#we don't censor queer

[plague-and-creatures]

Anyone LGBT+ who censors queer is most likely exclusionist and will have the shittiest fucking opinions on queerness

[semi-sketchy]

I remember awhile ago I heard someone say you shouldn't make a character a certain race/sexuality/gender if you aren't going to do something with that, make a statement, show their struggles. At the time I understood it. That is part of their character, a part of who they are, use it to flesh them out.

I wholehearted disagree now. If you don't want to use your character to make a big social commentary, you don't have to. They can just be a character that happens to be X because the default is not and SHOULD NOT be white, straight, cisgender, male.

All this screaming about "forced diversity" is BS that just reinforces that implication. Communities and friend groups ARE diverse.

Representation is important and if you're taking characteristics off the table because you don't want to make a commentary, then all you're doing is removing any form of normalization and exposure is key to normalization.

[townofcrosshollow]

Just saw someone on Reddit type "q*eer people" and I want to hurl myself into the sea

[chaos0pikachu]

s2g if Midnight Museum wasn’t a Thai show on GMMTV I’d think I was watching a censored “bromance” c-drama 

[ladyimaginarium]

[blusical]

on a more serious note, the whole controversy surrounding ovechkin's recent comments is just yet another reminder that the NHL (and other hockey leagues but ESPECIALLY the NHL) still needs to make some changes in order for queer fans, players, coaches, gms and every other person involved to truly be accepted. NOT some performative profile picture changes. NOT simple social media posts from NHL teams. NOT some feel-good story over someone coming out. NOT introducing special jerseys. NOT getting rid of said special jerseys anyway in order to get rid of "distractions" (still furious over that). ACTUAL. CHANGE.

[pand0monium]

queer isn't *just* a slur. she's like a brother to me

[varyathevillain]

it's all "be gay do crimes" when you're discussing not contributing to the government's funds, finding ways to exist as a queer person in a neo-fascistic country, ripping off oligarchs, but the moment I speak up about an organised uprising against all these things, it's "but think about all the innocent people who might get hurt" and "people like you are the reason our community is thought of as violent and undeserving to exist" :|

[anachronic-cobra]

Your pride month reminder that kink is an inherent part of queer history and to censor that in pride is to censor queer history, don't do that

[pecanplease]

Today I did two things that scared me: 1) I finally got an industrial. 2) I wore my trans David shirt in front of my parents. I'm proud of myself.

[iri-desky]

GET KOSA TRENDING.

STOP SCROLLING NOW!

AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.

(IMPORTANT UPDATE: Kosa will not necessarily pass on the 26th. It only has the support to pass in Senate, and we STILL HAVE TIME. That being said, time is of the essence.)

WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.

I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.

Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.

Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.

Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.

Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.

Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.

Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.

Reblog if you think KOSA is unfair and shouldn't be anyone's problem -- including the adults ALL OVER THE DAMN EARTH forced to face the mass censorship it causes because "think of the American Children!".

Reblog if you support internet activism and Palestine.

Reblog if you hate fascism or censorship, and don't want actually serious and helpful conversations censored on the internet.

Reblog if you value the internet in any way at all whatsoever.

CHECK THIS PETITION, TOO! https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-kosa?recruiter=1331807538&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&recruited_by_id=57368c40-d0fd-11ee-98f7-2175430f819f&share_bandit_exp=initial-36809664-en-US

(Also, please reblog with at least "stop kosa" as a tag and not "kosa". I made the mistake of not adding just "kosa" as a tag...)

We won't let this stand any longer. Let's start a riot and get this trending.

[tsuunytsuun]

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME

There's no WAY they're just gonna try and make the whole internet babysit kids rather than actually TARGET THE PEOPLE HARMING THEM or holding parents accountable??

If this bill passes I may not be able to post here or on Youtube anymore

I may not be able to talk to my friends on Discord

I'll lose some of the most important people in my life

I'll lose some of the things that make me the happiest

They're going to censor anything the extremist people government don't like- queer content, bipoc content, content related to sexual health, content about racism and discrimination, ANYTHING.

