#UK Internet Policy

[wild-at-mind]

Sometimes just from someone's username you know they would reblog a post that's like omg Trump will do genocide and Harris will do genocide but with emojis and memes!!

And then you see that they did in fact reblog the post and you're like ohhh can we stop pretending this is any kind of leftism.

[socialistexan]

Here's the thing y'all, I so significantly regret what happened in 2016. So much so that I'm never letting that shit happen again. Period.

I'm pretty disillusioned with the left overall, because so many of y'all are more open to grifters and, frankly, looking smug on the internet than you are actually doing anything to materially benefit anyone. I'm very much a leftist, but I don't have much trust in The Left.

Too many of y'all are relying on a mysticized Revolution that is just a rebranded Rapture straight out of your evangelic upbringing.

We can community organize and do mutual aid and protest and disrupt and vote.

This isn't an either/or scenario. This is a both/and.

I'm so tired of this shit. No third parties. No encouraging others to stay home. No spreading misinfo just because it's convenient.

I don't like Harris's stance on Gaza. I don't like most of her foreign policy. I don't like everything she did when she was a prosecutor, even though she was a relatively progressive one (which is a thing the left had been pushing for for a long time and then dumped them as soon as they win). There's half a dozen ways to Sunday where Harris doesn't match my ideals and beliefs, but she's a hell of a lot closer than Trump and a hell of a lot better than him on every single damn issue.

If the French left can do it, and the UK left can do it, then so can we, damn it.

[viewwrangler]

Because the entire internet is for kids, right?

I suspect the near-term result of this policy is that many sites -- Bluesky, Xitter, Tumblr, almost all social media sites -- will geofence the UK, the way that Pornhub has geofenced and blocked the entire US south and several other states from access. But we shall see. Unfortunately.

The ultimate plan behind these laws -- including KOSA and related laws from the US Congress -- is to drive all such content from the web, no matter that the content is constitutionally protected from such official censorship efforts. It's not clear how long sites will be able to evade the intent behind these laws by blocking access to places with such laws.

There's also the fact that, with the existence of VPNs, these laws are largely pointless. All you have to do is install a VPN, let it seem to access from a country/state that doesn't have these nonsensical laws, and bob's yer uncle. That said ... how many people will actually use those options?

[beardedmrbean]

A paedophile who admitted sharing thousands of disturbing images of children, including newborn babies, co-authored a “coming out guide” championed by Scottish schools.

Andrew Easton, 39, was snared by cybercrime officers over internet chat logs with someone he believed to be a vulnerable 13-year-old he called “baby boy”. Easton, who was convicted at Aberdeen Sheriff Court last week, co-wrote the guide for charity LGBT Youth Scotland, which receives millions of pounds from the Scottish Government and local authorities.

LGBT Youth Scotland boast they have “trained” thousands of teachers over LGBT inclusivity. Schools, local authorities, the Care Inspectorate and government-run health and social care authorities made the guide available to children from the age of 13.

LGBT Youth Scotland attempted to distance themselves from Easton, who demanded to be called “daddy” and used secure messaging to send messages to his schoolboy victim, and photographs of his private parts.

Dr Mhairi Crawford, chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, said: “We were deeply troubled to learn of Mr Easton’s criminal actions. We condemn anyone that exploits or harms young people. He was a member of one of our youth groups until 2009, and during that time he, alongside other members of the group, contributed to a ‘coming out guide’, published in 2010.”

In one chat, Easton was reminded his “victim” was just 13 years old, but he continued exchanging photographs, urging “send more, baby boy!”.

Cybercrime officers discovered 32 video files, many of which were of the most serious category A and featuring children aged between four and eight years old, had been distributed to other paedophiles by Easton.

Despite the sexual images Easton was sharing with others being of the highest category, Sheriff Morag McLaughlin failed to jail him.

Easton, of Kennethmont, Huntly, is subject to a community payback order with supervision for three years and was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. He will remain on the sex offenders register for three years.

Scottish Conservative MSP Meghan Gallacher said: “This is a deeply disturbing situation. It is long overdue that we audit just how much public money this organisation receives and seek assurances over what safeguarding assessments are in place.”.

The coming out guide which Easton contributed to states: “Transgender people are people whose gender identity – who they are internally or their ‘innate’ gender – is different to their physical body or the gender they were assigned at birth.”

The ideology has been dismissed by one of the UK’s most respected paediatricians, Dr Hilary Cass, whose recent report led to England and Scotland reversing decisions to prescribe gender-changing drugs to children.

Alba MSP Ash Regan said: “Serious questions must be asked about why Scottish children’s educational guidance is being shaped by unqualified lobby groups that not only overreach their published remit but operate without any apparent oversight.”

The Scottish Government said education authorities are responsible for ensuring visitors undergo disclosure checks and LGBT Youth Scotland’s safeguarding policy is an operational matter for the organisation. It said: “The Coming Out Guide, published in 2010, is not a Scottish Government publication. The Scottish Government cannot comment on individual criminal cases.”

[mattgrayyes]

Why voting is important to me:

It is the only time to officially have your say.

You only get this chance once every five years.

Whatever petitions or protesting or writing to MPs that you do in the future can be ignored. Hell, the tories have made several types of protesting an arrestable offence

If you're unsure, here are reasons I vote

🔹Old people are way more likely to vote than young people. This means policies / spending are assigned in their favour.

🔹People older than millennials are more likely to vote for more right wing parties. I use my vote to counter this.

🔹Result predictions are regularly wrong. Brexit is one example of this.

🔹Labour may be as transphobic as the tories at the moment, but they're not the only alternative in many places.

🔹The Green Party, Lib Dems, and some independents have both progressive policies and may have a chance of winning in your constituency.

🔹It's not just about the parties. You can look at the policy voting record for your current MP, and see if they voted for, against, or abstained things like LGBTQ+ rights and welfare policy.

UK General Election Resources

Quizzes to see how your beliefs align with the party policies

https://voteforpolicies.org.uk

http://votecompass.uk

Tactical voting advice for your area, aiming for the most progressive winner

https://tactical.vote

https://stopthetories.vote

MP Voting Record:

https://theyworkforyou.com

Share this elsewhere?

I’ve also posted this elsewhere on the internet if you want to share it:

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https://x.com/MattGrayYES/status/1808202577986867597

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Mastodon

https://chaos.social/@mattgrayyes/112718185049843933

[ayeforscotland]

You talk often about how changes that are being made are bad but I rarely see you offering what you consider to be viable alternatives. The internet safety bill won't protect kids in your pinion, so what's the alternative? We can't vote for Labour, the only real opposing party to the Tories in a FPTP system, so what's the alternative? It's fear mongering and finger pointing like this that divides people and gives room to the tories and bigots to push their agendas through. People already feel helpless and you have a platform here that you could use to better inform people, instead of just shaming.

When I criticise the online safety bill - a policy being proposed as a misdirected reaction to a trans girl being murdered - and say political parties should be condemning transphobia within their ranks and in the public sphere, I don’t know how I can be clearer.

