The Online Safety Act – You Did Nothing to Stop This [The Problem Blog #004]

It has been brought to my attention that the supposedly decentralised Bluesky will be one of the first sites to implement the dreaded age verification, (Internet Archive) claiming the intent is to 'reduce the risk of children seeing harmful content' (provided you can even see the images because they're FUCKING WEBP!!) The result of this is that everyone who wants to see anything remotely interesting on Bluesky, or god forbid use any instant messaging service, will be forced to use some shit made by Epic fucking Games of all people to DOX THEMSELVES if they want access.

If you think this is a good idea, it's gonna be safe and secure and everyone's data will be safe, and no children will ever be able to get onto porn sites, YOU'RE DEAD WRONG. First, data security. Having massive amounts of people's LEGAL NAMES AND ADDRESSES all in one place is just BEGGING hackers to breach the database and leak it all; and unlike passwords, YOU HAVE TO PAY TO CHANGE YOUR LEGAL NAME AND MOVE HOUSE. IF EITHER PIECE OF INFORMATION IS LEAKED TO SOMEONE WHO HAS ANY PROBLEM WITH YOU, for instance YOU VIBRATED AIR WRONG AT THEM, I'm sure it doesn't take much imagination for you to realise how much danger that imposes on everyone whose information is there, but considering the level of intelligence I seem to be working with here, let me spell it out for you:

ANYONE WHO HAS ACCESS TO EITHER YOUR LEGAL NAME OR ADDRESS ESSENTIALLY HAS ACCESS TO BOTH. THEY CAN FIND OUT EVERYWHERE YOU GO, EVERY BANK CARD YOU USE, EVERY WEBSITE YOU VISIT, EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER BOUGHT, EVERY PERSON YOU TALK TO, and most crucially, WHERE YOU LIVE. WHERE YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT. If the government gets their way and everyone's legal names and addresses are stored in some shitty database, (which it already has been since you were born) ANYONE CAN GET THAT INFORMATION FOR EVERYONE YOU KNOW TOO. YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS CAN BE ENDANGERED IF YOUR IDENTITY GETS LEAKED. What can the hackers do with this information? It's certainly more than advertising manipulative bullshit at you.

THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!!! THEY CAN KILL YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND LOVE, YOU FUCKING RETARD!!!!

This Act can also be used to completely and totally censor websites that Ofcom decides it doesn't like. As written in the convoluted 'explainer' (Internet Archive) that's too wordy for Generation Z...

"In the most extreme cases, with the agreement of the courts, Ofcom will be able to require payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site, preventing it from generating money or being accessed from the UK."

Some of you who are older than me may remember something called 'Net Neutrality,' which was aiming to stop ISPs (internet service providers, not IDENTITY SERVICE PROVIDERS (see SUBSCRIBE STAR for that episode- oh wait, THE FILE'S TOO BIG)) from being able to censor the internet like Ofcom now allows them to. Nobody tried to stop that, and nobody tried to stop this.

What about protecting children from witnessing porn and developing addictions to it? Well, it's too fucking late for that since GooTube has been allowing absolute MONSTERS to put Minecraft porn on their site because "Minecraft is for children," as detailed in the following video:

God only knows what other deranged shit flies under the radar because it's "animated" and "animation is a genre that's only for children." Have you ever heard of HENTAI!? There could be murder, torture, genocide, rape, incest, pædophilia, fuck only knows, and they can probably get away with it by obscuring those terms, replacing them with bullshit such as Genna Side, R-[audio cuts out], See Pee, Pron or Corn, and apparently PDF File, obscuring the existence of those things and potentially endangering children, especially those who spend a significant amount of time outside, by causing a lack of knowledge of these things... and that's not even mentioning all the manipulative bullshit trying to turn young, vulnerable people into SEX-ADDICTED RAPISTS, and ADVERTS CONTAINING PORN. I have mentioned in a previous blog post that GooTube allows shit like 'Kill Your Inner Loser,' fake 'relationship advice' encouraging non-consensual BDSM treating your partner like shit, and measuring your value as a human on how many STDs you spread in 24 hours.

What about the adverts containing porn then? Why, just look at what was on r/YouTube relatively recently, and you will find several people upset about these pornographic adverts, and similar shit that's being presented as kids' content that GooTube is doing FUCK ALL to remove because it's making them money. That's not even the worst of it though. I have seen much worse. I've been given adverts not just for dating apps, VIOLATING THEIR OWN ADVERTISING TERMS, but adverts for MASTURBATION WEBSITES that are literally a screen recording of a woman stripping her bare ass to the camera, and they allow it because the holes are slightly out of frame. I'm not going to show an example—it shouldn't take much imagination to picture that. Hell, you've probably already seen one.

Even if this age assurance does get implemented, regardless of the cries of millions of GooTubers at the wrong people for the wrong reasons, it isn't even gonna stop children looking at porn, especially if their parents are neglectful scumbags that put no effort into raising the bloody things. Even if they aren't dead, all it takes is one apathetic placement of a bank card where a child can reach it, because if I'm not very much mistaken, using that bank card can bypass any face checks and grant full access to whatever shit that naturally curious child wants to see. This is how shitty phone games make their money, and it will continue to be how children get exposed to porn much too early. Consequently, if the child has less than average intelligence (which usually isn't their fault, probably due to their neglectful upbringing AND COULD PURELY BE BECAUSE THE PARENTS HAVE TO WORK THEIR SANITY AWAY TO BE ALLOWED TO """AFFORD""" THE CHILD IN THE FIRST PLACE) they will end up like that dickhead behind the aforementioned Kill Your Inner Loser, viewing the other half of the species (which has a 50% chance of being the same half the Online Safety Act claims to protect) as SEX OBJECTS, bringing more localised misery and disease into wherever it is they roam.

NOTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE, BECAUSE YOU LOT COULDN'T BE ASSED TO ENACT THAT CHANGE, LIKE WITH NET NEUTRALITY BACK IN THE DAY, AND NOW IT'S TWO YEARS TOO LATE. THE PREVIOUS GENERATION FAILED US WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN, AND OUR GENERATION HAS FAILED ITSELF AND EVERYONE WHO WILL COME AFTER US.