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True, there is no “real” privacy on the internet and there hasn’t been for years and years for the common person, but we seem to be reaching a tipping point. Before it was data leaks and the harvesting of data that seemed to happen in the shadows, now it is the blatant cracking down on the content and use of the internet, thinly veiled behind rhetoric of “protecting the children” (as most crackdowns on anything seem to be). While I can’t say it was exactly surprising that after the Online Safety Act was passed in the UK [1], tech corporations started extending age verification to all of their services, irrespective of legislation in the countries in which they operate. When there is no legislation that requires the use of IDs, instead these corporations turn to AI profiling before requiring an ID, such as the case with YouTube, which is currently testing their method by analyzing the type of videos you watch the estimate your age [2], and Spotify, which is requiring photos of your face to determine how old you are [3]. While some may have thought that these measures would only be used in places that enact legislation to enforce it, it’s suddenly becoming an internet standard amongst the tech giants. On top of this, there has been for the last few years an assault on people who wish not to allow corporations to have their way, with UK MPs suggesting crackdowns on the use of VPNs [4].
The excuse that these acts “protect the children” is a very powerful appeal to those who are not informed on these decisions. In fact, 24 US states have passed their own legislation to require an ID to access pornographic websites with the same kind of justification [5]. While these sites do cause harm when children access them at a young age, age verification for any website except that from which you are buying regulated goods—such as alcohol or prescriptions—overlook the center of this issue: that of parental responsibility. In the modern age, there are dozens of ways to regulate the type of content your children see or access on the internet, whether on your home network or through parental restrictions. The rise of age verification through submitting an ID to a third party service not only violates one’s privacy by associating all of your private activity with your government ID, but puts your data at risk were there to be a leak or data breach when these actions could just as easily be taken into the hands of parents. These acts also have the consequences of banning content that is “unsavory” or “explicit” even if not inherently dangerous or sexual; currently, Wikipedia is at risk of being blocked in the UK due to articles that are “NSFW” if these articles are not “regulated” [6].
The internet has often been hailed as the “democratizing force of the 21st century” for its ability to connect people and cultures, as well as serving as a free domain for discussion between those people. And it is precisely within the predominance of that democratic capability that these restrictions are happening; the views of people on the internet are not aligning with that of the ruling class, so access to free portions of the internet must be removed. Do not think for a moment that this has nothing to do with Palestine, or the response to Luigi Mangione’s (alleged) assassination of Brian Thompson; the internet not only allows us to see what is happening around the world in a way the legacy media chooses not to, but it allows for the formation of ideas and ideologies outside the center-right status quo. When TikTok was slated to be banned last year, senators in the US came out and admitted that the crackdown on TikTok was the “overwhelming volume” of posts about and empathy towards Palestine [7]. These acts and these policies use the guise of protecting children to limit access to information and the formation of ideas freely seeing that the ruling class lost their grip on the younger generation with the move away from legacy media.
This leads to two final points, that of the usage of AI within this rising paradigm and that of dual power. Every single one of these age verification platforms uses artificial intelligence to power their operations. So not only is AI being trained off of the data that is being harvested in order to access basic services on the internet, but this will mean that there will need to be more AI centers built to satisfy the growing need for AI. Across the US, but specifically in poorer areas throughout the country, these massive AI datacenters consume millions of gallons of water per year to cool their systems while residents are told to take shorter showers and not use so much water [8]. Artificial intelligence as it is being applied under the capitalist mode of production is polluting our landscapes, setting up a system of “liquid apartheid” where low-income areas are being sacrificed for AI development, and replacing human ingenuity with the “most efficient solution” harvested from our data! While I do not fully believe in voting with our dollar, I do believe that, as a Marxist who aims to build a better society, we cannot allow ourselves to continue to be reliant on these corporations who will willingly throw humanity under the bus for a profit margin. While lowering reliance on these corporations is not praxis, I do believe we should be following the principles of dual power in respect to our online spaces as well as our daily life, switching to alternatives or building our own.
Off the top of my head, here are a few actions you can take right now or start to take over a period of time:
Switch from Windows to a Linux distribution, Microsoft uses its AI to aid and abet the genocide taking place in Palestine. Find alternative social media sites to all Meta sites, as well as X (and now YouTube, which will be the most difficult). Switch from Google to certain browsers like DuckDuckGo (which allows you to disable AI overviews). Obtain a VPN, learn the basics of true internet privacy. Above all, if a site or service uses AI, either divest/boycott or pressure the service to roll back their use of AI, it’s worked with certain services like Duolingo and is ongoing with Spotify.
