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The YouTube Blockout is still happening

Even if this is your first time hearing about it, you can still show your disapproval of the new policy by joining the blockout/boycott.

How?

Stop using YouTube. The best way to show our disapproval is by completely ignoring YouTube until they roll back this decision. There are lots of alternatives, and we are working on a masterlist. If you absolutely have to use YouTube in some capacity, I highly recommend using a front-end client like FreeTube. It gives you more privacy and doesn't have ads, but the best option is still to boycott YT entirely.

Use Google products as little as possible. I have switched over to Firefox, and there are lots of alternatives for lots of Google products. If anyone's interested in a specific list, I'll share what I find.

Sign this petition:

If you're interested, there's a Discord server for this, too, started by @gentleman-velvet. Look at their blog for more info about that.

But why are we doing this? Why should you care?

I'll let YouTube themselves explain it for me.

[Alt: A screenshot of the YouTube policies page that reads: "For all U.S. accounts, YouTube employs a dual approach by using self-declared age as well as the application of an age estimation model that uses machine learning to determine whether a user is over or under 18. Regardless of the birthday in the account, this technology enables us to deliver age-appropriate product experiences and protections, treating teens as teens and adults as adults. How it works: We use AI to interpret a variety of existing signals that help us to determine whether a user is over or under 18. These signals include the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account. When we identify a teen user, we’ll automatically apply our safeguards, including: -Disabling personalized advertising and restricting age-sensitive ad categories -Turning on digital wellbeing tools -Adding safeguards to recommendations, including limiting repetitive views of some kinds of content. Users have the option to verify that they are 18 or over by using a credit card or a government ID. We only allow users who have been inferred or verified as over 18 to view age-restricted content that may be inappropriate for younger users.]

Read that all the way through. According to YouTube, if their AI thinks you watch childish content, regardless of the birthdate you associated with your account, your account could be restricted until you provide either a government-issued photo ID or a credit card to verify your age. This is what they themselves are saying.

Personally, I don't want a private company to have images of my ID or my credit card. I feel that that is an invasion of my privacy. I fear what might happen in the case of a data breach. And Google has fairly frequent data breaches. Just search (with any other search engine) "google data breach recent" and see for yourself.

And consider adults who don't have either a government-issued photo ID or a credit card. What then? It would appear from the policies described on YouTube's website that they are just out of luck in that instance.

This could very well affect animation on YouTube. It could affect gameplay videos. It could affect anything and everything that their AI might deem "childish."

YOU SHOULD CARE

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Mozilla, in its finite wisdom, embedded LLM bots into recent versions of Firefox for the vitally-important purpose of… naming tab groups. Now, some users are noticing CPU and power usage spikes caused by a background process called Inference.

Ugh. Reminder again for Firefox users to visit your about:config page, search for the browser.ml.chat.enabled key, and set that to false:

If yours says true then double-click it until it reads false.

Doing that turns off the AI chatbot features in Firefox, but also the stupid new LLM tab-naming feature that's rolling out.

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dump his ass. move to a walkable city. start hormones. get into fiber crafts. dye your hair weird. grow an herb garden. foster a distrustful cat. take a welding class. invite your friends over for tea and cake. get way too into obscure media. explore a new cuisine. lie to the police. protest in the streets. life has so many possibilities don't it?

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I don't know if it's too early to call, but

CHAT WE'RE SO BACK

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HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

she’s an artist. she’s got DID and it’s not villainized. her armor is a bunch of tiny freaks in a trench coat. she’s good friends with one sword and traumatized another as a child but they are rebuilding that relationship. she infiltrated the mafia. her husband supports trans rights and I think she does too but this hasn’t been confirmed and probably won’t be for at least 3-5 years in our timeline. probably more. she needs therapy but was probably one of the reasons it was invented. she’s also ginger. I’m not saying who it is but you know who it is.

