ALT
ALTI'm sure it will surprise everyone that Adobe have taken the shitty road with regard to artists again.
Please opt out. Even if you don't care about your own art, you should care about Adobe hoping a lot of people don't notice so they can use a lot of art without real knowledge or consent.
Been saying for years how important it is to have your back-ups on PHYSICAL STORAGE, NOT THE CLOUD. This is why.
This could save your life.
BOOST.
Absolutely vital information to have if you live where the waters freeze over.
I especially appreciate this guy's commitment to actually showing the steps himself. That cold-shock response is a bitch and willingly subjecting himself to it couldn't have been fun.
I don’t live anywhere near water like this, but I am still memorizing this knowledge because:
* I might use it in a story someday.
* Any knowledge that staves off the dying is good knowledge.
Some kids passed away today in my region from falling in icy water, so thought it was important to boost.
Even symbolic support is not meaningless; with every such gesture you are preventing the claim that no one cares, no one opposes, no one disagrees, no one minds.
"maus is triggering just fyi!!" yeah that's the point??? lmfao?? "oh no the holocaust exists and it's triggering my anxiety" shut the fuck up
Soo I guess we're back to making fun of mentally ill people again...
Imagine thinking it's funny that the topic of the fucking holocaust of all things can be upsetting for some people? Yikes.
Bush left so many of you behind
What OP is saying: "Some things are made to be uncomfortable and upsetting, so if you're experiencing those feelings from reading this, then the material has been designed well and is doing its job. Sometimes you need to be exposed to material that makes you uncomfortable and upset so that you can fully understand the impact it's had on the past, present, and the future, as well as be able to potentially recognize the patterns if this kind of thing starts growing again."
What some of you fuckwits hear for God knows what reason: "We think your discomfort is hilarious and we're forcing this on you so that we can laugh at you being mentally ill, traumatized, sensitive, or whatever other explanation/excuse you have for why this material upsets you and you therefore have a right to avoid it, even though the people depicted in these events didn't get that choice."
February 1, 2022
I’m so so sorry for the long post but please please please pay attention and spread this
WHAT IS THE EARN IT ACT?
The EARN IT Act has been roundly condemned by nearly every major LGBTQ+ advocacy and human rights organization in the country. This is a bill that will make children less safe, undermine online safety and security, and trample free expression, because it carves out another exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230), which the ACLU describes as “foundational to modern online communications.” This has been the law that has let the internet grow into what it is today, we’ve had this law since the 90s. (For context, Trump wanted to get rid of this law because he knew it would lead to mass govt surveillance and censorship of minorities online.)
The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship. Platforms will be incentivized to scan their users’ communications and censor all sex-related content, including sex education, literally anything lgbt, transgender or non-binary education and support systems, and sex worker communication according to the ACLU. All this in the name of “protecting kids” and “fighting CSEM”, both of which the bill does nothing of the sort. In fact it makes fighting CSEM even harder.
If this bill passes, we're going to see most, if not all, adult content and accounts removed from mainstream platforms, for fear of the liability that could come with ever accidentally hosting CSAM, as well as the erasure of end-to-end encryption on messaging platforms.
This is really not a drill. Anyone who makes or consume anything “adult” online has to be prepared to fight Sen. Blumenthal's EARN IT Act, brought back from the grave by a bipartisan consensus to destroy Section 230.
EARN IT will open the way for politicians to define the category of “pornography" as they — or the lobbies that fund them — please, (Right now, right wing organizers are catgorizing books about racism as ‘porn’ to ban them from schools) which is a cherished goal of organizations that seek to reintroduce obscenity prosecutions for content now protected by Free Speech jurisprudence. This will 1000000% be used to eradicate anything LGBT online.
What this bill says it does on the surface is make platforms liable for their users’ activity if that activity involves sex and minors. However, because of 230, platforms are not liable at all about their users' activity. This has allowed platforms to grow and thrive and many niches online to as well. The bill also creates an unelected commission to create “best practices” to combat online child sexual exploitation. While these recommendations are nominally voluntary (so Americans have no decision on who gets to be on it), platforms that refuse to comply will be liable for criminal prosecutions and lawsuits should the government decide any of their users is engaging in online child sexual exploitation.
This is already a nightmare enough. But the bill also DESTROYS ENCRYPTION, you know, the thing protecting literally anyone or any govt entity from going into your private messages and emails and anything on your devices and spying on you.
This bill is going to finish what FOSTA/SESTA started. And that should terrify you.
