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Censorship today: National porn ban, ID to use the internet
5 months ago
While I plan on sticking to my rule of not discussing politics and sensitive subjects periodically, some things demand to be brought to attention. Today's facepalm worthy bullshit is definitely one such thing.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/05.....-all-a-federal
https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/2/s.....ography-online
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/16.....-if-trump-wins
TLDR: Republicans are now dreaming of a total ban on porn across America and the internet, introducing prohibition era bills surpassing the 1920's. Either they want everyone to show ID to use half the internet, or to completely outlaw anything the morality police disproves of; Nudes, art, everything... anyone who posts something even remotely sexual online would be arrested. The culprit as usual is paranoia about children, desperate attempts to control the minds of people under the highly specific age of 18, distorted religious superstitions about imaginary threats to kids. One of those bills is even called something like "protecting the retinas of children from egregious content", almost as if they wanted to emphasize the childish level of stupidity behind it... which works as there are plenty at the same level of intelligence capable of taking such a thing seriously, as that's who people have put even in positions in power. Needless to say this would cause art platforms like Furaffinity to shut down or most content on them to be deleted, being a furry artist would pretty much be illegal unless any depiction is halal with Western Sharia law.
I'm not going to make a case about this but will remind: For over a decade I tried raising the alarm about modern civilization being under attack and humanity tending back to the dark ages. Indeed I went a bit far in the other extreme at times, albeit because I saw what was coming. I was ridiculed, called crazy, not to mention a conspiracy theorist... in some places I was banned temporarily or permanently, all for displaying my aversion to authority over this stuff. At least now everyone can see exactly what I was trying to stop and that it's definitely real.
My message in particular is to those I once sided with, before realizing we never truly had the same views or hopes for the future. Those who aren't far-right: Quite the contrary they present themselves as hardcore liberals, will freak out at anything about Donald Trump and call others Nazis over the slightest suspicion of having a different opinion. Yet somehow they ended up supporting or enabling many of the same things, whether that was their intent or whether they were even aware of it.
Liberals and even members of the LGBTQ+ community gladly promoted conservative beliefs for years, such as porn being harmful to children... ideas anyone in my generation who grew up watching that stuff should know are ridiculous and based on outdated beliefs. Every corner of the the internet that hosts sexual content also contains a fuss about people under the age of 18, you literally can't access anything without the site interrogating you on your age as if it's some kind of ritual; Instead of even those practices being scrubbed, some want everyone to use digital ID just to access a forum or read a blog. I won't even get into how those people ruined my life as a teen with those primitive beliefs... I thought what happened to me in 2005 with Second Life and other platforms was bad, it pales in comparison to the terror and repression teens today must face from those claiming to "protect" them. A special shout out is in order for the following groups, who promoted the hateful prudish and transphobic behaviors that spiraled into what we see today:
- Art sites including the furry community such as Furaffinity, who were first to introduce a ban on fiction on the grounds of morality, in the form of demonizing NSFW cub content for almost two decades. They were first to normalize the idea that artwork can be treated like a crime, that fiction equals reality if it offends someone too much, that colored shapes can magically have spooky effects in real life. You've not only betrayed the creators who trusted you to give them a space where they could all freely express themselves, but normalized horrible ideas that contribute to what's happening.
- Once more those same sites and countless other platforms, who interrogate people for their age to let them view content. Even today most art galleries demand you register to view submissions labeled NSFW, all because platforms think they must decide who is supposed to look at what in the privacy of their own home in the name of safety and family values. Instead of standing up and saying "you can't get brain damage from looking at a drawing", they gladly promoted the idea that we need to be mind-controlled because your age makes it dangerous to merely look at something on a computer screen. Now say hello to those who took the concept to a new extreme, and in addition want you to log into websites with a passport from the government!
- The modern day superstition that social media is addictive to children, such as algorithms or "infinite scrolling" damaging kids by recommending images or pieces of text with spooky brain effects. Reminder: The term "addiction" is often used by ultra-conservatives to demonize something they don't like, along with other misused terms such as "mental health crisis"... once more this hasn't stopped many on the left from copying and parroting the exact same narratives then wondering what they did wrong to encourage this.
