust them? no. can we even hold them accountable? no. because the government couldn’t even make their own system to do these age checks.

and i hear you - it is important that kids don’t see porn. but even if all this was about protecting kids, it’s sloppy and useless. it’s easy (for now) to get around with a vpn and the only thing the act doing is censoring things that it shouldnt. if the government wanted to protect kids, they would do something concrete about it - they would be putting more funding into education, for example.

of course the policy isnt called “national surveillance”. they’re not going to call it that. everything will be hidden behind things that people want.

so email your MP, and tell other people that this is WAY more than blocking porn from children - this is the first step towards national surveillance.

[strangepersonthefirst]

Pay attention to the particulars of Mastercard's responses, because this a textbook example of how to create plausible deniability.

"Mastercard has not barred any legal transaction" is, technically, a true statement – because Mastercard is not the one processing the transactions in the first place. Mastercard does not deal directly with any merchant, and in fact typically refuses to communicate with merchants at all; there's always a payment processing service sitting in between Mastercard and the merchant, whether that's Stripe or Paypal or any of dozens of other service providers.

Consequently, there are two layers of service agreements in place: the agreement between Mastercard and the payment processing service, and the agreement between the payment processing service and the merchant. That second layer of service agreements, between the payment processing service and the merchant, is where all of these content restrictions are being imposed. Mastercard can thus truthfully claim that they aren't barring legal transactions.

Now, if you've been paying attention, you've probably already spotted the issue: if the content restrictions are being imposed upon the merchants by individual payment processing services and not by Mastercard, why do all of those payment processing services seem to have exactly the same content restrictions?

That's where the critical sleight of hand comes in: while Mastercard's own terms of service do not require payment processing services to bar transactions of particular types, their ToS does require payment processors to bar transactions which could be damaging to the Mastercard brand. What constitutes damage to the Mastercard brand is not defined; it means whatever Mastercard wants it to mean. The payment processing services are thus in a position where they can be held in breach of Mastercard's terms of service for basically any reason, which gives them a strong incentive not to test any boundaries.

And that's why Mastercard can truthfully say they have never barred any legal transaction: they're never the ones doing the blocking. The layer of payment processing services that sits between Mastercard and the merchants are enforcing those content restrictions, based on a series of unwritten handshake agreements between the payment processors and Mastercard regarding what does and does not constitute acceptable content – and because the particulars of those handshake agreements aren't in writing, Mastercard can assert that their terms of service do not compel payment processing services to bar any legal transaction and technically be telling the truth.

[strangepersonthefirst]

[strangepersonthefirst]

[strangepersonthefirst]

[strangepersonthefirst]

“If it’s about a dad dating other dads, how come some of them have kids???”

[strangepersonthefirst]

404 media does really good work. check them out. they also do a weekly podcast with their biggest stories of the week. highly recommend.

[strangepersonthefirst]

“It knows now, that they can’t turn back.”

[strangepersonthefirst]