We don’t need spyware on children’s phones. We need our politicians to show some social responsibility and stop inflaming the debates with increasing polarising rhetoric. Stop giving the right wing everything they desire.

I challenge the idea that Labour are an opposition to the Tories. They are the same party with a different colour scheme. Calling Labour out for what they are is me using my relatively small platform to get people to engage and think critically about the policies of another party. I’m not issuing instructions, I’m trying to get people to arrive at their own conclusions, and sometimes that’s pointing out that a choice is actually bad. That’s not fear-mongering.

I don’t know how many times I and others have had to clarify that England and the UK in general is not a two party system, even with First Past the Post. I’d rather encourage people to organise with their local Green/LibDem branch and fight an election hard rather than choose to vote labour and change the colour of the curtains.

Because in 5-10 years whenever labour fucks up and the Tories regain political advantage, voters will just wave them back in. Handing this election to labour without making them fight for it gives them carte blanche to do all manners of corrupt shit that they’ve just pulled with the Gaza ceasefire vote.

So I completely reject that calling Labour, who from a policy perspective are lock-step with the Tories, a shit party that people shouldn’t vote for is fear-mongering. It’s calling a spade a spade.

And look if you’ve been here for a while and noticed a change in tone then I get it. You might not like me being more combative, but as I’ve said previously, I’m angrier than I’ve ever been in my political life, and I’m tired of people pretending that Labour will sweep in and reverse 10 years of Tory rule. They will simply choose to continue it.

[f1ghtsoftly]

When does “defending women’s sports” become conservative? Gender Critical Feminism’s accelerating descent into Conservative Feminism….if we can call it that…

The recent debates on sex verification at the Paris Olympics reveal yet another swath of the “gender critical” community all too happy to smear vulnerable people as malicious and threatening. This August as outcry over the inclusion of two likely intersex athletes reached fever pitch “transvestigation” type posts abounded on social media, critiquing the women’s appearance and likening them to monsters. While conservatives were often the most egregious about making sport of the appearances of both women, gender-critical feminists did little to stick up for them either. Feminist figures like JK Rowling described Khelif’s inclusion in the fights as “Male Violence”, gender critical feminist organizations and influencers in the states quickly followed suit, decrying that Khelif was a “man” and that they shouldn’t have a place in the sport, likening the situation to “men beating up women”, attempting to link the potential inclusion of intersex athletes to the move by some international sporting bodies to allow transgender athletes to compete in their desired gender category. While it may well be true that the DSDs both women have might not make future competition safe what is not true is that these women are socialized as men or began competing in the woman’s category maliciously, they do not deserve to be humiliated or cast as monsters for a medical condition they were likely born with and it disappoints me greatly to see GC women uncritically denouncing them, maybe not in as harsh of terms as the conservatives-but not condemning it either.

I believe most gender-critical feminist women have good intentions. I acknowledge that the echo chamber of the algorithm, the way celebrity and the internet can dissociate others from someone’s humanity. That being said, this round of harassment is a part of a pattern, from Posie Parker’s disturbing commentsto the reluctance among feminists to campaign for abortion access or critique Israel, and the refusal of many feminists in the UK to condemn the recent racial hate riots. Links between organized gender-critical feminists and the far right are not a conspiracy theory, like it or not women concerned about self-id are in the cultural orbit of the right wing. I no longer find the common refrain that gender-critical feminists are “politically homeless” and working with the right out of necessity to be all that believable. While it might have been true at one point, the decision by movement leaders to work with the right, ignore other axes of oppression, and take a single-issue stance on transgender issues led to a “movement” that serves a conservative agenda with a feminist gloss.

Similarly, it is a rhetoric that ultimately undermines the aims of radical feminists by empowering an agenda that seeks not to normalize gender nonconformity without medicalization, but to further stigmatize it. Rather than a movement against the institutionalized medicalization of gender nonconformity, the GC movement has become exactly what the mainstream left claimed it always was, a movement intended to penalize women who look or are different from a preconceived norm. It has been warped by existing in the right-wing universe, as conservative women adopt its aesthetics and talking points, feminist women compromise their principles to work towards policy limiting transition for minors and the algorithm intersperses clickbait transgender headlines with right-wing news.

Unfortunately, the decision to work with the right-wing maintains our subordinate status within the movement as well, keeping us from actualizing a feminist agenda. An anonymous source has shared with me that this limits discussions of women’s reproductive rights inside of radical feminist organizations, which is not surprising, even a cursory search of WPI and Wolf’s Twitter pages reveals a lack of emphasis on the disturbing cultural and political trends on the right and a lack of focus on reproductive rights a major social issue in the country where these organizations are located. If feminist organizations had feminist funding, would this be the case? Similarly, recent video evidence surfaced a few weeks ago showing Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting Palestinian prisoners. No prominent Gender Critical feminist I can find, from Jk Rowling, Julie Bindel, or Sheila Jeffries, said a word about that even as they were very quick to denounce sexual violence potentially done by Hamas. Is sexual violence always bad? Or does it only matter as ammunition to hurl at liberals? Maybe it’s an oversight caused by one’s information universe, maybe it’s intentional-it doesn’t matter. What matters is that “feminists” in the orbit of the left are calling out one set of issues and “feminists” on the right are calling out another and they both have merit. By allowing ourselves to be pulled into the culture war, we’ve lost our ability to hold all men accountable for how they perpetuate patriarchy. We’ve in essence, lost the plot. While I sincerely believe many of the women heading these organizations think they’re making a pragmatic sacrifice to deal with the greater good, this move is ultimately one in error, the more we make space for patriarchal men in our movement, the less space there is for the women who those men harm. The more we compromise with men, the more sacrifices to their patriarchal agenda they will demand.

What the GC movement and its collaboration with the Right Wing do bring to light, however, is how male-dominated politics sabotages female solidarity and connection. GCs are not the only women who make exceptions and accommodations for men on “their side” Women fighting for Abolition, women in the “queer” movement, and women on the general left sit down and shut up when “their men” push through policies in their interest, much in the same way that GC women have done with conservative men. Without an autonomous women’s movement with a social network, funding, and institutions of our women will forever be forced to compromise with men who use their leverage to enact patriarchal policies of their design. This makes us weak and reactive when we don’t have to be. The two choices we are presented with navigating transgender social policies, that of uncritical medicalization for anyone who wants it, or a banishment of gender non-conforming people from public life are both antithetical to the collective interests of women and while organizing on our own is more difficult its benefits will multiply ten-fold over time both in terms of our ability to recruit and our ability to stick to our principles. To me, a world run by social conservatives is as vile as a world run by social liberals. Women deserve both freedom from male violence and freedom to live the lives they want, this shouldn’t be an either-or question and we should collectively refuse such a false choice, charting our path into the future based on unshakeable loyalty to each other.

In solidarity,

Char

[loving-n0t-heyting]

For most of the post-war period, “getting active” required finding a party, joining, canvassing, knocking on doors, dishing out leaflets and attending meetings.