- Transgender people who call other trans individuals "groomers" because they support defending teens from the prudish transphobic oppression of society and / or their parents. The same repression they themselves grew up with and suffered from! Yet if anyone tries to give teenagers the freedom to think for themselves and have access to the resources they didn't, you hear "yikes, Nazi groomer" as the cancel culture ensues. To them I say: If you were born as a trans child again, may God have mercy on you growing up with those extremists as your parents, and if you survive it do tell us how well they "protected" you for your own thoughts and identity for 18 years.
- Gamers who plaster even their gaming streams with "+18 ONLY!!!" labels, some as hysterically as what you see on artists profiles; Go to Twitch and you'll find gamers making a fuss about people having to be over 18 just to watch them play a frigging video game. The idea that people under a certain age need to be mind-controlled has gone so far, it's not even just about looking at porn any more: A child is considered endangered if they simply watch someone play Fortnite or an RPG or whatever, because someone may say a swear word and by the gods that's so uncouth and immoral!
There's plenty more but I'll stop here. Hopefully this gives the few people who will even read this some perspective: Think before you act, think twice about what you're actually supporting and encouraging! Imitating and ultimately embracing your sworn enemies only has the obvious outcome of helping them take over and come after you, by the time you realize this it may already be too late.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/05.....-all-a-federal
https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/2/s.....ography-online
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/16.....-if-trump-wins
TLDR: Republicans are now dreaming of a total ban on porn across America and the internet, introducing prohibition era bills surpassing the 1920's. Either they want everyone to show ID to use half the internet, or to completely outlaw anything the morality police disproves of; Nudes, art, everything... anyone who posts something even remotely sexual online would be arrested. The culprit as usual is paranoia about children, desperate attempts to control the minds of people under the highly specific age of 18, distorted religious superstitions about imaginary threats to kids. One of those bills is even called something like "protecting the retinas of children from egregious content", almost as if they wanted to emphasize the childish level of stupidity behind it... which works as there are plenty at the same level of intelligence capable of taking such a thing seriously, as that's who people have put even in positions in power. Needless to say this would cause art platforms like Furaffinity to shut down or most content on them to be deleted, being a furry artist would pretty much be illegal unless any depiction is halal with Western Sharia law.
I'm not going to make a case about this but will remind: For over a decade I tried raising the alarm about modern civilization being under attack and humanity tending back to the dark ages. Indeed I went a bit far in the other extreme at times, albeit because I saw what was coming. I was ridiculed, called crazy, not to mention a conspiracy theorist... in some places I was banned temporarily or permanently, all for displaying my aversion to authority over this stuff. At least now everyone can see exactly what I was trying to stop and that it's definitely real.
My message in particular is to those I once sided with, before realizing we never truly had the same views or hopes for the future. Those who aren't far-right: Quite the contrary they present themselves as hardcore liberals, will freak out at anything about Donald Trump and call others Nazis over the slightest suspicion of having a different opinion. Yet somehow they ended up supporting or enabling many of the same things, whether that was their intent or whether they were even aware of it.
Liberals and even members of the LGBTQ+ community gladly promoted conservative beliefs for years, such as porn being harmful to children... ideas anyone in my generation who grew up watching that stuff should know are ridiculous and based on outdated beliefs. Every corner of the the internet that hosts sexual content also contains a fuss about people under the age of 18, you literally can't access anything without the site interrogating you on your age as if it's some kind of ritual; Instead of even those practices being scrubbed, some want everyone to use digital ID just to access a forum or read a blog. I won't even get into how those people ruined my life as a teen with those primitive beliefs... I thought what happened to me in 2005 with Second Life and other platforms was bad, it pales in comparison to the terror and repression teens today must face from those claiming to "protect" them. A special shout out is in order for the following groups, who promoted the hateful prudish and transphobic behaviors that spiraled into what we see today:
- Art sites including the furry community such as Furaffinity, who were first to introduce a ban on fiction on the grounds of morality, in the form of demonizing NSFW cub content for almost two decades. They were first to normalize the idea that artwork can be treated like a crime, that fiction equals reality if it offends someone too much, that colored shapes can magically have spooky effects in real life. You've not only betrayed the creators who trusted you to give them a space where they could all freely express themselves, but normalized horrible ideas that contribute to what's happening.
- Once more those same sites and countless other platforms, who interrogate people for their age to let them view content. Even today most art galleries demand you register to view submissions labeled NSFW, all because platforms think they must decide who is supposed to look at what in the privacy of their own home in the name of safety and family values. Instead of standing up and saying "you can't get brain damage from looking at a drawing", they gladly promoted the idea that we need to be mind-controlled because your age makes it dangerous to merely look at something on a computer screen. Now say hello to those who took the concept to a new extreme, and in addition want you to log into websites with a passport from the government!