This bill absolutely CANNOT pass, I'm literally begging that this doesn't pass

everybody go to the KOSA Masterpost and FIND A WAY TO HELP. Call your Senators/House reps, email them, reblog posts, spread the word, ANYTHING.

WE CANNOT LET THIS BILL PASS.

[oimoi-op]

Sorry that while I was in grade school I was terrified of being called a queer and a fag and being told I was an abomination and going to burn in hell and that I should hate myself bc I'm an evil satanic abomination. Sorry that I did hate myself and did try to stop being myself for most of my life bc even if I was miserable at least I wasn't an evil queer. Yeah I totally have no right to be mad at corporations over exploiting the slurs I've reclaimed bc I should only be mad at *gestures vaguely* capitalism and not hold the people participating in *gestures vaguely* capitalism accountable for profiting off the slurs I've personally reclaimed to reinforce my personal way of accepting who I am. Yeah ofc ppl recognizing lgbt+ and queer history and identities as a real tangible thing and deciding to explore it and learn more abt it is the same exact thing as a soulless corporation getting money for calling me a queer. My bad bro

[fullhalalalchemist]

URGENT: Congress about to pass a mass censorship and surveillance bill under the guise of "protecting children"

May 13 2023

The Senate has been in a "do something!" mode regarding children's online safety. They're using this as an excuse to push for widespread internet censorship and surveillance. The EARN IT Act, has a slimmer chance of passing with widespread opposition and some senators saying they won't vote for it. TLDR;The real threat is actually KOSA (s.1409), the Kid's Online Safety Act, which will mass censor and surveill the entire internet by giving all 50 state attorney generals the power to remove content that is "harmful" for kids, and force you to upload your govt ID online to access the internet. I'll explain how it works below the action items but it's absolutely urgent that anyone who likes having a free and open internet fights back. It's all hands on deck, because this has so much public support it's insane:

HOW TO FIGHT KOSA

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES & THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE

This is a link to the Senate Commerce Committee phone numbers and a call script to read off of. (202) 224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline

Opposition is getting drowned, and these upcoming weeks will be heavy for lobbying and they're using young people to do it. We NEED to show these senators that young people are actually opposed to this and don't want it.

2. Sign these petitions

Open Letter Against KOSA

Petition 1

Petition 2

Petition 3

Petition 4

Resistbot: Text PHJDYH to 50409

3. Spread the word.

The opposition is getting absolutely drowned online. Dove has nearly 100k signatures to push for KOSA. Influencers on tiktok are pushing for this without ever having read the bill. Fucking Lizzo is sponsoring it. If you have twitter, reddit, tiktok, are in any community, SPREAD THE WORD, PLEASE.

Here is a linktree with all the above petitions for easy shargin: Link to linktree

HOW KOSA WORKS

First, KOSA pressures platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This means instructing platforms to censor. We saw how these filters impacted websites firsthand with tumblr in 2018, with not only blocking all adult content but also sfw queer content such as suicide hotlines, art archives, wiping out entire blogs because they had queer fandom related posts, etc. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups. KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. And who gets to decide what is and isn't harmful for minors? Oh don't worry, just every single state attorney general and the FTC, which is appointed by the president. You know, the same attorney generals that just banned gender-affirming healthcare under the guise that it "ruins mental health" of minors. This is why the Heritage Foundation was one of the first to sponsor the bill because they can use it to censor trans content, and Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is it's co-author.

Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by forcing websites to use age verification and parental monitoring tools. Yup, that's right. Now every single person who wants to access the internet has to upload their govt ID online to third party apps that get hacked all the time. You queer in a red state? You undocumented? You an activist? Have fun getting all your online activity and metadata attached to your govt ID.  