Now, from the comfort and safety of their own homes, these keyboard warriors can engage in far right politics by watching YouTube videos, visiting far right websites, networking on forums, speaking on voice chat services like Discord and trying to convert “normies” on mainstream social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

While it contains traditional organisations such as Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, generally speaking it remains a decentralised collective of anonymous people working in broadly the same direction and towards similar goals. This relatively new means of engaging in political activism also facilitates a more international outlook.

From a 2018 analysis of the uk far right, cited in the nytimes coverage of the riots

This is just talking about far right views becoming popular, right? You can dress it up in talk about "decentralised collectives" but thats about on the same level as talking about memeplexes or hiveminds, its fine if yr shooting the galaxybrain shit with friends but you cant expect me to take it superduper seriously. You have not identified a new form of post-organisational organising via a syzygistic standalone complex or whatever, you have just pointed out the existence of political fads and shifts in opinion, a phenomenon dating back to the origin of the human species and of which all of us are aware starting in kindergarten at the latest. It wasnt invented on the internet and its not some paradigm shifting innovation in political theory to point it out

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

waves, you’re the only Canadian I know. What the heck is going on with Justin Trudeau? I read a couple articles but still didn’t quite grasp why he resigned and what will happen next. What’re your thoughts on it?? I trust your social commentary

First of all, you should never trust me for anything 😂 I am far from a reliable source. I'm just some girl on the internet.

The TL;DR is that there has been a lot of internal strife within his political party and cabinet for the last couple of years, and the voices got louder and louder until they basically all made it clear they would no longer support him and/or resign if he didn't do it first.

Canada's parliamentary system is a constitutional monarchy, more similar to the UK system than the US' governing-wise. So the governing party is the one who has the most amount of seats in the House of Commons. In theory, constituents vote for the party, not the leader, in federal elections, although in practice it obviously comes down to the leader's popularity. In theory, Canada is a multi-party system, although in practice, it's almost entirely governed swapped back and forth between the Liberal Party* and the Conservative Party. There are a handful of other national parties that have debatable influence depending on the era, sometimes representing regional or special interests. Also, Canada doesn't have set election dates like in the US; in theory the Prime Minister can call elections at anytime within their mandate.

(*In Canada, Liberal does not mean the same thing as small-l liberal. It's not a social outlook, it's descended from the UK tradition. Same for how historically the Conservative Party did not mean the same thing as small-c conservative a la in the US, although now they are effectively the same thing due to the influence of the Tea Party and shit from the US. The Liberals are more centrist, the Conservatives are centre-right but quickly heading more right each passing year.)

When Trudeau was first elected in 2015, he won a majority, which means his party, the Liberal Party, held more than half the seats in the House, and could effectively enact their platform. In 2019, the Liberals won with a minority, which meant that they needed the help of other minority parties to pass legislation. In 2021, Trudeau tried to capitalize off some post-pandemic goodwill and called an early election in an effort to try to win back his majority, but it was an incredibly unpopular decision as people did not want to head into another election season AND I think he underestimated the discontent about pandemic mitigating measures and the state of the economy, and instead he kind of shot himself in the foot and he squeaked through with another minority. This forced his party to enter into a coalition with two other minority parties (the New Democrats, which is more left-of-centre, and the Bloc Quebecois, which represents the interests of Quebec) in order to keep a tentative majority and fend off the Conservative Party, who are the official opposition with the second-most number of seats. In theory, this meant that the minority parties could exert some sort of influence to get their policies moving. (For instance, the NDP pushed public dental care on their agenda, which did in fact eventually get passed in some fashion.) In practice, it was more like a holding pattern.

I'm not especially well-versed in what's happening in politics to that degree, but essentially, particularly since 2021, Trudeau has lost a lot of his former allies in his party. There could be many reasons, but the most often one cited is that his team has become more insular and less likely to listen to advisers and other Members of Parliament (MPs = the members who represent ridings, e.g. like US congresspeople/senators) and had become more out of touch than he'd been before. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party is beating the battle drum and want to push for a vote of non-confidence, which means they could bring a motion to the table in the House and if a majority of members vote in favour, would mean government would dissolve and trigger an election. This was just noise when the coalition was in place, but in recent months, the other parties indicated they would no longer support Trudeau's government if a vote were to come to pass.

So it was just a matter of time until an election was called, but then the internal infighting of the Liberal Party sealed the deal. Trudeau attempted a cabinet shuffle before the holidays, which was kind of a last-ditch effort to stop the bleeding by moving ministers around to different portfolios. But one of the people he tried to shuffle was Chrystia Freeland, who was one of his most ardent supporters from the start, is Deputy Prime Minister and was the Finance Minister, which is one of the plumb roles in his cabinet. So before he had a chance to do that, she publicly resigned, which was a death blow to his cabinet, and afterwards many other MPs publicly voiced their lack of confidence in the PM and called for his resignation. There's also been a lot of concern over his handling of Trump's re-election and posturing about making Canada the 51st state and enforcing tariffs and all the usual shit. Trudeau had no choice but to step down because if he hadn't, his party would have forced his hand; he was supposed to have a caucus meeting on Wednesday and all reports were saying it was going to be a knives-out scenario for him. He's leaving before he gets left, basically.

Now, Trudeau is resigning, which means the Liberal party will be heading into a leadership race for an interim leader. He also prorogued parliament, which effectively means the House won't sit until March. When they come back, it is also almost assuredly in name only, because the Conservatives will call for a vote of non confidence on their first item of business and it will pass and the House will fall, meaning Trudeau's elected government will dissolve and an election is called. There's some debate as to whether it was fair of him to ask the Governor General (the King's representative in Canada -- basically an honourary role that rubber stamps things) to prorogue parliament as it's basically like calling a time out so that the Liberals can get their shit together and find a new leader before the election. But cynically I know the Conservatives would have done the same thing so they can stop their yapping imo. So basically, our legislative body is on hiatus until March. The mechanisms of government (e.g. the actual services) aren't, it's still business as usual. And then we're heading to the polls.

My thoughts are, I am far more left-leaning than the Liberal Party, so I have long been disenchanted with Trudeau's performance and politics. At the same time, I think he vastly underestimated how worried Canadians are about the economy (even if what they're worried about doesn't always apply to their own lives), and how much people are struggling. (Canada in some ways is far more expensive to live in than, say, the US. Inflation and price gouging is a huge concern in some areas.) The Conservative Party terrifies me because they are going to cause real harm to Canadians, like the Republican Party does in the US, but they're the party that is going to win and win a majority handily. There's a whole faction of their party that's infiltrated by MAGA-like doctrine. But they're the only challengers to the House and they've been leading in the polls for the last year or whatever, so it's a guarantee that they're going to win, especially with the mess the Liberals now find themselves in. Our minority parties like the NDP don't stand a chance of forming government because they don't have enough grassroots support. Also, our system is first-past-the-post, which means the first party to win the most number of seats wins, which essentially means whoever can win the most amount of seats in Ontario (the most populous province) and to a lesser degree Quebec (second-most, although there are regional factors at play there too but that's another topic) wins the House. (One of Trudeau's 2015 promises was electoral reform, and then he abandoned it once he was elected.) So I am very, very worried for our country and I think we're about to enter into our own dark period.

