First Amendment rodeo clown. Policy Director at Free Speech Coalition, co-founder SWR Data, among other things. Personal account, all outrage / nonsense here is my own.
9,056 followers 721 following 2,384 posts
view profile on Bluesky 
Corn Telethon is only two days away!!!! I’m SO EXCITED! 💛 like if you’ll be watching ♻️ repost if you’ll be donating 🗣️ quote repost if you’re one of the almost 100 people participating! This Thursday, September 4th, 9am-9pm Pacific (12pm-12am Eastern) corntelethon.com for more info! 🌽☎️ 🌽☎️ 🌽☎️
Keir Starmer’s new director of communications isn’t just the founder of Portland Communications – which represented Qatar, Russia and Kazakhstan – he’s also come straight from the board of the anti-trans charity Sex Matters. The government is heading in a dark direction.
It’s about punishing the industry (tech, sex) not regulating it. It didn’t matter that it wouldn’t work and wouldn’t protect kids. Legislative hearings were often vitriolic and wild. It was always, always about censorship.
We warned legislators and regulators this would happen. We showed them data on consumer non-compliance and the surge in VPNs and pirate sites. They knew this would happen didn’t care.
If you live in Canada and believe you're immune from an Orwelian future, please be aware that the Edmonton School District just banned 200 books, including six of mine, from its school libraries.
Because some people haven't heard it yet: PAYPAL IS NOT A BANK, DO NOT LEAVE MORE THAN A COUPLE HUNDRED DOLLARS SITTING IN YOUR ACCOUNT AT ANY TIME. MOVE IT TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY. Paypal can and will close your account and steal all your money without warning. And have done MANY times.
Credit cards are not asking for this. Countries are not asking for this. While certain types of content have been attacked by right-wing censors, they're just calling for it to be banned. Compliance in advance. x.com/ManyVids/sta...
Adult site ManyVids appears to be instituting a 21+ age-verification level for certain categories of content and calling it "Adult Industry 2.0" and "evolution." No clarity on what versions of sexuality count as "21+" or which creators would be relegated there. No clue why this is being pushed.
OnlyFans revenue growth appears to have slowed substantially last year. Last year, they reported nearly 20% YoY increase in revenue. This year, less than half that — 9%. I'd guess that age-verification — which OF came out in support of in the UK early on — is at least a part of this drag.
The Mississippi law requires social media age-verification — in addition to porn. The state argued that the precedent set in FSC v. Paxton gives it the power to require AV for just about anything online that a minor might see. So many people thought a law about “porn” wouldn’t affect them.
Idk if its people being stupid or just plain disingenuous but the idea that sex workers don't count as experts of their own lived experiences if they don't have degrees in sociology or anthropology or whatever is goofy ass take You don't need a degree to tell your own damn story! You were there!
this is why adult creators are really emphasizing that non-creators be the ones who contact paypal. Of all the paypros, PP is the most likely to act in a retaliatory manner towards individual accounts. If you dont make adult content or youre just a commissioner, you are able to help a LOT
Don’t forget the flood of state-level age-verification laws.
The issues around kids and social media and phones are complicated but what’s simple is that fascists at every level of government have clearly stated that they want to prevent the existence of trans and queer kids and trans and queer adults by limiting their access to the internet
I think my general sense was that, aside from the enforcement, that it's a vibe shift at regulatory agencies away from "when in doubt, debank" to "there's legal liability for debanking lawful industries." I think there are lots of reasons to be wary, on many fronts, but it is a start.
Miller complaining about protestors-- "respectable" old white ones, no less!-- is a strong sign that 1) they are scared of protest; 2) protests are happening; and 3) they are having an impact, even if the media refuses to cover them.
Imagine if we proposed closing churches to protect kids from predators.
When I say restricting social media for kids (and, simultaneously, adults) is the fascist playbook I’m not using a metaphor. What I mean is that they wrote a playbook and this is in it
Ive seen a lot but still shocking to see the glee of UK censors openly celebrating their success in stopping adults … from masturbating. The repression is the point. www.the-independent.com/voices/porn-...
Bostock is being whittled away right in front of our eyes. The federal government can't outright fire trans people outside of the military but they can make the conditions so bad as to constructively fire all trans employees by removing healthcare coverage and enforcing bathroom and pronoun bans.