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things I want to post on the pixel map website when it’s up:

rickroll QR code over point nemo

the rujinu shirt graphic

so much fan art

The spinning cat

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"I can fix him" not in a "I can make him into a better person" way but in a "if he was my character I would've handled his story better" way

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Boutta write “the work is mysterious and important” in circular gallifryen for all those severance and doctor who fans out there

I love all 5 of you <3

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i just had the funniest idea.

So, for those of you who don't know, some guy in Milwaukee put WELCOME TO CLEVELAND on his roof and it became kind of a local inside joke.

Someone fucking did it in WPlace, and if I wasn't aroace, I would kiss them on the mouth for that.

But, as I am sadly asexual, the best thing I can do is this:

Write "WELCOME TO MILWAUKEE" on the Cleveland airport in wplace.

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everybody wish snoopy a happy birthday!!!!

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even more reasons to install firefox

THIS LOOKS SO FUCKING SICK IF YOU CUSTOMIZE IT RIGHT OH WOW MY LIFE IS CHANGED FOREVER

HOW IS THIS SO AESTHETICALLY PLEASING. PRAISE BE TO THE DEVS

extensions actually work as advertised

actual customization of your laptop as was intended from the beginning

i want to use my laptop again

at some point i'll probably post about tech propaganda i totally fell for, but, like, in a good way

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literally what happened

original:

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Just wanted to say that r/musicalwriting, r/musicals, r/composer, r/screenwriting, etc, are good places to start! Backstage and just holding open auditions ( like Epic ) could work, or reaching out to VAs you like on their socials. And on Youtube you can find talented people too!

Thank you! I just don’t really have any way to compensate people as I’m a university student— I don’t think anyone would be up for doing it for free and I never wanna pressure anyone or devalue their work.

I don’t know how big the creator of Epic the Musical was before he created it— I fear I may not be big enough to have the pull to get VAs.

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Okay, so here’s the updated plans for fighting against youtube's new ai age policy and privacy violating rule (I believe in us!)

Plan 1. Black out and leave youtube/ youtube boycott (August 13 to the point where the policy is gone)

It’s a very simple plan, but this time we just leave until it’s fully reversed. That way YouTube doesn’t just ignore us and the original black out. We have to stand our ground and show them we aren’t going to give up. We have to last as long as possible and let their revenue drain until they concede or someone else comes in and makes another platform (that isn’t based on politics but the same ideas as the original YouTube)

Plus I would like to add some small extra things that will help with the blackout though. That being mass downloading YouTube content. Now this might be the easiest thing for certain people, but it’s something.

Mass downloading YouTube content can help in case there a couple of videos or channels you want to watch during the blackout.

(I use something called a ytdlp but there might be better options for you out there, there might even be built in ones in a web browser or two, just search around the place, you'll find it eventually)

Forget what I said about alternatives that block YouTube, avoid anything that even remotely connects to YouTube. If it connects to YouTube it still provides traffic and helps it out, we want to disconnect from it completely, don’t let it have a drop of traffic

Plan 2. Bugging the crap out of them.

Now since they have a mail box for us to use, that can be used for our advantage here. So here’s what we do, send them letters asking them to reverse the decision, that way they will be overwhelmed by letters that have to eventually give up. Now I don't want you guys to send out slurs, curses or whatever. I need you guys to be kind and critical. I want you to point everything wrong with this and why it is destined to fail and leave the company crumbling

In addition to these letters, if at all possible, I want you guys to include photos of comments made by other people (Twitter, tumblr, whatever) criticizing this and making it known that it’s not just you guys who are angry, but people all over too.

Now we can also include emails in this, but that might be harder than excepted, but in case you do want to send in a email, you can send it that way

I can't find any other way of sending them an email, but good to you if you do find it (though I would recommend a letter much more)

UPDATE, someone has pointed out that we should all send out our letters on a single day, Im taking around August 5th about a week before the thing actually rolls out and than maybe we’ll do another batch on the 8th just in case

Make sure you mass send a bunch of letters

WIP plan 3, legal bull

I wish I could say this plan was finished, but unfortunately, it is not at all. All we have to go for here to filing a complaint towards the FTC about this and or using what this user recommneds (though I can't fully say if it'll work or not)

This plan will be worked on as much as possible

I want everyone if they can to spread to outside of tumblr, talk about it on twitter, facebook, blusky, youtube itself, this plan has to spread to as much people as possible.