References
1 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer/
2 - https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/extending-our-built-in-protections-to-more-teens-on-youtube/
3 - https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/online-security/why-is-spotify-asking-for-age-verification/
4 - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vpns-online-safety-bill-labour-champion-b2239/
5 - https://avpassociation.com/4271-2/
6 - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/23/wikipedia-threatens-limit-access-website-britain/
7 - https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senator-romney-antony-blinken-tiktok-ban-israel-palestinian-content/
8 - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/texas-ai-data-centers-water-usage-texas-ai-centers-guzzle-463-million-gallons-now-residents-are-asked-to-cut-back-on-showers-ai-news/articleshow/122983253.cms/
Comments
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tumbledryDishwasher
obligatory comment about Odysee and PeerTube as replacements for YouTube. more technically inclined, but the more people using other services, the less the main service has in terms of marketshare.
also kudos for Gentoo. im a bit too basic to use anything other than Debian, personally, but a switch is better than no switch.
Maiden Death
I was truly scared some moments ago because I tried to search for you on the Friends tab and your name didn't appear, just saw that you changed your name and was relieved XD. Agree with everything you said, hopefully you will learn enough about Linux and share with us your findings so I can do it myself without imploding my computer. Unfortunately, my university forces us to use Teams as a platform to contact professors and access content :( I also wish there were alternatives to messaging apps like Telegram because I use it to send PDF's and links to my computer and vice versa.
To be honest, I wouldn't totally be mad if this type of thing solely happened with porn sites because that would force most weird people to kind of "out" themselves, which would force a lot of people to stop watching this type of content - but at the same time it just makes them go to alternatives that are even worse.
I truly want to see what will happen with family vlog families and children content, because there is a wild case currently happening here in Brazil in which a influencer used his platform - mainly Instagram, Youtube and Tiktok - to post videos with teens hooking up, dancing sensual coreographies and overall exposing their personal lives - he even made a "Tiktok house" where these kids get emancipated from them parents (the parents receive money and "gifts") and go live with him and others. I want to know what will happen to this type of situation, because I honestly do not think it will get better.
Omg, sorry about the scare! The profile name change mostly came out of the same precautions I was talking about in the post; since I turned 18, I've been very anxious about my online presence, and even though my new profile name is very similar what it was before, I've been trying not to use my name all too much on the internet. I feel crazy about it lately, but it can't hurt me to take certain precautions being a queer radical in America.
Once I am more comfortable with the comings and goings of Linux, I'd definitely like to make a post or series of posts about it, because even though I don't have much experience with it, I can't recommend it enough except in certain edge cases. I did see someone get Teams working on Linux once, if I recall correctly, but it'd definitely take a lot more work than just installing it like you would on Windows.
But content-wise, I mostly agree. The porn site thing is where I am least confident in my stance on content regulation, simply because---like you said---outright banning it would make people turn to worse alternatives. But I think the main thing that intersects both the porn and the family vlog stuff is the need for better content regulation at the bare minimum. These family vlog channels, and the kids content space as a whole at that, have been in an abysmal state for years, yet nothing is done about it in the content moderation space. I don't play it, but I've been hearing about a similar thing happening on sites/games like Roblox, where instead of focusing on moderating the games made that are exploitative and dealing with the issue of child predators running rampant throughout the platform, they instead retaliate against the people who are bringing that to light. I feel similarly about the age verification stuff that's popping up. Instead of YouTube moderating YouTube Kids better, they just start requiring ID age verification. It's a bandaid over these kinds of issues while not addressing the real issues.
by aprrr; ; Report
I've been in situations where I have had to use teams in linux before! I just use it through the browser, don't need the app to run it.
by tevo; ; Report
There is a app on flathub that allows you to use teams on linux called "Portal for Teams"
by zahmbie1; ; Report
lee !!