Senator Blumenthal (Same guy who said ‘Facebook should ban finsta’) pushed this bill all of 2020, literally every activist (There were more than half a million signatures on this site opposing this act!) pushed hard to stop this bill. Now he brings it back, doesn’t show the text of the bill until hours later, and it’s WORSE. Instead of fixing literally anything in the bill that might actually protect kids online, Bluemnthal is hoping to fast track this and shove it through, hoping to get little media attention other than propaganda of "protecting kids" to support this shitty legislation that will harm kids.
The entire EARN IT act is based on *multiple* misunderstandings of the law and reality. It's a really really really bad policy that will do serious harm. But because Senator Blumenthal wants headlines, he'll pretend that it "helps protect the children." It won't. It'll do real damage. It will make CSEM much much worse.
One of the many reasons this bill is so dangerous: It totally misunderstands how Section 230 works, and in doing so (as with FOSTA) it is likely to make the very real problem of CSAM worse, not better. Section 230 gives companies the flexibility to try different approaches to dealing with various content moderation challenges. It allows for greater and greater experimentation and adjustments as they learn what works -- without fear of liability for any "failure." Removing Section 230 protections does the opposite. It says if you do anything, you may face crippling legal liability. This actually makes companies less willing to do anything that involves trying to seek out, take down, and report CSAM because of the greatly increased liability that comes with admitting that there is CSAM on your platform to search for and deal with. This liability would allow anyone for any reason to sue any platform they want, suing smaller ones out of existence. Look at what is happening right now with book bans across the nation with far right groups. This is going to happen to the internet if this bill passes.
(Remember, the state department released a report in December 2021 recommending that the government crack down on "obscenity" as hard the Reagan Administration did. If this bill passes, it could easily go way beyond shit red states are currently trying. It is a goldmine for the fascist right that is currently in the middle of banning every book that talks about race and sexuality across the US.)
NCOSE, the far right anti-LGBT hate group behind the global anti-sex legislations, is pushing the idea that any form of sexual expression, including talking about HEALTH, leads to sex trafficking. Their goal is to eliminate all sex, anything gay, and everything that goes against their idea of ‘God’ from the internet and hyper disney-fy and sanitize it. This is a highly coordinated attack on multiple fronts.
The reason these bills keep showing up is because there is this false lie spread by organizations like NCOSE that platforms do nothing about CSEM online. However, platforms are already liable for child sexual exploitation under federal law. Tech companies sent more than 45 million+ instances of CSAM to the DOJ in 2019 alone, most of which they declined to investigate. This shows that platforms are actually doing everything in their power already to stop CSEM by following already existing laws. The Earn It Act includes zero resources for proven investigation or prevention programs. If Senator Bluementhal actually cared about protecting youth, why wouldn’t he include anything to actually protect them in his shitty horrible bill?
The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) along with a coalition of 26 civil society organizations urged the United States Senate to reject the EARN IT Act. Groups on the left and right, including the ACLU, Fight for the Future, EFF, and Hacking // Hustling oppose it. Because it threatens free expression online and will threaten marginalized people’s safety while being totally unnecessary and failing to fix the problem it claims to address. The EARN IT Act empowers states to give law enforcement access to users’ private conversations and force companies to create encryption backdoors for law enforcement. This is totally unnecessary. Platforms are already handing over CSAM to the federal government. It’s actually likely to make prosecuting child molesters more difficult since evidence collected this way likely violates the Fourth Amendment and would be inadmissible in court.
I don't know why so many Senators are eager to cosponsor the "make child pornography worse" bill, but here we are.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
EARN IT Act was introduced yesterday! And it’s already scheduled to get marked up, which is the first step post-introduction. Most bills never go to markup, so this means they are putting pressure to move this through. IF YOU LIVE IN THESE STATES (IL, VT, CA, RI, MN, DE, CT, HI, NJ, and GA), CONTACT YOUR SENATOR AND HOUSE MEMBERS NOW. THIS IS URGENT. This is who gets first crack, and folks in all have Senators who are on the Judiciary committee.
I'm guessing this month or March is when the bill would be passed if there is no opposition 😭 The bill was re-introduced yesterday, already set for markup this Thursday. This feels like an attempt to fast track it this month. Additionally the current makeup of Congress favors those who want it passed. Back in 2020 it was mostly Senate republicans and democrats who are basically republicans (just like now, check the sponsors) pushing it with Ron Wyden using the filibuster to stop their efforts. The house dems didn't want to give Trump a win and needed to appear as pro-privacy/free speech for the 2020 election. Now the dems have the presidency, both chambers of Congress and if you've noticed have spent a few years repeatedly demanding social media censorship and desperately want to give Biden victories. biden isn't like obama who opposed sopa/pipa to appeal to younger voters. This is similar to how FOSTA passed with the group who made it happen last time back again. Far as I'm aware Wyden hasn't spoken about new earn it yet but even if he does oppose it, it's very possible there will be enough Senate democrats to join the republicans in passing it beating a filibuster. Then pelosi's band of house idiots pass it and we have to choose between breaking the law because they can't stop us from using encryption or being obedient sheep to a group who consider themselves above laws.