Over 90+ human and LGBT rights groups agree that KOSA is dangerous and updates to the 2023 version won’t and can’t address the big problems with the bill. This bill has MASSIVE bipartisan support, and the authors Blumenthal and Blackburn (yes, that Blumenthal that's pushing the EARN IT Act, and who also sponsored the RESTRICT Act and SOPA/PIPA if you remember) are using the tragedy of mothers who lost their kids to online harassment and young adults who've been traumatized online to lobby for it, and got Dove the company to use a bunch of influencers to push for this under the guise it prevents eating disorders...I wish I was lying. There are already 30 co-sponsors.

It is all hands on deck. I'm dead serious when I say if this bill is passed it is the beginning if not end of the open and free internet.

[astraltrickster]

Thing is, I don't think tumblr staff is uniquely transphobic - especially since it's not just trans women's selfies and transmasc art getting censored, but classic queer comics, Black bloggers (especially women), and more, even as our more visible staff members keep talking about trying to fix the problem.

I suspect it's something much bigger and with much worse implications for the entire internet.

I suspect more appeals are being left to the automated system than we think (which they're NOT supposed to do but due to the sheer volume theyre having to deal with, well...) and, between the evergreen problem of report-brigading by bigots, the other evergreen problem of a company internally sucking at determining where justified criticism of their practices ends and harassment begins, and the problems of fighting the porn bots (because every single one you see is a product of survivorship bias) leading the algorithm to become sexist (remember #girlgate?), the automod algorithm is basically collapsing in on itself and learning all the worst biases of society MORE than ever before.

Which, given that these systems are being deployed all OVER the internet and being touted as objective and unbiased because ~computers can't be bigots~, should fucking horrify you.

[duchessonfire]

I have been reading a bit on the OTW elections and the whole Tiffany G thing, but most of all, I've been reading comments from people supporting Tiffany saying that she just wants to clear AO3 from all the CSAM (child sexual abuse material) content and I don't know who needs to hear this but:

If someone comes to a predominantly QUEER space (like AO3) and tells you that censorship is necessary to eradicate CSAM... it's not actually CSAM they want to eradicate...

I've seen this type of discourse about Pride and about queer literature and queer movies and queer communities. It's a tried and true technique of the right and conservative movements.

First, they say there is a DANGER to the community through CSAM and they conflate the actual threat of CSAM in the community (we all know someone who thinks that writing a love story between two characters who are 16 is CSAM...), and make you believe that censorship is the only way to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And since most people are (rightly) mind-bogled at having to explain that of course they don't support CSAM content, they bow down and accept the censorship for the greater good, without anyone actually trying to have a conversation about what qualifies as CSAM (which needs to, you know, actually involve real children and not fictional characters who are 17 and losing their virginity with their crush in a Mature-rated story about high school football and first love based on the author's own experience of losing their virginity at 17 to their crush in high school).

Then, they tell you that there are other forms of DISTURBING CONTENT, and what they really mean is porn that THEY find disturbing, for ex, (and I kid you not, I have seen comments like that) porn featuring disabled characters, which they consider to encourage the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, or BDSM porn (which supposedly encourages violence and lack of consent), or rough porn, or any kind of porn that isn't two (preferably white and skinny) able-bodied people doing it missionary style while lovingly gazing in each other's eyes. SO TO PROTECT VIEWERS, that needs to be banned as well.

And then, they tell you that even that sanitized version of porn is still porn and that people under 18 or under 21 or under whatever age they consider too young to view anything sexual regardless of the fact that not all countries have the same law about the age of maturity, should be free to surf the site without having to *gasp* filter out properly tagged works. So TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN, every explicit content is censored.

And then finally, when all that is left is a sanitized, white-washed, ableist, puritan type of content featuring General-Audience approved gay works of two nice men or two nice women holding hands and chastely kissing each other on the lips... Well guess what? :) CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO QUEER CONTENT SO WE NEED TO BAN THAT AS WELL, and since we've basically done purge after purge before and there are still a handful of people on the website, well surely they won't mind/care anymore, will they?

It's not just a slippery slope, it's something that has been done time and again, and that is why censorship on AO3 will never, never have a positive outcome.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.