Unfortunately, as a society we have all become creatures of habit. But recently, I've noticed a big shift in people moving away from big social media platforms, because I think people have simply just become burnt out from it. It took me a long time to realise that I actually don't want to see what comes up on my algorithm, and that a lot of it just makes me sad, or insecure. But the whole dopamine addiction is so clever and good at disguising that. I think the surge of 'AI slop' has really turned people off as well, which I think is promising. It gives me hope, after living in quite a defeatist attitude with where we are in the world rn. Lol sorry if that was just a lot of ramble.
tevo
I love what you've said here and I 100% agree!
More people need to read this, many, many of them... But people still refuse to budge from the very habits that continue to perpetuate the power of large corporations, but, that's what the ruling class planned things to be like all along. We know most of how the internet is now is no accident, but entirely intentional.
Really happy about the whole clippy thing with Louis Rossmann going on though, which happened about a week after the creation of this post. Hopefully there's going to be more attention brought upon this issue.
... what distro do you use by the way?
... I use arch... btw...
Being honest, I’m new to Linux, so I installed Gentoo (with KDE) on my PC to force myself to learn how things work on the terminal, and on my laptop I installed Fedora for an quicker setup with GNOME just to try it out. I will probably keep it on my laptop though, just for the stability.
).
Been away from my home PC lately, so I still have a lot to get used to with Gentoo, but I’ve liked it so far! I’ve always liked the concept of customization and free configuration, but it just means I have to spend a lot of time in front of documentation lol. Though I made the mistake of installing the full KDE meta package rather than a couple things I needed to start initially, and it took like 5 hours to install (after the multiple hours of active work to get the kernel and other system stuff up
by aprrr; ; Report
That's really cool! you don't have to worry about having to learn the terminal thaaat much, and even so you can use the terminal as much as you want in most distros anyway. It's been completely worth it for me in the end over the past couple years, not having to rely on mega corporations that don't care about anything but their money and power is great. If you decide you don't like gentoo, arch is another minimal and customisable alternative as well which isn't based around compiling packages from source as much as gentoo.
by tevo; ; Report
I've found that with the ability to compile from binaries (and the added speed from that), I've really liked Portage so far, but I had to stop short of really making the system my own because of travel, so my verdict might change the more I'm working within Gentoo. Still don't know why the plasma-meta package took so long to compile---it felt like it was on a single program for a good 2 hours---but a package with nearly 400 binaries is expected to take some time no matter what. Still makes me wish I installed plasma-desktop instead though lol
I've used Arch in the past, but I was like 11, and didn't really know what to do with it at the time. If Gentoo documentation fails me in the end, Arch is up there on what I'm thinking of!
by aprrr; ; Report
Oh yeah installing plasma-desktop is much better than getting the entire plasma-meta package, lol, I imagine that'll take really long to compile. It's what I usually do whenever I go for a KDE desktop, then I install any extra KDE applications I feel like I need. If you want to experiment with very customisable minimal window managers I recommend looking into hyprland as well.
by tevo; ; Report
XxStorm_CloudxX
I want to thank you for informing me about these situations. I've been looking for advice on what to do now after the Yiutube situatio. I'm trying what I can to basically avoid AI and support corporations that use it, especially to invade privacy. I also admire the tips on how to go against it.
That's kind of all I wanted to share, but overall, you've basically taught me what to do now, and i very much appreciate this post, so thanks. (^_^)
Oh dear, please forgive my spelling mistakes.
by XxStorm_CloudxX; ; Report
Damien☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆
People get so excited that "YAY THAT FILTHY DISGUSTING PORN STUFF IS GOING AWAY" that they don't realize anything they consider sexually depraved, like being lgbtq, WILL also be censored. Hate all you want but the internet was made for adults not for your grubby little 5 year old on his iPad thar you don't want to raise. Don't censor art, don't censor sex workers, and it's the parents job to watch over kids on the internet.
Mhm! I believe it was Texas that was trying to ban drag for being "pornographic;" to the people who are pushing these laws, queerness is obscene and pornographic in their mind, so all queer expression gets regulated or banned. Obviously kids usually find a way around parental controls (that was me not too long ago), but it is the parent's responsibility to make sure their little kids aren't watching porn on the internet, yet they decide to raze it all to the ground and limit what little privacy and freedom there is on the internet anymore instead.
by aprrr; ; Report
aprrr
My laptop is about to die, so there may be some weirdness because I didn't have the time to edit this down, but I'll come back to it in a bit!