I have probably very poorly explained this, so I encourage you to look at other legitimate sources of info! This is just my layperson's read on the situation. It's not completely dissimilar to what happened to Joe Biden this summer in the presidential race, if you're looking for something to compare it to, in very broad strokes.

[rubinaitoart]

Today’s anxiety-driven political post is about The Paris Agreement.

In 2015, 190+ individual parties (countries, and the EU) made a pledge to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global temperatures from rising above 1.5°C, and try to prevent it from reaching a total increase of 2°C.

(For my fellow Imperial System users, a rise of 1.5°C = a rise of 2.7°F, and a rise of 2°C = a rise of 3.6°F)

It doesn’t seem like a lot and I think that’s part of why not a lot of people are taking it seriously. Thing is, it’s just going to keep getting worse, and scientists already believe that a mere global increase of 2°C / 3.6°F will cause a lot of problems. More frequent flooding, more wildfires, and the massive loss of delicately balanced ecosystems like the coral reefs are just a few of the nasty effects we’ll be seeing.

I mean, we’re already seeing some bad effects. Look at the UK, which is experiencing more heatwaves than they’re used to, and their current infrastructure isn’t developed for that kind of constant heat. Look at the United States, which is experiencing hotter summers and a decrease in snowfall. Look at Australia, and India, and China, and everywhere else.

And the current policies in play aren’t going to let us reach that goal by 2100, much less 2050. The pledges that have been made might get us closer, but aren’t quite enough either.

It’s only going to get worse from here. For the US, Trump’s already promised that he’ll withdraw from the Paris Agreement again upon his reelection.

I’d like to see this get reblogged and spread around more, maybe with people chiming in with resources and tips about what all of us can do to try and put more pressure on our governments to do better. I’m really not comfortable with the fact we’re globally staring down the barrel of a gun and there’s barely been any progress to try and resolve it.

(This post is meant to be a short read and doesn’t include all the information. I’m not intentionally withholding anything, just trying to keep it short and relatively simple. If you have any additions, I would love to see reblogs with them—I’m actually counting on the Internet’s love to correct and add on to things, so this can be spread further out.)

[theculturedmarxist]

Being labeled a Russian propagandist all day every day for criticizing US foreign policy is really weird, but one advantage it comes with is a useful perspective on what people have really been talking about all these years when they warn of the dangers of “Russian propaganda”.

I know I’m not a Russian propagandist. I’m not paid by Russia, I have no connections to Russia, and until I started this political commentary gig in 2016 I thought very little about Russia. My opinions about the western empire sometimes turn up on Russian media because I let anyone use my work who wants to, but that was always something they did on their own without my submitting it to them and without any payment or solicitation of any kind. I’m literally just some random westerner sharing political opinions on the internet; those opinions just happen to disagree with the US empire and its stories about itself and its behavior.

Yet for years I’ve watched people pointing at me as an example of what “Russian propaganda” looks like. This has helped inform my understanding of all the panic about “Russian influence” that’s been circulating these last six years, and given me some insight into how seriously it should be taken.

That’s one reason why I wasn’t surprised by Matt Taibbi’s reporting on the Twitter Files revelations about Hamilton 68, an information op run by DC swamp monsters and backed by imperialist think tanks which generated hundreds if not thousands of completely bogus mainstream news reports about online Russian influence over the years.

Hamilton 68 purported to track Russian attempts to influence western thought on social media, but Twitter eventually figured out that the “Russians” the operation has been tracking were actually mostly real, mostly American accounts who just happened to say things that didn’t perfectly align with the official Beltway consensus. These accounts were often right-leaning, but also included people like Consortium News editor Joe Lauria, who’s about as far from a rightist as you can get.

They played a massive role in fanning the flames of public hysteria about online Russian influence, but while they did this by pretending to track the behavior of Russian influence ops, in reality they were tracking dissent.

One of the craziest things happening in the world today is the way westerners are being brainwashed by western propaganda into panicking about Russian propaganda, something that has no meaningful existence in the west. Before RT was shut down it was drawing a whopping 0.04 percent of the UK’s total TV audience. The much-touted Russian election interference campaign on Facebook was mostly unrelated to the election and affected “approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content” according o Facebook. Research by New York University into Russian trolling behavior on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 election has found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.” A study by the University of Adelaide found that despite all the warnings of Russian bots and trolls following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the overwhelming majority of inauthentic behavior on Twitter during that time was anti-Russian in nature.

Russia exerts essentially zero influence over what westerners think, yet we’re all meant to freak out about “Russian propaganda” while western oligarchs and government agencies continually hammer our minds with propaganda designed to manufacture our consent for the status quo which benefits them.

All this and we’re still seeing calls for more narrative management from the western empire, like the recent American Purpose article “The Long War of Ideas” being promoted by people like Bill Kristol which calls for a resurrection of CIA culture war tactics like those used during the last cold war. Every day there’s some new liberal politician sermonizing about the need to do more to fight Russian influence and protect American minds from “disinformation”, even as we are shown over and over again that what they really want is to shut down dissident voices.

That’s what we’re seeing in the continual efforts to increase online censorship, in the bogus new “fact-checking” industry, in calls to increase the output of formal US government propaganda operations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, in the way all dissent about Russia has been forcefully purged from the western media in recent years, in the way empire-amplified trolling operations have been shouting down and drowning out critics of US foreign policy online, in the way censorship via algorithm has emerged as one of the major methods of restricting dissident speech.

They claim there needs to be a massive escalation in propaganda, censorship and online psyops in order to fight “Russian influence”, while the only influence operations we’re being subjected to in any meaningful way are only ever of the western variety. They just want to do more of that.

Our rulers aren’t actually worried about “Russian influence”, they’re worried about dissent. They’re worried the public won’t consent to the “great power competition” they plan to subject us to for the foreseeable future unless they can exert massive influence over our minds, because they know that otherwise we will recognize that our interests are directly harmed by the economic warfare, exploding military spending and nuclear brinkmanship which necessarily accompanies that campaign to reign in Russia and stop the rise of China.

They’re propagandizing us about the threat of foreign propaganda in order to justify propagandizing us more. We’re being manipulated into consenting to agendas that no healthy person would ever consent to without copious amounts of manipulation.

[touchd0wn-boy]

Since I keep seeing it in certain corners of the fandom:

Chromosomes = gender is a transphobic statement. Genitalia/secondary sex characteristics = gender is a transphobic statement. I can't believe I have to explain this. It's "real transphobia" not just a fun argument you can co-opt to use against other queer people online. It's the basis for why transphobes want to bring back chromosome testing and sex verification in all sports so only Real Women and Real Men can compete against each other, something that's not only damaging to trans people but pretty much everyone who doesn't fit the very narrow definition of what a "normal" body and "normal" hormones are, even cis people, as the whole controversy around Imane Khelif has shown during the Olympics. It's why bathroom access for trans people has become such a point of hysteria and conspiracy theories. It's why anti-transgender laws are on the rise all over the world.

