Cut Cat

I’m on tour with my new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI. Catch me TONIGHT (Jun 23) in TORONTO at Osler Records, and TOMORROW (Jun 24) in NYC at The Strand. After that, it’s Philly and Chicago.

The literature on harms to kids from online platforms is complex and nuanced, rife with people citing small, ambiguous studies as iron-clad evidence that kids are being destroyed by the internet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6c6DdHQY

It's a weird coalition of anti-Big Tech campaigners (who are rightly angry at the platforms' callous disregard for user welfare) and Heritage Foundation-backed culture warriors (who think that if their kids aren't exposed to LGBTQ content they won't come out as queer). While there's plenty these groups disagree about, they share one consensus: there should be a "minimum age" for certain kinds of internet use.

The problem is, there's no such thing as "age verification" for the internet. What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance, so invasive and pervasive that it makes the ad-tech industry's commercial surveillance look like some kind of cypherpunk darknet pirate utopia:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers

"Age verification" means that everyone who does anything online will have to submit to fine-grained tracking and recording of all their online activities. This nightmare is the surveillance advertising industry's fondest dream, a world where it's literally illegal to avoid their tracking, all in the name of saving kids…from them!

So it's not just a weird alliance of anti-Big Tech crusaders and the conspiratorial right that's pushing for age verification – they are unwitting allies of the very tech industry they think they're fighting. Those tech industry insiders are fully aware that an "age verification" mandate is really a way for the government to teach every child how to use a VPN. They're also fully aware that the next move is to ban VPNs:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2217934/vpn-ban-table-july-labour

Tech bosses are the ones sitting on our shoulders saying, "Go ahead, swallow that fly – it'll be fine. And if you do have to swallow a spider afterward, well, that'll surely be the end of it":

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/#consensus-hallucination

Behind them is a long line of caliper-wielding grifters who claim they can use your phone's camera to distinguish a child who is 17 years, 364 days old from an adult who's just turned 18:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/facial-age-estimation

It's beyond farce. After all, whatever harms you believe the internet is inflicting on kids – and there's absolutely some kids who are being harmed by their internet use – those harms all start with surveillance. Your kids can't be targeted by algorithms without the surveillance data that's being used to target them. They can't be funneled into pro-anorexia content or extreme misogyny forums without that funnel being primed by commercial spying.

also, this is a conflation turning “something needs to be done about social media harming children” and “let’s erect a ID verification wall around most of the internet”

Same thing with brexit conflating “something needs to be done or things will keep getting worse” with “let’s break with our coldest trade partners”

"He's anti-Brexit!" Good.

"He's anti-Trump!" Good.

"He's anti-establishment!" At this point I think you're just trying to make me like him more.

"His manager once called Farage a horrible cunt!" Well Farage *is* a horrible cunt, what's your point?

"He's making a joke of British politics!" Well that's very appropriate given that current British politics *are* a fucking joke.

"He's a left-wing liberal elitist!" I don't know if you can be all of those things at once, but I do know that Count Binface isn't the one getting millions in donations from cryptocurrency billionaires sooooooo...

Farage is the leader of the far-right Reform party, is a Putin and Trump simp, hates the NHS and wants it abolished in favour of US-style private healthcare (won't someone *please* think of the poor billionaire investors who aren't able to run the NHS for profit???) and was a major driving force behind Brexit.

He's a rich cunt but he's also a rich cunt who recieved a £5 million "gift" from a billionaire crypto bro which was not declared to Parliament. Which is not a good look as MPs are supposed to be open about their finances and funding to prove that there's no conflicts of interest going on. He's also recieved funding from a convicted fraudster.

He also criticised the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) for saving migrants trying to cross the English Channel instead of letting them drown, referring to them as a "migrant taxi service". Which is fucking abhorrent in the first place, but dipshit was apparently unaware that the RNLI is funded almost entirely by donations and recieves no government funding. Shortly after making this criticism, donations to the RNLI surged because fuck Farage.

Anyway, with increased public scrutiny on his finances, Farage decided to try some theatrics, announcing that he was resigning as the MP for Clacton. This triggers the byelection, because Clacton needs an MP. Farage is going to stand for reelection despite resigning, declaring that he would clear his name in the court of public opinion. Because if people still vote him in despite the financial fuckery then clearly the *people* support him, fuck you Parliament Farage is the rebel outsider who everyone loves.

The other mainstream political parties decided not to field candidates, because this was clearly just a publicity stunt. Unfortunately for Farage, Count Binface isn't a mainstream political party, he's an intergalactic space warrior who doesn't afraid of anything. (including milkshakes)

And it's looking like Count Binface might actually win, though now some other independent candidates have stepped up. Including a furry and a clairvoyant. The venerable Monster Raving Looney Party have also expressed interest.