The Pigeon

if I see one more "why age verification is bad" post that doesn't even bother to mention that locking young people out of huge sections of the public sphere - literally the stated goal and primary impact of this shit - is wrong in and of itself I will simply start hitting people with bricks

yes yes biometric data privacy blah blah adults can hypothetically by harmed by this too. what about the immediate and deliberate and not at all hypothetical harm to youth. why are you acting like a potential data leak about what your face looks like, which if it ever happened would at least be generally recognised as a problem, is a more serious issue than cutting millions of people off from information and community and public expression which is happening right now in the open with large scale support

it's got the stench of fucking "banned books week" on it. thousands of adults congratulating themselves for reading books literally no one is trying to stop them from reading while doing nothing to improve access for the young people who are the ones actually having those books made off-limits to them.

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implying the r slur is anything like reclaiming faggot or dyke implies there's some sort of community and comfort and care behind the social group "retard" is being applied to. which there isn't, because disabled people haven't ever had the ability to create communities for themselves let alone archive or take down their own history and experiences. that is happening now, this is the first time that has ever been allowed to happen. there is no comfort when another disabled person calls me it, there is lateral ableism. that's it. they're just weaponizing our oppressors' words against me in a way that gains them power. that's not reclamation. that's just slur slinging.