Last month, the ACLU published a very illuminating research brief on the impacts of anti-transgender laws and policies that I HIGHLY recommend (you can check it out here).

Instead of posting performative bullshit about what an Ally you are, and how we should all focus on "real transphobia" instead, you could reflect on why immediately falling back to transphobic rhetoric 101 as a cheap gotcha argument against the actual queer and trans people in your fandom saying things about your favs you don't like and don't agree with, is not actually??? a good thing? If your first gut-jerk reaction to shut down queer people is to rehash the talking points of every conservative politician and every Elon Musk Verified Alt-Right Twitter Influencer, then maybe do some introspection on WHY that is. When you perpetuate arguments about chromosomes and gender, you’re giving oxygen to the same ideologies that justify anti-trans laws and discriminatory policies. You're contributing to the environment that makes life harder for trans people, even if you don’t realize it.

By all means, donate to trans and queer charities and inform yourself on the issues impacting trans and queer communities.

But performative allyship is not a substitute for genuine support and understanding. Donating without actually challenging your own biases or engaging in meaningful discussions isn't enough. Being an ally means being willing to listen, learn, and grow—even when it makes you uncomfortable. It means understanding that harm can be done through ignorance, and being willing to address that ignorance within yourself and your circles.

Anyway. Translegislation is a wonderful website to track anti-trans bills that are being considered and passed in the US. Contact your representatives. VOTE, not just in the upcoming presidential election but also—and ESPECIALLY—in your local elections.

Besides the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, I also recommend

The Trevor Project

Mermaids (UK-based, God knows they need the support, considering Ms. Joanne R. still has internet access in the year of our lord 2024)

your local Planned Parenthood

your local trans/queer organization

mutual aid requests for gender affirming care

[mostlysignssomeportents]

In defense of Deliverism

There are many ways to slice up the coalition that is the Democratic Party, but one important axis are the self-styled adults-in-the-room, who declare themselves to be realists, and the party's left wing, who are dismissed as idealists who don't understand politics: neither how to win elections nor how to wield power.

The "realists" are the ones telling us that we can't have nice things. They say that if the Dems promise bold action - protecting abortion, controlling assault weapons, funding infrastructure, raising the minimum wage, providing health care - they will lose elections. When Dems do win elections, they insist that none of these things are possible: the Supreme Court will strike them down, or the GOP will filibuster them, or the business lobby will subvert them.

For these realists, every negotiation is a grand bargain in which all the grownups meet in smoke-filled rooms where they niggle and cajole and flatter their way into tiny, incremental policy changes, "signature achievements" that are so modest that the enemy can't possibly weaponize them as the deeds of radical socialists who will bring the country to ruin.

To do otherwise, the realists say, is to court catastrophe. Wielding power will destroy the "comity" that makes the legislature effective. It will "delegitimize" the institutions whose trustworthiness is key to enacting sound policy. When they go low, we must go high - not out of a sense of decorum, but to preserve the republic itself.

This kind of politics - the "triangulation" politics beloved of the consultant class - took over the Democratic Party in the Bill Clinton years (see also: UK Labour under Tony Blair). But its foremost practitioner - the Triangulation GOAT - was Barack Obama.

Obama's inside/outside game was indeed remarkable. He assembled and steered a massive, grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign that leveraged his skills as a once-in-a-generation orator to inspire huge numbers of historical nonvoters to show up and cast their ballot (recall that nearly every US election is won by "none of the above," so GOTV is a winning strategy, if you can pull it off).

Then, after the election, he switched off that grassroots.

Literally.

At the time, Obama's grassroots was the most successful netroots in history. Talented coders and digital strategists figured out how to leverage the internet to identify, mobilize and coordinate volunteers across the country. And while netroots activists did their work across the whole internet, their home base was a server the Obama campaign controlled. Once Obama won, they switched that server off.

You see, the rabble is useful when you're out there, trying to turn voters out to the polls. But if you plan to spend your term in office playing eleven dimensional chess, you don't want the mob jostling your elbow and shouting in your ear.

If FDR's (possibly apocryphal) motto was "I want to do it, now make me do it"; Obama's was "I want to do it, now go away." Rather than surrounding himself with the great unwashed, Obama created a cabinet of technocrats, grownups from the upper ranks of industry and the consultant class.

Think of Tim Geithner, Obama's Treasury Secretary, who counseled that the banks should be bailed out with no strings attached, not even a requirement that they halt the seizure and liquidation of swathes of Americans' family homes. When Geithner told Obama he had to "foam the runway" for the crashing banks with the roofs over everyday Americans' heads, there were no grassroots organizers foaming at the mouth in outrage. Thus did Obama end the Great Financial Crisis - by creating the Great Foreclosure Crisis:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

But Obama's signature achievement wasn't his economic policy - it was his healthcare policy. The Affordable Care Act was a carefully triangulated compromise, one that guaranteed a massive flow of public cash to America's wildly profitable health insurance monopoly and steered clear of any socialist whiff that Americans would get their care from the government.

The ACA was an technocrat's iron-clad dream policy. It would work! After all, it "aligned the incentives" of healthcare investors and "harnessed markets" to drive efficiency. No one could accuse this policy - which was copypasted from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's RomneyCare - of being "socialist." It was invented by a Bain Capital consultant!

Sure, the left would carp about Medicare For All and whine about the unjust enrichment of insurance barons. And sure, the right would try to convince "low information voter" lumpenproles that the individual mandate was an imposition on their Freedumb (TM), but in the end, more of us would get covered, prices would come down, and America would flourish.

That's not how it worked out. Prior to ACA's passage, 85% of Americans had health insurance. Today, it's 90%. That's not nothing! 5% of the US is more than 16m people. But what about the 85% - 282m people - who were insured before the ACA? Their insurance costs have doubled - from an average of $15,609 for a family of four in 2009 to $30,260 today. Obama promised that ACA would lower the average family's insurance bill by $2,500/year - but instead, insurance costs increased by some $15,000.

ACA wasn't just about cost, though: it was supposed to end discrimination, by forcing insurers to take on customers without regard to their "pre-existing conditions." On this score, too, Obamacare has failed: thanks to the ACA's tolerance for high-deductible plans, the number of Americans enrolled in plans that force them to pay for their chronic care out of pocket has skyrocketed from 7% to 32%. Yes, your insurer can't discriminate against you for having diabetes, but they can make you pay an extra $2,000 in deductibles every year before covering any of your diabetes care.

Now, maybe business-as-usual would have been even worse. Perhaps not passing the ACA would have left Americans poorer and sicker. But we're not comparing ACA with doing nothing - we're comparing ACA with more muscular, direct programs, like M4A. What if Obama had enlisted his grassroots, summoning up a left-wing answer to the Tea Party that turned the GOP into the party of no (including no compromises)? What if he'd jettisoned comity, appointed new judges, sent every executive order the Supreme Court rejected back to the court to be struck down again?