- The modern day superstition that social media is addictive to children, such as algorithms or "infinite scrolling" damaging kids by recommending images or pieces of text with spooky brain effects. Reminder: The term "addiction" is often used by ultra-conservatives to demonize something they don't like, along with other misused terms such as "mental health crisis"... once more this hasn't stopped many on the left from copying and parroting the exact same narratives then wondering what they did wrong to encourage this.
- Transgender people who call other trans individuals "groomers" because they support defending teens from the prudish transphobic oppression of society and / or their parents. The same repression they themselves grew up with and suffered from! Yet if anyone tries to give teenagers the freedom to think for themselves and have access to the resources they didn't, you hear "yikes, Nazi groomer" as the cancel culture ensues. To them I say: If you were born as a trans child again, may God have mercy on you growing up with those extremists as your parents, and if you survive it do tell us how well they "protected" you for your own thoughts and identity for 18 years.
- Gamers who plaster even their gaming streams with "+18 ONLY!!!" labels, some as hysterically as what you see on artists profiles; Go to Twitch and you'll find gamers making a fuss about people having to be over 18 just to watch them play a frigging video game. The idea that people under a certain age need to be mind-controlled has gone so far, it's not even just about looking at porn any more: A child is considered endangered if they simply watch someone play Fortnite or an RPG or whatever, because someone may say a swear word and by the gods that's so uncouth and immoral!
There's plenty more but I'll stop here. Hopefully this gives the few people who will even read this some perspective: Think before you act, think twice about what you're actually supporting and encouraging! Imitating and ultimately embracing your sworn enemies only has the obvious outcome of helping them take over and come after you, by the time you realize this it may already be too late.
They're still trying though, not just with statements but with actual bills that gather some degree of backing. We are constantly at risk, for years this has been happening and is still not stopping. We don't know how much damage they may do in the process and for how much longer. We don't hear a voice of reason even now, everyone else is mostly asleep... at best saying "it totally couldn't happen so let's do nothing about it" and at worst "maybe they're on to something and were right all along".
By the gods, I just don't get it: Why do we keep doing this? Why do some people keep spreading ridiculous superstitions and scaring others with them, while others are willing to believe them and declare war on imaginary problems with solutions so extreme they couldn't be justified even if that problem would have been real?! I know me and most people understand this sentence in different ways, but if I can fully subscribe to one thing: We are well within the age of unreason.
It's like there's this parallel society from an alien culture around us, with a thought process so bizarre I can't even begin to comprehend it... every now and then they turn violent come out of their groves and their hordes attack the first thing they see, all because they can't accept the world is no longer the one they were raised in and are terrified by anything different. Sadly even the furry community has this, the anti-cub people are like our backyard ultra-conservatives... what those official far-right groups are doing in government takes it to a whole new level, albeit their transphobic hatred feels identical to the Twitter lynch mobs attacking artists over fictional characters.
I will say it this way, social media is a huge problem, that causes these things to escalate more and more. The concept of algorithms learning what you like to see and blocking out the rest entirely will be our doom. I am not against freedom in any way, people are free to do, think or say whatever they feel like and thats good, within reason and without active harm inflicted to others of course. The thing i see more and more is that people get trapped in the bubbles, believing only in information they get within social media from the people who influence them, starting to think media is controlled and manipulated and no longer care about science proven things, just because some manipulative weirdo told them no thats a lie. The thing about the whole "social media is addictive" story is it is true, by design and not just to the young, the idea these platforms are based on is quite simple and just as brilliant and evil. You post something and get 'likes' or something along those lines, that alone is enough to cause your brain to be excited "Oh people agree with me" "They like what i said" so your brain obvious or not starts pouring out endorphins, simple happiness. Now that alone is no issue, not at all, unless you write an algorithm that is designed to increase this effect by creating bubbles, people get more of what they want to read, nothing what they dont like, sure they are flooded with endorphins a lot but theres no harm, is there? Yeah no there is. Over time the brain is conditioned into expecting to be fed these bits of happiness, you start to get withdrawal symptoms even. There are people who get lost in this addiction and there are people who lose their footing, maybe not as an addiction but as believing the shit some a*holes feed them like the mightiest idiot in the world, who managed to do just that to get elected again despite proving to be a criminal and an idiot. Social media as an idea is alright, just not as a commercial concept, non commercial open social media designed to carry itself without generating a profit could be great. Tho hatred and such should still be punished, there is a difference between opinion and actual harm done. Twitter, facebook, tiktok and all the others harvesting the human need for approval belong banned. Their money should be used to help those who lost their mind this way.