I believe we can do our best and shine a light through these horrible times, we can be light in the darkness that will help others shine a burn a hole in this horrible system of censorship

I believe in every last one of you, I believe you can do good and spread good, because in your hearts, you are good

If you have any other ideas, let me know, cause i know more minds are better than one.

Good luck!

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Guys, it got so much freaking worse. KOSA is bad, but SCREEN is even worse, somehow.

"Sen. Mike Lee has introduced the SCREEN ACT, a bill that applies the "harmful to minors" standard used to ban LGBTQ+ books and resources in schools and libraries and apply it nationally to the internet.

Any site that has any amount of material "harmful to minors" would be forced to employ surveillance tech (biometric scans, ID uploads, background checks) to prevent minors from accessing "pornography."

You will not be surprised to learn that this is backed by the Heritage Foundation.

Unlike some of the state age-verification laws, many of which are being challenged in court, SC will be enforced by the FTC, which has the ability to levy fines, raid business and freeze bank accounts. Yes, meaning that even non-for-profits like Ao3 will suffer.

This is something for all US users to keep on their radar. Call your reps, call your senators, and spread the word to protect our archive!"

- When talking with Republicans play up the fact that this would force Elon to implement age verification systems on X (yes do call it X during the call). Elon's been threatening to primary Republicans who stand in his way so there's fear of him. Also play up concerns about "Liberals" doxxing people or Chinese hackers.

- When talking with Democrats, play up the connections to Project 2025 and suggest voters will not be happy to see Democrats siding with it.

Republicans:

Ted Cruz, Texas (Chairman) - Phone: (202) 224-5922

John Thune, South Dakota - Phone: (202) 224-2321

Roger Wicker, Mississippi - Phone: (202) 224-6253

Deb Fischer, Nebraska - Phone: (202) 224-6551

Jerry Moran, Kansas - Phone: (202) 224-6521

Dan Sullivan, Alaska - Phone: (202) 224-3004

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee - Phone: (202) 224-3344

Todd Young, Indiana - Phone: (202) 224-5623

Ted Budd, North Carolina - (202) 224-3154

Eric Schmitt, Missouri - (202) 224-5721

John Curtis, Utah - Phone: (202) 224-5251

Bernie Moreno, Ohio - Phone: 202-224-2315

Tim Sheehy, Montana - Phone: (202) 224-2644

Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia - Phone: (202) 224-6472

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming - Phone: (202) 224-3424

Democrats:

Maria Cantwell, Washington (Ranking Member) - Phone: (202) 224-3441

Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota - Phone: (202) 224-3244

Brian Schatz, Hawaii - Phone: (202) 224-3934

Ed Markey, Massachusetts - Phone: (202) 224-2742

Gary Peters, Michigan - Phone: (202) 224-6221

Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin - Phone: (202) 224-5653

Tammy Duckworth, Illinois - Phone: (202) 224-2854

Jacky Rosen, Nevada - Phone: (202) 224-6244

Ben Ray Luján, New Mexico - Phone: (202) 224-6621

John Hickenlooper, Colorado - Phone: (202) 224-5941

John Fetterman, Pennsylvania - Phone: (202) 224-4254

Andy Kim, New Jersey - Phone: (202) 224-4744

Lisa Blunt Rochester, Delaware - Phone: (202) 224-2441

SCRIPT

Hi, my name is [], and I am one of Senator []’s constituents. I live in [city, zip code - leave your full address if leaving a voicemail].

I am calling in regards to a bill that was recently introduced in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transport: the SCREEN act.

I am asking Senator [] to either take no action or vote against this bill because of its implications for freedom of speech. [insert one of the other concerns listed above]. Thank you for your time and for listening to my concerns.