What if he'd governed like Lincoln, or FDR:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/20/judicial-equilibria/#pack-the-court

There's a name for this kind of politics: it's called deliverism:

https://prospect.org/politics/case-for-deliverism/

Deliverism is the idea that if you promise things to the voters, they will vote for you. It's the idea that if you deliver things to the electorate, that they will re-elect you.

Deliverism is a subject of hot debate in the Democratic Party, because Biden is an empty vessel that gets filled by different party factions, which means that his policy is incoherent, but includes some of the muscular, get-stuff-done politics of the Dems' Warren-Sanders wing, but that agenda is often undermined by the "responsible grownup" do-nothing Schumer wing.

The responsible grownups say that deliverism is dead, because voters mostly respond to hot-button cultural issues, while material improvements in their lives barely move the needle:

https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-death-of-deliverism/

In support of this proposition, deliverism's critics point to Obamacare, lauding it as a policy that made Americans better off, but still failed to win enough support for the Dems to defeat Trump at the end of Obama's second term.

In their rebuttal in The American Prospect, David Dayen and Matt Stoller point out that for most Americans, Obamacare didn't produce any improvement to their health care. The ACA made their care far more expensive, and the ensuing concentration across the sector (mergers between insurers, and between insurers and pharmacy benefit managers and pharmacies) made their care worse, too:

https://prospect.org/politics/2023-06-27-moving-past-neoliberalism-policy-project/

The rise in health care costs is no mystery: monopolies have taken over healthcare. In particular, healthcare is now the domain of private equity rollups, where a fund buys and merges dozens or hundreds of small businesses:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/18/wages-for-housework/#low-wage-workers-vs-poor-consumers

Every layer of the healthcare stack is has grown steadily more concentrated since the Obama years: "Hospitals, doctor’s practices, health insurance, pharmaceuticals, ambulances, nursing homes, rehab facilities." As Stoller and Dayen put it:

> Every part of our health care world is increasingly controlled by greedy bankers who kill people for money.

The same corporate concentration has eroded wages, meaning that workers are paying for higher healthcare cost out of smaller paychecks.

Stoller and Dayen argue that the polls show that politicians who make material improvement to voters' lives do win popularity. Take the Child Tax Credit, which lifted more American children out of poverty than any initiative in history. The majority of voters who received the credit favored the Democrats. After Joe Manchin killed the credit, that support flipped, and that cohort now supports the GOP by a 15% margin.

Sure, Biden couldn't order Manchin to support the Child Tax Credit. But he could have gone to WV and campaigned for it with Manchin's base. He could have loaded the bill with pork for WV that was linked to the credit, and dared Manchin to vote against it. He could have "fought dirty" (which is what the grownups call "fighting to win").

The grownups say that if Biden had done that, he might have alienated Manchin and lost future votes, or caused Manchin to run as a Republican in his next election - but that presumes that Manchin won't switch sides anyway, and it presumes that failing to deliver the Child Tax Credit wouldn't also jeopardize the Dems' legislative majority.

The grownups in the Democratic party say we can't win by campaigning on economic issues like monopoly, nor on pocketbook issues like M4A. But when Biden slashed the cost of insulin, his approval numbers shot up.

The grownups' claim that they should steer Democratic electoral strategy is grounded in the idea that they can win elections, and without electoral victories, the Dems can't do anything. The grownups' claim that they should steer Democratic governing strategy is that they can win policy victories, and that these will get the Dems re-elected.

But neither of these claims hold water. Far from being pie-in-the-sky idealists with no theory of change, the party's left is incredibly good at getting stuff done. Take the antitrust enforcers Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, as well as the recently departed Tim Wu. They aren't mere idealists - they're brilliant tacticians and proceduralists who have figured out how to use their existing authority to do more than decades of their predecessors combined:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

By contrast, the grownups in the party - people like Pete Buttigieg - have notably, repeatedly failed to master the procedural technicalities needed to exercise comparable authority. You can't be a technocrat unless you understand the techniques:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

As for electoral strategy, the consultant class puts all its focus into eking out these incredibly marginal wins - the name of the game is to guarantee a 50.1% win and then move on to the next fight, which ensures that governing will be impossible. Meanwhile, union organizers like Jane McAlevey seek out 97% majorities for strike votes, in the teeth of voter suppression, gerrymandering, dark money and disinformation campaigns that are far worse than anything we see in a general election. And yet it's the party's labor wing that is smeared as unserious about electoral victories:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-collective-bargain-a48925f944fe

It's true that the right has been scoring electoral wins with appeals to ideology and identity rather than by promising concrete, material improvements for their supporters' lives. You can win elections that way - but only by demonizing half the country as the enemy and then promising to make their lives miserable.

That doesn't invalidate deliverism as a strategy for winning elections. People may not have the time or interest to follow politics in detail. They may not understand how the ACA's internal technical workings are structured. The ACA has a lot of deficits - for example, it doesn't allow people to discover which insurance companies deny the most claims:

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-often-do-health-insurers-deny-patients-claims

But even if that data were out there, there's only so much attention people can or want to pay to their insurance policies. People want health care that works: that takes care of their illnesses and injuries, without bankrupting them. Something like the VA (at its best). Or Medicare (at its best).

Improving peoples' lives isn't merely good governance - it's also good politics. Playing hardball is hard and can be unpleasant, sure, but most of the risk from taking big swings while in office is that the voters won't stand with you and give you the political capital to score big wins.

"I want to do it, now go away" guarantees that there will be no polity at your side, giving you political capital. The politics of grand bargains only produces unimpressive, incremental change.

For all the failings of the GOP's radical wing (and there are many such failings), there is this one virtue: they get stuff done. The GOP has taken massive swings - seizing the courts, dismantling the administrative states, stacking elections, and siphoning off trillions for its donors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

The Democrats don't need to copy the GOP's abandonment of material policy for ideological hardlines. Indeed, it shouldn't: when they go low (culture war bullshit), we go high (delivering real benefit to voters). But the Democrats' left wing could sure stand to learn a trick or two from the GOP's right - namely, how to turn "I want to do it, now go away" into "I want to do it, now make me do it."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/10/thanks-obama/#triangulation

The Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop (I’m a grad, instructor and board member) is having its fundraiser auction to help defray tuition. I’ve donated a “Tuckerization” — the right to name a character in a future novel:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/clarion-sf-fantasy-writers-workshop-23-campaign/#/

[Image ID: An old fashioned tickertape parade. In an open-top convertible, surrounded by security, is a kicking Democratic Party donkey colored red, white and blue.]

[vidukon]

FAQ & Covid-19 Policy

VidUKon 2025 is taking place in Bristol from Friday 30 May to Sunday 1 June. Before we share more about registration and put out the call for programming, we thought we'd share FAQ about the con as well as our COVID-19 policy. Expect to hear more from us over the coming weeks!

Info under the cut.

About the Con

What is VidUKon?

VidUKon is a fan-run vidding convention based both physically in Bristol, UK, and virtually. It's a weekend for vid watchers and vidders to gather together, in person and online, and watch vids, talk about vids, and have fun.

The physical portion of the con takes place in the Future Inn hotel, Bristol, where we have one large room with a balcony set aside for watching vids together and other activities.