I apologize for this wall of text but I feel like its something that needed to be said. I hope its coherent and i don't mean to support anyone or offend or attack anyone but named companies as they do deserve it, as well as people using social media to manipulate others.
The internet is why communities like us exist. We're different from the norm, they aren't like me and don't fundamentally think like I do. Any community that's different will be attacked and hated by them... especially when something sexual is involved, for reasons beyond me humanity completely loses it over that stuff. It's thus best to encourage not regulating the internet at all, and generally to oppose any form of authority... even when they may be right. Giving people ideas they'll distort or precedents they can misuse will turn against us, the world can't tell harmless things from harmful ones and may freak out anytime over anything that looks a little off, keeping them ignorant and desensitized is the safest option. Maybe I'm wrong to some extent, I don't know... what I do know is whenever I wasn't listened to, things like this happened and I got burned too many times to want to deal with this any longer, from artists being silenced and persecuted over fictional characters to unthinkable laws like this in America in 2025.
My exclusive grievance with social media is censorship, whether done voluntarily or even worse from pressure by governments. If anything I want the algorithm to get better at showing me what I want to see, instead of having to deal with constant stress from hearing crazy things I want nothing to do with. The problem is we can't do the same in real life, we have to physically live in the same space as those who hate and want to repress others; I often fantasize about every country in the world splitting into different regions with unique laws based on everyone's personal culture and beliefs, which seems like the only way to make everyone happy any more.
And this is empowering the fascist b*stards to rise again, i am from germany we had our share of that and somehow these people are once again rising, using social media to spread their lies and hatred, using it to gain more influence and power while undermining democracy. If anything social media should be banned or at least these people from it, but that requires rules and enforcing them.
On regulation I can only say what I already did: Remember any system or precedent put in place for any reason can be used for any other reason, especially when a different side takes over and gets its hands on it. In an ideal world maybe some would be justified in a few cases, in this mess of a world we need to think in terms of how the stubborn will misuse a system if conditions change for the worse, you never know who will be in power and what they may think.
As for the rules or laws, how about this: Instead of overcomplicating things just put in the basic ones, unchangeable unless demanded by community vote with 2/3 majority required. As for the rules i would suggest something against copyright infringements, something against hatred/ assault of any kind, something about correctly tagging things, be it content or target audience, and something about telling the truth. That way the whole argument about protecting children is dead, everyone should put in their correct date of birth or at least year at the point of account creation, filters automatically apply, same as tag blocking filters, just removing the content from view, putting in the wrong age can be considered banable offense, or not, who cares in the end. No one can blame the content when it has the warning embedded that it is not ment for the eyes of the young. Basically same as creating superman costumes and adding a note on the inside 'This cape does not enable the user to fly' That way noone can sue when they jump of the roof anyways, they have been informed and made their choice anyways. I would say from the age of 14 up or something a child can be considered mature enough to make their own choices, mayhaps with confirmation from a parent still required, so religious nutcases can feel powerful for some more years before their children are allowed to choose their own things, while others can judge if their young have the required maturity and base knowledge to not confuse fiction and reality anymore. Its a parents duty to prepare their young for the world not the other way around.
Maybe a rule to actually provide trusted sources should be included too now that i think about it. Perhaps the choice what gets banned should be at least up for discussion in some form by community vote maybe. One can choose to review things flagged as rulebreaking, if everyone has a score that could be derived from their own actions, correct tagging of posts, votes that aligned with global opinion and such, maybe some personality profiling too, it would be reasonable to apply weight to their votes, this has the potential for abuse yes but also a way to maybe filter out some trolls who vote for banable offense on everything despite community opinion goes into a different direction, not that their vote would be ignored but maybe weigh in less. Not to be applied when only few people review it, then maybe a concept like honored pillars of the community would be in order, people that swear to play by the rules and get tested on it and reviewed. Basically creating a jury sworn to only judge by objective means based on ethics and the ground rules.
There should always be options in place to prevent abuse of the system, but a failsafe system cant exist as it would suppress freedom, every fair system brings the means to dismantle itself.