It already has a fifth of the Senate cosponsoring it. There is a very very very real chance this bill becomes law. This is an uphill battle that's going to happen fast and quick. PLEASE, FIGHT NOW.
202-224-3121 connects you to the congressional hotline.
This website takes you to your Senator / House members contact info. EMAIL, MESSAGE, SEND LETTERS, CALL CALL CALL CALL CALL. Calling is the BEST way to get a message through. Get your family and friends to send calls too. This is literally the end of free speech online.
More sources to read about this bill:
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/the-earn-it-act-is-anti-evidence
Fight for the Future’s Statement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=678EW8v09z8&t=1s
EARN IT Act treats Myths as Facts.
https://surviveearnit.com/what-is-the-earn-it-act/ From 2020, but little has changed about the bill.
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/earn-it-act-back
Center for Democracy and Technology’s Statement
TLDR: The EARN IT Act will lead to online censorship of any and all adult & lgbt content across the entire internet, open the floodgates to mass surveillance the likes which we haven't seen before, lead to much more CSEM being distributed online, and destroy encryption. Call 202-224-3121 to connect to your house and senate representative and tell them to VOTE NO on this bill that does not protect anyone and harms everyone.
the worse climate disaster gets, the more you’ll see closet eugenicists start to advocate for letting people die. you need to be prepared to combat the ideology wherever you see it, because it’s only going to get worse and worse
Read everything having to do with climate disaster critically. If the central argument underlying what’s being said is that the death of disabled and/or racialized people is inevitable, natural, or desirable– that’s a fascist.
they might be appear to be a garden variety republican or liberal or even a leftist at first, but know that if that argument is being made, their underlying ideology is one of supremacism, and given additional climate stress, they will become more blatant about it.
“The Earth will heal itself” “humanity is like a virus” “The Earth will be better off once humans die out.”
These are eco-fascist talking points. The climate disaster will hit the global poor FIRST and WORST. While the capitalist elite who CAUSED this problem will have the resources to jet around to whatever corner of the Earth is still inhabitable, or to their space arcs, or their Mars colonies run by indentured servants- the global poor will be the ones who die by the millions.
This is not justice. This is not nature. This is neither inevitable nor good. Do not let people use environmentalism as an excuse for genocide.
Omfg. The Finnish performance rights organization Teosto is now looking into the U.S. Marine Band playing a piece dubbed as Godspeed in Biden’s inauguration because it has a part that has been directly taken from Finlandia by Jean Sibelius and they didn’t mention the name of the hymn or Sibelius as its composer anywhere. This is hilarious. Every single Finnish person knows that hymn. U.S. Marine Band literally ripped off the most famous Finnish composer in history in Biden’s inauguration.
On the subject of characterization, one of my favourite sort of ‘happy accident’ stories about a character comes from the 1980′s Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.
This got long, so under a cut!
wHY DOES THIS HAVE JUST 308 NOTES???? THE ENTIRE WORLD SHOULD BE SHARING THIS. CHINA IS LITERALLY COMMITTING THE HOLOCAUST, ONLY THIS TIME ON MUSLIMS AND Y’ALL ARE SILENT?
i have 495 people following me right now, including several mutuals. i better see y’all reblogging.
People might not be reblogging this because the first tweet makes unnecessary (and untrue) Holocaust comparisons. Taken from @nat_slay on Twitter (I don’t know the original source):
The “ways to help” info seems good afaik but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong there too.
As a Jewish person, I appreciate those saying that this is not okay and that it is misinformation. No, 6 million Uyghur Muslims have not been murdered.
And, as a Jewish person, I know that 6 million very well could be murdered. This is not another Shoah, but it very well could become another. As a Jewish person, I feel we must say “never again.”
Never again.
“Never again” does not mean “this event was so uniquely horrible, it could never happen again.” It means “this event was horrible, but not unique. We have to make sure it never happens again.”
Never again.
The Uyghur death count isn’t 6 million, that is misinformation. But “never again” means we have to make sure it doesn’t become 6 million.
If you are not Jewish or Romani, do not draw comparisons to the Holocaust. All that provides is shock value and misinformation. What you can do is support Uyghur Muslims.
Charity Right’s Food for Uyghurs
If you have more relevant resources, please share them. Petitions are likely meaningless in contrast to the Chinese government.
For those who are able to, take action. For those who are unable to take action, please share.
