#Data privacy

[ahb-writes]

(from The Mitchells vs. the Machines, 2021)

[gentleman-velvet]

Okay so bad news for everyone on YouTube right now

Starting the 13th, we will have an AI determine if we are children or not and if you are a child, than you are forced to send your ID, send a selfie or a credit card

This has the obvious cons of having your privacy being revoked from you and and in case there is a security breach, major identity thefts.

So what do we do in this scenario?

Well right now I have real idea as this is relativity new to me, but I do have two plans

Plan 1. Bug the shit out of them, send letters and send emails about how much of bad idea this is.

Include why the AI will mess up and target adults who watch cartoons, include privacy issues, censorship issues, anything you can think of that relates to this. I want you guys to bug the hell out of YouTube until they reverse this idea

Here their address for letters

Send a mass amount of letters on the 5th of August and than another mass amount on the 8th

Plan 2. Blackout.

Since the thing is coming out on the 13th.

The plan will be to completely avoid YouTube at all cost for that day (and beyond), no watching, no sharing, no uploading, no nothing.

Download videos before things go down, watch Netflix. Whatever you do, don’t touch YouTube.

That’s all I can say right now, I also want you guys to let YouTubers know of this situation cause if it’s important for everyone on the website to talk about this immediately

Spread this stuff around, let people know of YouTube’s upcoming policy and how it’ll hurt everyone

Edit: I have taken into consideration and I am going to agree that the blackout should be until the decision is reversed, this is so we are not out at risk as users and so YouTube doesn’t just ignore the original black out

I might have a more detailed plan posted later today, but it depends on everything goes

Another edit: just to remind yall to send in letters and emails about this to google to force their hands to reverse this decision

There is also the law itself, though I can’t speak much on it other than finding lawing bodies that can force YouTube to reverse this decision. If anyone can find a place to file or call for this, that will be greatly appreciated! (I heard maybe the FTC and or the California Consumer privacy right can be considered, but that needs more research)

BIGGER UPDATE: we have a new plan in motion, here is the updated plan for you all to see

and also here's a petition to stop the law that would help support this into becoming a thing

and also a tumblr post about it and how you can help further prevent this from being allowed in office

Don’t forget to send this fellow people outside of tumblr

YouTubers, Twitter users, send it through out and make sure you are heard

[reallyunluckyrunaway]

this is unbelievably unethical...

You need to move off of Google Docs!

I know some people have seen the news recently and may be doubtful of it. To the uninformed, Google Docs has started using AI to find "inappropriate" and "problematic" content, scraping your documents and deleting it. I know some people are unsure if this is real or think this is not going to affect them.

I regret to inform you that this is real.

As I was on a call with some writers and we were moving our documents as a precautionary measure, one person discovered entire pages missing that they did not delete themselves. This is happening to us, it's not a hoax or a rumor, it's happening right now. You need to move everything if you want to preserve it.

If you're a writer with writer mutuals, please reblog this so they know. I rarely write on Google Docs anymore, but I started my fanfics on there, and I would be devastated if I lost works more than ten years old because people decided marketing appeal is more important than creative freedom.

[sterlinggothdarlings]

About the YouTube AI age verification thing in the US:

Here is a link for another post detailing a boycott plan on the 13th of August. And if you think that it's not gonna be that bad...

IT WILL AFFECT YOU, TOO.

If you watch:

Gameplays and gaming-related videos, for example Minecraft, Undertale/Deltarune, The Sims 4, GTA/Minecraft roleplaying videos, mod videos (even if the mod is 18+), Genshin Impact and other gachas, horror games no matter the rating

Unboxing of Pokémon/Magic The Gathering/any other type of playing cards

Table Top Games, including watching TTRPG campaigns

Slime tutorials, probably (yeah, both kinds)

Essays/Commentary/Theories about IP for children, like cartoons/anime - Gravity Falls, Winx Club, Monster High, Pokémon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, My Little Pony, Miraculous Ladybug, Spongebob Squarepants, and the like

Anything about Doll Customizing, including ball-jointed dolls, Blythe dolls, OOAK projects, and anything similar

Cosplay videos, probably

Videos about collectibles like Labubu, Funko Pop, plushies, and similar

Videos and YT podcasts about Anime, like Trash Taste and Mother's Basement

VTubing, most likely, given the nature of animated avatars

And maybe, Draw With Me/Art tutorials of all kinds

There is a chance that the AI will target your account, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT FROM THE USA, and flag it as an underage account because of your watching habits. Therefore, requiring you to provide your identification or photo to YouTube in order to continue using their services normally and not have your account deleted.