The online portion of the con is based on the VidUKon website, and also uses a Discord server so that attendees can talk to each other, and video conferencing software for things like panels and workshops.

What is vidding, and what is a vid?

A vid is a fan-made music video that takes visuals from one source and audio from another and puts them together in a new way. You might also see them called fanvids, edits, tributes, fancams, MVs, etc. Vidding is the art of making these videos.

Do I need to have made vids to attend the convention?

Not at all! Most of the programming is accessible to anyone who enjoys watching vids. The most common programme items are vidshows - that is, curated playlists of vids. Depending on the year, there may also be panels or roundtables that explore vids from a viewer's perspective.

The occasional programme item might be more technical and geared to vidders in particular, but non-vidders are welcome to attend and listen in if they're curious, or spend those timeslots relaxing elsewhere.

There are also lots of opportunities to socialise with other fans between programme items.

Be warned though, plenty of people come to the con as non-vidders and come back next year having made their first vid! VidUKon is a great way to learn more about vidding in a low-pressure way, if it's something you think you might be interested to try.

What happens at VidUKon?

A ton of things! The con begins on Friday afternoon. We usually break the ice with a quiz, followed by a couple of vidshows. For the rest of the weekend, programming is a mix of vidshows, discussion, talks, workshops and social time.

There’s only one stream of programming, so attendees can attend every programme item if they choose to (and if they have the stamina!).

What are vidshows like?

Each vidshow is a playlist (usually about 45-60 minutes long) of vids on a particular theme. If you're in Bristol, you can watch the vidshow together with the other Bristol Attendees in the designated space at the hotel (usually a cinema-style set-up with a big projector). All registered attendees (Bristol or Virtual) can also watch each vidshow through the website.

What vids are shown?

All fannish vids are fair game – in all genres and styles. Which means that some panels and shows may not be suitable for people under 18.  

We prefer to have the vidders' permission to show vids, but the transitory nature of the internet means that can be difficult sometimes. If we are contacted by a vidder and asked not to show a vid, we will not show it.  

Registration

What is my display name?

Your display name is the name that you will be known by at the con. You can amend this in your account details after you register if needed, but once that's done you should use the same name in all virtual con spaces, including on the website and the con Discord server.

I have a question about my registration. Who should I contact?

For any questions, please email vidukon@gmail.com

Vid Shows and Uploading Vids

What is a premiere?

A premiere is a vid that hasn't been shown in any previous convention or event and has not been released online prior the con. It will be shown for the first time ever at the Premieres show on Saturday night at the con, and will also be included on the Premieres physical media that some attendees receive after the con. Anyone is welcome to submit a premiere as long as you are registered as either a Virtual or a Bristol attendee. Vids can be any fandom, theme, or style, and there is no minimum level of experience required.

What is Vidder's Choice?

Vidder's Choice is a show where con attendees can choose an existing vid from their back catalogue to be shown. This can be absolutely any vid as long as it won't be showing for the first time at VidUKon. You might want to submit a crowd-pleasing favourite, or highlight a deep cut that you wish got more love! What is the themed submission vidshow?

The themed submission vidshow is a show with a specific theme that changes each year, for which con attendees can submit a premiere or a vid from their back catalogue. The theme for 2025 has not been decided yet and will be announced in due time.

What is the deadline to submit a vid?

All deadlines for VidUKon 2025 are on 6 April. This includes Premieres; Vidder's Choice; the themed vidshow (theme TBA); premieres that will be shown in curated vidshows (i.e. not Premieres, Vidders Choice, or the themed vidshow).

Should I inform you about the premiere I'm doing?

No, you don't have to. We might poll about it just to get a rough idea of how many vids we'll have and to check if we can fill them all in, but you don't have to inform us, just submit your vid on time for it to be included in the show.

If I'm submitting a vid, how do I get it to you and what format should it be in?

Video submissions are not open yet. We will share more information on the submission process closer to the date. Please get in touch if you ever have any questions.

Convention

What is your Refund Policy?

We offer full refunds until the close of registration of your tier (please note that some tiers close earlier than others). After that date, all refunds are discretionary. We do not want to be jerks about this, so please do contact us, and we may be able to assist, however, after the close of registration, our financial commitments are firm and we have bills to pay. As a non-profit voluntary association with very little surplus cash, we may not have the luxury of refunding tickets at that late stage.  

What is your Accessibility Policy?

Vidukon is committed to making the con environment an accessible and enjoyable place for all attendees. If you have specific access needs that you'd like to discuss with us, please contact us at vidukon@gmail.com, and we'll do our best to help.

For in-person attendees, the con rooms are on the top floor, accessible by lift or by stairs. Hotel rooms on higher floors are also accessible by lift or by stairs.

The con programme has regular breaks scheduled into the main programming.

We are going to be asking VJs, panelists, and vidders submitting premieres to include content information about their vids. We ask to warn for the following:

Animal Harm; Auditory Triggers; Blackface/Brownface/Redface; Blood/Gore [significant amounts]; Depictions of Colonialism/Imperialism; Depictions of Police; Holocaust and/or Nazi Imagery; Fast cuts (more frequent than about 8 frames); Flashing/Flickering lights; Incest; Queerphobia; Racism; Physical Triggers [in addition to fast cuts or flashing lights], Self-harm; Sexual violence; Suicide; Transphobia.

We ask to warn for depictions of things even if the vid is critical of them, e.g. a vid that is critical of racism and includes depictions of racist violence will be expected to warn for racism.

If any attendee would like further detail about the content of vids being shown at the con (eg you have a specific trigger that is not included in that standardised list), please get in touch with the ConCom and we'll do our best to help. Anonymous queries welcome. The more notice we have the more thorough we can be in getting content information for you, so ideally email us at least a couple of weeks before the con, but if we get less notice than that we'll do our best to accommodate you. 

The content information we collate will be available in the Conbook and on the website for ease of reference of attendees.

COVID-19 Guidelines

Vaccines

In-person VidUKon will require all in-person attendees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 without exception. Proof of vaccination will be required upon arrival. To avoid disappointment, please make very sure to bring your vaccination documents with you to Bristol! We accept photographed documents, so a picture on your phone will suffice. For more information on accepted forms of proof, see below.

Note for regular in-person attendees: please bring your vaccination documents even if you provided them at the 2023 or 2024 event. We're a small crowd and we do remember you, but in the name of fairness, transparency, and security, we ask all in-person attendees to provide vaccination proof regardless of previous attendance record. If this creates any difficulties for you, please don't hesitate to get in touch at vidukon@gmail.com.

Which vaccines are acceptable?

Any vaccine authorized in the country in which the vaccine was received, including authorization for emergency use, for human use as a COVID vaccine is acceptable. The World Health Organization maintains information on the status of vaccine trials and approvals.

I was a participant in a vaccine trial; is this acceptable?

Please contact us directly at vidukon@gmail.com so we can evaluate your situation on a case-by-case basis.

What does “fully vaccinated” mean?

