“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.”
 - William Faulkner

To those of you across my various social media platforms that have not seen any new posts, Tweets, or TikToks from me of any kind, this quote is very much relevant as to why. I think, more than anything, in an age of social media, the most powerful form of protest against authority that use social media to control certain narratives; and paint journalists to be the bad guys. It is a form of protest that involves stepping away from social media and not allowing authority figures to suppress your voice.

However, in that same breath, the use of social media allows us to protest against these authority figures, it allows us to be able to reach out to someone who might not understand what's going on and to be given the full context; to better understand why these authority figures are doing this.

On August 13th, of this year, YouTube has started rolling out its AI-powered age verification tool that will attempt to verify the age of its users through the videos they watch and, if the AI somehow gets it wrong and, assumes another user is young, they would either have to submit a credit card, government identification, or even just a selfie in order to prove that they're an adult. This is very reckless, irresponsible, and dystopian. And I do not use that word lightly.

This is dystopian.

It is very difficult to protest against these platforms for these practices because we rely on social media for all of this information. If you're going to protest against these apps, if you're going to let them know that this shouldn't be allowed, starting a change.org petition isn't going to change anything. Starting a government petition will absolutely do something, maybe even get their attention. However, to these social media companies, your engagement, your very engagement, is currency.

So, what now? What do we do now?

Well, as for me, I've gone ahead and decided to uproot my YouTube and will be currently in the process to reupload my various YouTube videos throughout the history of the channel itself. I will be on Odysee and Glomble, or at least I'll attempt to. Odysee, more than likely, being the website in which most, if not all of my videos, will be on. I'll try to reupload a VOD or two from my Twitch streams, maybe. However, since a lot of the VODs are over 4 to 6 hours long, if the platform isn't gonna be able to handle that much content, it is what it is. Regarding Twitter, I'll be doing the same thing.

Regarding Spotify, I don't think I'll need to do anything on that front since I haven't uploaded any of my music on that. So, I should be in the clear. My music will also be available on Odysee, primarily. However, my music will be available on Bandcamp as well as Ko-Fi if you're looking to purchase any of my work. VGen services are still available as well. 

However, regarding future posts, they're either going to be available on Bluesky or I'll try to make new blog posts on here, SpaceHey.

As far as I'm aware of currently, ByteDance, who is the company that owns TikTok, they will be selling it to a US company with the caveat that this new company, whoever buys it, will be suppressing political voices of the left and actively trying to suppress those who call out authority, who call out Donald Trump's association with Jeffery Epstein, and those who call out pedophiles as well.

None of that sits right with me.

This has been a very difficult blog post for me to make, I'll say that much. However, deep down, I've felt as if it's very important for me to have done so. And I feel like, as a content creator, I feel like I have a responsibility to let my friends and any users know that...social media is changing.

To those of you out there who read this, I hope this inspires you to do the same because I'd rather look back on my life and say that my efforts made a difference and that I managed to do something than look back on my life and realize that my efforts were in vain  and that nothing was able to meaningfully change.

Thank you guys so much for reading and, hopefully, this won't be the last time we see each other.
Take good care of yourselves.