"I am seeing a tool that’s going to be used for censorship... It’s going to be used to remove books from that are about queerness or sexuality or race or history. But institutions are going to buy this product because they have a mandate from state legislatures to do this”

Russia says it will mandate age and identity verification for every internet user, claiming its necessary to protect children and purge bots. Every internet user will be registered with a specific identifier that will allow or deny access to certain materials. And, of course, track them.

A Tennessee county is temporarily shutting down two of it libraries, ostensibly so that it can purge them of LGBTQ+ books without public oversight.

Wait so you're telling me there's a potential perjury charge? Call back the grand jury.

Sometimes I really wonder if they'd label this "adult content" if it were posted by a non-sx worker. Like, this is a pic of me in unicorn shorts. Is it the pose? If I were a different gender, could I wear less? Am I overthinking this? I'm just thinking about who gets sexualized and who doesn't.

Remember the #FreeTheNipple movement? An artifact of a more optimistic time, do you think it’s still relevant and that topless equality is worth fighting for? As “problematic” and naive as some of the activism of a decade ago could be, I do. I’ll say more on this soon in @theflytrapmedia.com

The FBI has subpoenaed the domain registrar of archive.today, demanding information about the owner.

“Whenever laws are passed about sexual content, queer people are almost always collateral damage.. We lose spaces where we can talk openly and safely about what turns us on, what keeps us safe, and how we navigate intimacy in a society that’s still learning what consent means."

Truly sick shit to brag about how much weight americans will lose when people can't afford food and snap is cut

Good thing we didn't elevate the one of the heads of Heritage to a major government position. Oh wait.

Hmmm. At the same time that there’s a booming for-profit push to require users to submit biometrics everywhere from porn sites to Roblox. You don’t say?

If you can’t say something nice, come sit next to me.

I have been waiting for the politician who would bring me the F word, as the prophecy foretold.

The UK report behind the new porn ban blames it for being a major cause of violence against women, yet can't cite a single academic study showing a link. Their proof? "Anecdotal evidence submitted to this review” with a single footnote to a BBC interview with a quote from a school teacher.

KOSA UPDATE: House lawmakers are considering removing duty of care & KOSA is currently in limbo since the House & Senate versions will differ. BUT the threat of Bad Internet Bills still looms as the House considers age verification in new kids safety package... www.theverge.com/policy/81087...

The @metrotimes.com does it again: catching a "traditional family values" legislator, one who tried to strip trans people of civil rights, with accounts on hook-up sites. A tip for conservative legislators: stop trying to police other people's sex lives in an attempt to distract from yours.

“Facial recognition is unlike any other form of surveillance. It enables automated and ubiquitous monitoring of an entire population, and it is nearly impossible to avoid. If we don’t stop it, it will be used not to keep us safe, but to control and oppress us.”

How it felt waking up this morning after a year of abject pundit horror stories.

Maybe dumping poop on voters from an airplane is not a surefire electoral strategy

Earle-Sears ran what felt like 12 billion ads about how much she hated trans kids and I didn’t hear a single pundit say she should stick to real issues that affect real people.

Lolllllollll

British MPs rolled out details on their ill-defined "strangulation" censorship law, saying that mere *possession* of consensually produced content, even a private video made with your partner, would carry a two year prison sentence.

"The law’s definition of 'sexual conduct' and 'nudity' could allow anyone to sue one of the plaintiff schools for using the textbooks it has relied on in its science, humanities and health education courses... the law’s definition of 'sexual conduct' includes 'any act of … homosexuality.'"

UK legislators are moving to criminalize the distribution or possession of "strangulation" porn and hoo-ey there are about a thousand things that can go wrong with this. An amendment will be added to the Crime and Policing Bill this week.

There are lots of bad age-verification strategies, but Italy's is ...🤌 Agcom produced a list of 48 adult sites that need to comply, compiled seemingly at random. Some are well-known, most are not. A handful of big sites, but most competitors (to their joy, I'm sure) are left off. Mind-boggling.

Queer art isn't illegal. But lawmakers in Oklahoma believe that if they make the criminal liability threatening enough, event spaces, permit boards, municipal clerks and protest organizers will treat it as if it is — and do the censorship for them.