And here is the kicker: IF YOU DON'T and continue to use the service disregarding your account's newly found underage classification, THEY WILL CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN WATCH EVEN MORE. They are banking on you being too tired to fight this, and just accepting it as the new normal.

This is a blatant ploy to monitor the people and gather massive amounts of data to sell to governments, plural. If it works without too much of a hiccup in the US (and in the UK as well, since over there it's affecting every online service), other countries will follow suit.

If you are in the US, you have to fight this.

They've already come for Steam and Itch as a way of controlling self-expression and speech. This is yet another tool of censorship. And it WILL affect all of us, globally, eventually, because the internet serves a lot more people than the US and the UK, and the rules are applied mostly equally.

Share the boycott plan. Tell your friends and family about it. It will affect them, too.

[ellipsus-writes]

June 11 note - We’ve updated this post with even more tools!

Every day, there seem to be more reasons to break up with Google.

So we’ve rounded up a bunch of privacy-centric alternatives for all your deGoogling needs.

Check out the full list over on the blog!

- The Ellipsus Team xo

[zuko-always-lies]

From instructions on how to opt out, look at the official staff post on the topic. It also gives more information on Tumblr's new policies. If you are opting out, remember to opt out each separate blog individually.

Please reblog this post, so it will get more votes!

[ayeforscotland]

If you have ever used 23andMe, they have now filed for bankruptcy and will be asset stripped. Delete your account information as soon as possible.

[maximumzombiecreator]

Infinitely funny whenever the media or government or some corporation tries to fearmonger to me about the Chinese government getting access to my private information.

Y'all have spent the last two decades drilling into me that I should have absolutely no expectation of privacy. No expectation of privacy from my own government, who are by far the entity most likely to use my information to really harm me. No expectation of privacy from advertisers who will do anything with that data, give it to anyone, if they think it will make them a few cents of profit. No expectation that anything I write, even in private documents that are never posted, won't be used to train machine learning models to let capital owners eliminate more workers and further consolidate their wealth and power. All that's just how it is and I have to accept it.

But apparently, unbeknownst to me, there is exactly one entity that does owe me an expectation of privacy, and it's not one that has any formal social or legal tie to me. Fascinating. I guess I have a lot to learn about privacy.

[suresuresureaursure]

hey guys as a kid I’d like to point out that looking at porn and similar things CAN be harmful but that’s why we need to be open about it and actually have discussions about it so people (kis—because kids are people) feel safe talking about it, so that they dont get fucked up

may be a hot take but i think the fact minors can access 18+ content by just clicking a button that says 'yes im totally over 18 trust me' is like. totally fine tbh. its a non-issue. i dont care if curious teenagers are looking at porn. they've been doing that for as long as porn has existed. id rather teens explore their sexuality through images on the internet than rush into real life experiences when they're not ready for it yknow. the UK is trying to put stricter age verification in place (which in turn is becoming an online privacy nightmare) and like. for what. who is it helping. why is this a problem.

[kde-plasma-official]

hey, privacy concerned folks,

DON'T USE BALENA ETCHER TO USB YOUR ISOs

As @tailsos-official stated in their blog post, it displays ads which is weird for a simple disk imaging tool and more important:

It shares your IP address, the file name of the image the model of the USB stick and a bunch of other things with the Balena company and third parties.

On Windows, use Rufus instead. It's pretty neat.

On Mac, use the Raspberry Pi Imager. It does its job. Or if you don't mind the terminal, use dd. It's built-in.

On Linux you can use dd, or whatever comes with your DE. Or whatever else you prefer. We got options.

You can also use Ventoy and just chuck all your ISOs on it. No need to reformat your usb drives again just for a new boot stick. One USB to rule them all.

sources under the cut

[gentleman-velvet]

Okay, so here’s the updated plans for fighting against youtube's new ai age policy and privacy violating rule (I believe in us!)

Plan 1. Black out and leave youtube/ youtube boycott

It’s a very simple plan, but this time we just leave until it’s fully reversed. That way YouTube doesn’t just ignore us and the original black out. We have to stand our ground and show them we aren’t going to give up. We have to last as long as possible and let their revenue drain until they concede or someone else comes in and makes another platform (that isn’t based on politics but the same ideas as the original YouTube)

Plus I would like to add some small extra things that will help with the blackout though. That being mass downloading YouTube content. Now this might be the easiest thing for certain people, but it’s something.

Mass downloading YouTube content can help in case there a couple of videos or channels you want to watch during the blackout. You can also use this to download new youtube videos from places like twitter since it won't count towards ads or view

(I use something called a ytdlp but there might be better options for you out there, there might even be built in ones in a web browser or two, just search around the place, you'll find it eventually)

There is also alternate YouTube apps that block ads (like Jdownloader and newpipe) that might work within the black out, but I'm worried that it would still count towards views and still help YouTube out in that smallest of ways, more research is needed, but it is an option (though I still recommended downloading new videos just to avoid the entire views thing)

Plan 2. Bugging the crap out of them.

