There is a new age verification bill that has passed the house in America.
They insist that websites "don't have to" verify your age, but then they say, "if you don't when you have certain content on your site that kids may see, you will get a huge fine" which is going to cause most apps and sites to panic and do it anyway.
If you don't think it will affect you, that's where you're wrong.
They aren't just talking about sexual content. They are talking about gay themes in media (even if they are only holding hands and not even doing anything sexual). Discussions of drugs (not promotion of doing it, but discussions of people doing them and how to get help) discussions of self harm (how to get help) discussions about changes happening to your body (puberty, as well as health-related issues), cursing (as if kids haven't heard worse things at the back of the school bus.)
So, here are ways this hurts people in general, but let's focus on the fact that it hurts minors, the people these bills claim to protect:
If a kid has a friend who has started abusing drugs, they cannot reach out to anyone to ask questions to start the process of getting their friend help. Their friend could die because of this, or the one who wanted to help them could end up pressured into joining them.
2. A kid tries to look up how to get help for suicidal thoughts and how to get help stopping self harm and cannot get help and dies because these discussions are age gated.
3. A kid is being abused in anyway, including but not limited to sexually. They try to figure out what counts as that kind of abuse to try and get help, but because it has to do with minors being abused in that way, the search is considered illegal, as well as age gated so that they cannot receive any help.
4. A young girl has found a lump on her breast, and is having some scary symptoms, but she doesn't feel safe to talk to her parents because they're abusive. she turns to the internet to try and get help to learn what steps she needs to do next, but because the images that show what those symptoms look like are medical images that show images of breasts, she cannot learn more about her condition. Over time, the symptoms get worse. In America, we don't have free health care, and we are getting more and more impoverished. She doesn't get the help she needs, and eventually loses her breasts, or worse... it travels to the rest of her body, and she dies a slow and painful death.
This is not about helping minors. This isolates them and keeps them from being able to have online friends. Get basic information that could help them when they're in a scary situation.
What this is is a tool to gather information about people so that they are afraid to speak due to retaliation. This isolation is also good for both political parties--who both agreed that this bill is a good thing, by the way. Your political party is not "the good one" they are both your enemy--because they need us further isolated. If we cannot speak and cannot find ways to reach each other because the websites and apps eventually reach the point that to access them at all you have to prove your age, it will cause a greater divide in the people. Divided, we cannot rise up against fascism together. People have a difficult time meeting in public now to try and make friends, form alliances, or even share interests. There are no third spaces anymore. This has been in the works for a long time. This bill is the perfect tool to silence everyone.
We frogs are in a boiling pot of water right now. I know some of you are so sex averse that you want all of it banned, but because you wouldn't properly filter out that content and instead insisted everyone else curate the whole internet for your experience, you have vied for everything being illegal.
Your animes are going to be banned from viewing, and if you think fleeing this country will fix the issue, you're wrong. This will chase after you everywhere you go.
We have to fight this. this bill is called the KIDS Act. Please look into it.
Look up what is happening in the UK. I'm not overreacting. They have the most arrests over social media posts in the world now. If you don't think that could be you one day, you're a fool.
Please raise Caine about this. We need to stand together, or we will fall. The next thing that would be required to fix this is revolution, and you don't want to know what it's like to be in a post-revolution country. You have no idea what we will lose. You do not go from dystopia to utopia immediately. There is a very long transitionary period of the country being lawless with people rioting in the streets, people killing, stealing, and raping just because they can. You will be hungrier and thirstier and dirtier than you have ever been because the services you have come to know and love will disappear. The stores will be ransacked. Please, for the love of god, I know you hate what we currently have, but don't take this for granter. Don't be a fool. God, please.
If you feel uncomfortable with reblogging things from me due to disagreements you have with beliefs I hold, please just steal the post and copy-paste it as if it's you're own post. This information needs to be seen. It doesn't have to come from me. I don't care. Just please get this in front of as many eyes as possible.
This is not the time to be like "I won't share or even look at posts made by someone I disagree with" this is a life and death situation. We have it GOOD here. Do you understand? I know we have our struggles, but they are nothing in comparison to the other countries. Does the fact that you won't have electricity anymore if we end up having a revolution do anything for you? What about the fact that your dopamine-fulled activities will go away? what about the fact that you won't see new updates on the video games you love to play for years, or maybe even the rest of your life while the country rebuilds? We don't have to have a revolution. We just need to work on our foundation, and rebuild some rooms of the building instead of breaking the whole thing down just because one room is moldy.
I know this won't mean we have instant revolution. I am saying that it will be all we can do to fix this if things go a certain way. I'm not overreacting. This is a worst case scenario that becomes closer to being real if we don't stop this fucking KIDS act. I swear to god please understand.
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