The Heritage Foundation president is openly calling for the arrest, prosecution and conviction of people who work in the adult industry. No actual crime alleged — adult speech is still legal — just vague societal harms that demand detention.

Whenever I meet a "feminist" who wants to abolish sex work, I instantly know I'm talking with an unserious person who is not willing to do the work. Let's imagine, for the sake of the argument, that they were right and all sex workers were trafficking victims who wanted to leave sex work. 🧵

Yes, I want my tax dollars going to feed and house people. Those are some of the best uses of my tax dollars, in fact.

The number of visitors to Pornhub have dropped 77% as the UK's censorship campaign takes huge toll — not just on adult sites, but on the rights of Britons to access the internet anonymously. The government was warned this would happen and they didn't care.

For fuck's sake. The lawmakers behind Oklahoma's new "public obscenity" law seem to be asking for the power of prior restraint — that local cops can block an LGBTQ+ event before it happens because they believe it might be obscene. Which is not how obscenity works, but it is how censorship does.

Following the botched rollout of the Online Safety Act, UK legislators says they may intensify restrictions on the internet to compensate for its shortcomings. "Nothing is off the table when it comes to keeping children safe" Nothing?

‼️ ICYMI: Amazon Ring announced a partnership with the notorious surveillance tech company Flock, which was recently exposed for secretly sharing camera data w/ ICE & law enforcement investigating people who travel for abortion care.

Remind me again, where does the king get his money.

Librarians in Arkansas are being instructed to hide over 50 books with LGBTQ+ content, as a new law makes it a crime for them to allow students to access to "material harmful to minors."

"Big Tech giants don’t care about keeping kids safe or protecting LGBTQ+ rights to free expression. They care about making money. If given the choice between fighting expensive lawsuits and policing speech the way Trump wants them to, we can anticipate what they’ll do."

Ohio legislators are advancing HB 249, a bill that criminalizes drag performances unless they're in a strip club or adult theater. Proponents say drag is obscene and should only be allowed "behind closed doors." But it goes far beyond drag and closed doors. www.nbc4i.com/news/politic...

Remember that the predominant form of age verification for porn sites — the new mandates passed in nearly every red state in the past few years — is a facial scan coupled with government ID.

“We’re fucking around with fascism in America. They don’t want to see this kind of art being made... That’s why communities really matter, getting off Instagram and showing up in person really matters.”

Can't help but laugh at all the conservatives fawning over James Dobson, who described marriage as a form of sex work, in which women provide services to their husband in exchange for living expenses and security.

Only one of top 20 adult sites is complying with the age-verification law in Ohio, which Pornhub claims exempts "interactive computer services," a term commonly used to refer to ... websites. Lawmakers are digging in, saying they disagree with the definition they included in their law.

The UK has surpassed US in VPN use. Just a few months into the disastrous roll-out of the Online Safety Act, the UK the number one G7 nation for VPN downloads and one of the fastest growing VPN markets in the world. It's competitors? Repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Singapore.

Perhaps due to increasing pressure from lawmakers targeting VPNs, NordVPN has rolled out a porn-block for VPN users who want to disable access to adult sites. The tech to block adult sites exists on every device and nearly every wifi connection already — and people still throw up their hands.

"winning elections" is like "writing a book" or "making art" in that everyone wants to find that one easy shortcut, and the only answer is doing the hard, painstaking, day-to-day work on the ground (or sitting in the chair)

Just got back from a meeting with some New York legislators and it was one of the best ones I’ve had in years. They know the issues, they’re not afraid to roll up their sleeves and they care more about solutions than politics. 11/10

Just saw @lillywachowski.bsky.social donate to a gofundme to keep a SWer housed in case you want to know what real allyship is like. The Wachowskis are the real deal. Throughout my time in the sex industry have been impressed by their willingness to engage and listen — and their sense of joy.

RFK Jr. Jr. hopping on a bike with a net and a fork.

Guys we need KOSA because the internet is made of demons

“The market for children’s information on the dark web is, unfortunately, booming. The demand is there and digital ID will create one of the largest supplies of children’s data just waiting to be hacked.”

Traffic to Pornhub has fallen by more than 75% in the UK since the introduction of the Online Safety Act, as legal adults have shifted to the thousands non-compliant sites, supercharging the growth of platforms that don't moderate for pirated content, revenge porn and CSAM An unmitigated disaster.