Now since they have a mail box for us to use, that can be used for our advantage here. So here’s what we do, send them letters asking them to reverse the decision, that way they will be overwhelmed by letters that have to eventually give up. Now I don't want you guys to send out slurs, curses or whatever. I need you guys to be kind and critical. I want you to point everything wrong with this and why it is destined to fail and leave the company crumbling

In addition to these letters, if at all possible, I want you guys to include photos of comments made by other people (Twitter, tumblr, whatever) criticizing this and making it known that it’s not just you guys who are angry, but people all over too.

Now we can also include emails in this, but that might be harder than excepted, but in case you do want to send in a email, you can send it that way

I can't find any other way of sending them an email, but good to you if you do find it (though I would recommend a letter much more)

UPDATE, someone has pointed out that we should all send out our letters on a single day, Im taking around August 5th about a week before the thing actually rolls out and than maybe we’ll do another batch on the 8th just in case

Make sure you mass send a bunch of letters

WIP plan 3, legal bull

I wish I could say this plan was finished, but unfortunately, it is not at all. All we have to go for here to filing a complaint towards the FTC about this and or using what this user recommneds (though I can't fully say if it'll work or not)

This plan will be worked on as much as possible

I want everyone if they can to spread to outside of tumblr, talk about it on twitter, facebook, blusky, youtube itself, this plan has to spread to as much people as possible.

I believe we can do our best and shine a light through these horrible times, we can be light in the darkness that will help others shine a burn a hole in this horrible system of censorship

I believe in every last one of you, I believe you can do good and spread good, because in your hearts, you are good

If you have any other ideas, let me know, cause i know more minds are better than one.

Good luck!

[ready-resist-rebuild]

U.S. RESIDENTS PLEASE READ

For those living in the United States who are unhappy with the state of the country and who wish to protect themselves, protect others, or those who wish to fight back, this message is for you. Below you will find a link to a Proton Drive containing a folder called Tipr Complete. In it are valuable resources regarding health, safety, rights, building national resilience, and more.

Each file is sorted into sub-folders, and a full list of source links for each document is provided in a text file to make it easier to access the information online if you wish. There is also a text file to assist with getting started as well as an index to help you navigate. This is a work in progress, so you can expect updates in the future.

As there is increasing concern over potential censorship, it is recommended to download these resources, either from the Proton Drive directly or by going to the original sources. This will help ensure the information is still accessible in the future. Please consider sharing this information and this post as much as you can so that it may reach those who need it most.

Thank you, and good luck.

[osterby]

So there's a class action lawsuit against google for spying on users who had the "don't track me" toggle turned on.

If you are in the US, had google's tracking "paused", and used a mobile device with that account at any time since 2016, you count. That going to be nearly every American who has ever poked with the privacy settings.

Google sent my email about about this straight to the spam folder. I'm not going to say they did that on purpose, but no matter if it's malicious supression of information or a poorly tuned auto filter, it's, uh, lets say "funny".

So yeah, go check your spam folders, guys.

[2swanned]

UK CITIZENS LISTEN UP!!!!

On July 25th, 2025, the UK Online Safety Act will take place. This is being put in place by the government to "protect" children and adults in the UK (aka basically form a digital steel curtain around the country). This will ban lots of platforms and also restrict internet access a LOT for UK citizens. This act will most likely be used as a way to oppress queer people or people part of minorities in an attempt to take away their safe spaces. I'm really too lazy to explain this whole thing but you can look up information about the online safety act in your own time. if you want online freedom and privacy, sign this petition:

This will mean that the petition will officially be up for debate in the Parliament! If you live in any of the following countries and want your own freedom on the internet:

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Island

Then you should sign this petition! All of the information you need to enter is your email address, full name and postcode and you will remain completely anonymous.

What you can do if you don't live in the UK:

Reblog this post and other posts spreading awareness about the act

Share with any friends living in the UK you have

Make your own awareness posts!

Thank you so much for stopping to read this ^^ If enough people band together to sign this petition, there's a chance the act will be repealed!

[opensuse-official]

I think it is very cool how tech companies, schools, employers, and universities make it actively difficult to distance yourself from Google, Microsoft, and Apple.

Yes most Linux distros are very stable, way more secure, privacy friendly, and way more customizable. But every institution is built to make technological independence as difficult as possible.

Yelling on the internet that everyone should switch to Linux and FOSS really ignores how much of the technological world is designed to not let that happen.