This post talks about a new DM feature in youtube. What it fails to mention is that as part of this new feature is that when you send someone a link to a video, and they open it in the youtube app, they will see who sent them the link. Specifically, your channel name.

If your google account name is your real name, so is your channel name by default.

This means the new default behavior is that everyone you send a youtube link to will see your full name if they open it in the mobile app.

To turn this off:

Go to your youtube app settings

Go to Privacy

Turn off "Channel visibility for shared links"

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

Another update for people, we have a discord server! Come over to the server to join in and be organized then before!

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.

that's not great. but it's not the whole story.

a few things got worse right before the vote too. the language that explicitly protected encryption, saying the bill couldn't be used to force platforms to weaken it, got quietly stripped out on Friday. that safeguard just doesn't exist anymore.

but this isn't over. it heads to the senate next, and the senate is genuinely not on board. blumenthal and cantwell, two of the senators who wrote the original KOSA, are saying they don't want this version near a markup. blackburn, a republican and the other original author, called the missing duty of care provision a red line.

worth being clear here, blackburn isn't on our side. she wants the policy stronger, not gone. but that's still a crack we can use. her opposition means the house version has zero guaranteed path through the senate as written, and a stalled bill is a bill that isn't law yet. use her objection, don't trust her motive.

senate commerce hasn't even scheduled a markup yet. that's the next pressure point. this thing has died or gotten majorly rewritten at this stage before.

contact your senators: find yours here. tell them you don't want the house version anywhere near a vote.

and remember, if you have to, contact your senators scared. anything helps.

The internet censorship and serveillance bill KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) is back and rearing its ugly head and has been reintroduced. But this time Senator Richard blumenthal and Known Transphobe Senator Marsha Blackburn are determined to get it through by including it a House Energy and Commerce Commitee “child safety” package that is set to be voted on after the shutdown is over. We CANNOT let this happen. This weekend I need to see and hear everyone call House leadership and bug the hell out of them to not support KOSA. Call them. Email them. FAX them as well. Waste their ink. We beat kosa before and we can do it again. It hasn’t moved in the house or senate, but we need to do everything we can to make sure it stays that way. Remember the UK’s “Online Safety Act” is a KOSA copycat bill. They got their bs from us. So if you don’t want us to end up like that and be forced to verify your age to access stuff on the internet (aka that new bs policy on YouTube) and give the government or anybody who can hack the power to watch and track everything you say and do on the internet, fight this!

The second the govt shutdown is over, they are going to move on this bill. We need to jump ahead of the curve. FFTF recently sent out an email saying they are expecting a House vote soon.

We need to mass call, email, and fax House Leadership to tell them that we don’t want this! We beat KOSA before and we can do it again!

Call Script located in this Google doc

PEOPLE TO CALL:

Republican:

Steve Scalise: (202) 225-3015

Mike Johnson: (202) 225-2777

Brett Guthrie: (202) 224-3501

Gus Bilrakis: (202) 225-5755

Richard Hudson: (202) 225-3715

Democrat:

Frank Pallone: (202) 225-4671

KathyCastor: (202) 225-3376

Doris Matsui: (202) 225-7163

Scott Peters: (202) 225-0508

Debbie Dingell: (202) 225-4071

Call as many members as you can and SPREAD THE WORD!

And in case you feel overwhelmed by this document, I have provided a summary on what this means for you. I read the whole thing and listed everything they can do with your information in list format for people who TL;DR or felt like the legal jargon was too confusing:

Please, for the love of god, read this. This isn't about "user data" or politics. They are selling your home address, immigration status, mental health conditions, and personal identifiers to your service providers and government authorities.

If you're participating in refusing to use YouTube from the 13th of August until the ID policy is lifted, there is a chance you might accidentally use YouTube in one way or another.

Muscle memory, autopilot, a misclick, any number of things, please don't let that mistake cause you to give up! We are human, we make mistakes, but as long as you correct it and continue the protest it will reduce the damage and keep the viewership loss on YouTube high, increasing the chance of success! That's what matters, that we keep trying. We need to show that even if we trip and fall, we'll just get back up and keep going!

I believe in you, even if you make a mistake, I'll keep believing in you, as long as you keep trying!

We will succeed. We refuse to be tracked or censored. We deserve our privacy!