“Fully vaccinated” means you must have received all required COVID-19 vaccination doses no later than 14 days prior to the day you arrive at VidUKon to allow them to reach full efficacy before arrival. For people arriving on 30 May that would be no later than 16 May. The date of vaccination will be confirmed as part of the registration check. Boosters are not required, but strongly encouraged if you're eligible.

What forms of proof of vaccination are accepted?

We will accept original vaccination cards, digital or physical photographs or photocopies of vaccination cards (front and back, all details readable), or electronic documentation provided by your country of origin, including print-outs of such documentation. This documentation should be provided in person at the registration desk on site. It needs to contain information about the date of vaccination and the type of vaccine, and needs to be identifiable as belonging to you (i.e. be in your name).

If your documentation is not in English or if you are worried about any other issues regarding the acceptability of your documentation, please contact us at vidukon@gmail.com to discuss details.

What if the name on my ID and the name on my vaccination card don’t match?

We will accommodate this on a case-by-case basis; please contact us at vidukon@gmail.com.

I can’t be vaccinated for a medical reason. What should I do?

At this time, VidUKon requires all in-person members to be vaccinated without exception. If you cannot be vaccinated, please consider attending virtually, which does not require you to be vaccinated or show proof of vaccination.

I'm vaccinated, but my child/friend/partner/family member that I'm bringing along isn't. What should I do?

If you are planning to bring along friends or family to enter con spaces, please make sure to provide proof of vaccination for all people present, including children. Children who are too young to be vaccinated against COVID-19 will unfortunately not be allowed to enter con spaces at the 2025 event. They may enter the hotel lobby or other spaces in the Future Inn that are not con spaces, though.

Testing

If you attend VidUKon in person, you are required to test yourself once a day before you enter con spaces, using a rapid test. VidUKon 2025 encourages in-person attendees to bring their own rapid tests if possible. The con will also provide rapid tests on site.

Please also test before beginning your journey to Bristol. If PCR tests are easy and affordable to come by where you live, we encourage you to get a PCR test done before you travel. If you cannot easily get a PCR test, a rapid test will suffice.

If you have any questions or doubts about the testing requirements, please contact us at vidukon@gmail.com

Can I get rapid tests for free?

Not anymore :(

Do I need to provide proof of my daily rapid test result?

No, we may give reminders about testing but we will be trusting everyone to test appropriately over the weekend.

What do I do if my rapid test result is positive?

If your rapid test shows a positive result, you will unfortunately be unable to continue participating in VidUKon 2025 in person. You are encouraged to switch to virtual participation. Possibility of refunds in a case like this will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

What should I do if I'm having symptoms?

If you experience symptoms that might be a sign of a COVID-19 infection, please test yourself using a rapid test. If the test result is positive, you will unfortunately be unable to continue participating in VidUKon 2025 in person (see above). If the test result is negative, please use your best judgment to decide whether or not to continue participating in person, keeping in mind that depending on viral load, rapid tests may not be 100% accurate. You always have the option to switch to virtual participation, and also switch back whenever you feel safe participating in person again. Possibility of refunds will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Do I need a PCR test to attend the con in person?

No, a rapid test is sufficient. However, if you can easily get a PCR test done, we encourage you to take one before you travel to Cardiff.

Masks

VidUKon 2025 continues to require all in-person attendees to be wearing a mask in con spaces at all times, except while actively eating or drinking.

What counts as a mask?

A mask should completely cover your nose and mouth with material that can effectively filter droplets and aerosolized particles. It should fit snugly against the sides of your face without gaps. Nose wires are recommended to improve fit, and multiple layers are generally more effective. Face shields are not an acceptable alternative to masks, although they can be worn in addition to masks if you desire.

I can’t wear a mask for a medical reason. What should I do?

We generally accommodate medical exemptions to masks but would like to evaluate on a case-by-case basis, so please contact us at vidukon@gmail.com

What counts as a con space?

A con space is any area reserved for con attendees, such as the conference rooms reserved for VidUKon. The hotel lobby is not a con space, neither is the hotel restaurant.

What are the rules in spaces that are not con spaces?

There are no specific masking rules in place anymore in spaces that are not con spaces. We encourage you to use your best judgment regarding masking in those spaces.

Are there going to be designated areas for eating and drinking or is it allowed anywhere?

At this time, VidUKon is not planning to set up designated areas for eating and drinking. We ask attendees to try to keep their masks on at all times and be courteous and considerate regarding the exception for eating and drinking.

Local Regulations and Travel

The above-described guidelines reflect the level of safety VidUKon will aim to provide for in-person attendees. Select guidelines may change or additional ones may be added as the con approaches. In the unlikely case of significant changes, you will hear about them in the regular pre-con communications we send out.

If you are attending the con from abroad, please make sure to check all applicable regulations for your travel route.

[judeonfilm]

Some men attending a Last Dinner Party gig felt unwelcome due to venue security - a reflection on the treatment of non-men fans

Currently on the UK leg of the tour for their debut studio album, The Last Dinner Party received backlash about the treatment of some fans at a concert. This Saturday, September 28th, the band made up of women and non-binary people was due to perform in Lincoln. However, some men who went to the concert alone have spoken out on the internet about their experience. One man wrote that on arriving at the venue, he was "funnelled into a dark corner with other men, told I might be a pervert cus I’m alone and then taken into a room alone with a security guard where I was interrogated and searched. Feel sick." Another man wrote : "I rocked up there tonight at 8:45 on my own, no queue, I got asked how long I had liked them for, and to name my favourite song." They clearly did not deserve to have their evening ruined by an unjustified discriminatory act.

The venue has since apologised, announcing that the over-reaction was due to a change in security policies after being informed of incidents at previous gigs by the band. As much as these actions were well-intentioned -to protect other fans- their executions were clearly awkward and counterproductive. The Last Dinner Party clarified that they had not been informed of this change in security policies. Indeed, the band posted a statement on their social media, saying "Our shows are intended to be safe, welcoming spaces for everyone, which is something we deeply care about. Seeing inclusivity embraced by our fanbase is one of the best parts of performing live." They added that "everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend our shows" and that they were "appalled and disappointed that anyone was made to feel otherwise."

TLDP's audience is largely young, queer, feminine -people that are frequently victims of stereotypes, discriminations, and insecurities. I can confidently say that every person of colour, every woman, every queer and transgender person has already felt condescended to, unsafe, and unwelcome at concerts. Just because you don't belong to the stereotypical default audience (usually a majority of white male fans, for example Metallica's), you are asked to prove you deserve to be there, to prove your knowledge on the artists (how many times have you been asked to "name three songs"?).

For me, this treatment is directly linked to the image of the ‘fangirl’, a misogynistic term used to ridicule and exaggerate a category of audience. It is a magnifying glass on the misogyny suffered by women in the wider world. I won't go into too much detail on the subject (or I'll be at it for hours), but there's still too much discrimination against women and minority groups in the pit, as much as on stage, and behind the stage.

Obviously, these men did not deserve such discriminatory treatment. But I can't help thinking about the irony of it all: a man has felt the absurd condescension that non-men fans are regularly subjected to, and his story makes the news...