Australia's age-verification regulation appears to be unravelling. Members of a government committee claim AV companies are wildly overstating the accuracy of their tech and unwilling or unable to prove they're deleting personal information post- verification. Several members have quit in protest.
Civil rights advocates raised the dangerous consequences of age-verification — LOUDLY AND REPEATEDLY — at every juncture. The VPNs, the shift to pirate sites, increased porn on social. They were ignored. Rather than admit they were wrong, the UK government is doubling down and blaming VPNs.
VPNs aren’t the problem. Terrible legislation is the problem.
"This is never job done" "Bold change of this scale is not always easy nor comfortable." "The Online Safety Act is not the end of that fight but the beginning ... No one can reasonably argue against keeping children safe online" They see the OSA as an unending mandate.
UK Commissioner says that the 50% drop in traffic to Pornhub following the roll out of the Online Safety Act is a sign that "their mission is on target." Would she say that if traffic to Twitter had dropped 50%? No, because we'd all agree that was government censorship This isn't about kids.
“But if platforms deliberately push workarounds, like VPNs, to children, they face tough enforcement and heavy fines. We will not allow corporate interests to come before child safety" Translation: "We're also going to require age-verification to see ads or information on VPNs"
JFC. "No plans to ban VPNs" in the UK is shocking to hear out of a government official. Not only does it leave open the door to ban VPNs in the future, but it distracts from their real proposal: to require adults to submit to facial scans and other verification to even access a VPN. Dystopian.
Gotta age verify porn sites. Oh no! Now we gotta age verify VPNs that let people on porn sites. Oh no! Now we gotta age verify the devices that let people on VPNs. Oh no! Now we gotta age verify entry to the houses with the devices that let people on VPNs that let people on the porn sites!
Half of U.S. states now require adult sites to implement age verification — with laws that are confusing, inconsistent, and often impossible to follow. Today we launched a toolkit to help the industry navigate this patchwork of mandates. 🔗 freespeechcoalition.com/toolkit
Remember that the right believes drag is pornography, which is their pretext for banning. Defend porn.
Red Umbrellas set to stun.
Cuomo arguing the sex worker rights are so threatening to order that Trump would have to bring in the national guard, ostensibly to quell the revolting prostitutes. To the barricades!!
It’s not like they weren’t warned. When you make it difficult for adults to look at porn on actual porn sites, they start going to non-porn sites — social media, messaging apps — to look for it. Which creates and incentive for people to share it there. It’s a predictable cycle.
More kids are seeing porn now than before the Online Safety Act became law. It’s literally having the opposite effect. The major cause? X. The vast majority of minors saw porn, far outstripping actual porn sites. So of course, the UK government wants to double down with more censorship.
"Imagine a Wyomingite stumbling across an NSFW subreddit and deciding it violates the law. If they were a parent of a minor, that resident could sue the platform, potentially forcing those websites to geo-block access to the entire state in order to avoid the cost and risk of litigation."
Found an earlier op-ed that might help explain it
I will give him credit for perhaps the creepiest antiporn argument, which seems to suggest that since the Lord made us in His image, we're really masturbating to ... Him. I'm not sure I entirely follow as we'd also be having sex with Him in a goodly Christian marriage but alright.
OK Sen. Dusty Deevers says the state level laws aren't effective at protecting kids — which is something everyone tried to tell him for years — so the US now has no choice but to OUTLAW PORN COMPLETELY ... "for the survival of our Republic" This is going to work great.
"Censorship begets censorship ... We've reached the dystopian stage of the internet." This piece is a vital accounting of how we got where we are and where it's going if more people don't push back against what @ericgoldman.bsky.social calls age-verification's "segregate-and-suppress" laws.
Just 14% of adults say they'd be willing to verify to look at porn. Making accessing information or entertainment so frightening that no one doesn't isn't safety, it's censorship. www.yahoo.com/news/article...
The numbers out of the UK on age-verification are devastatingly bad. A quarter of Britons are already using a VPN. And 22% have downloaded or considered a VPN since the OSA went into effect. 60% say it will increase government censorship. More than half say its making children less safe.
why is every new LA apartment complex named "The Lenore" and why is all "ground level retail" always empty except for a single friendless Calif Chicken Cafe
I am once again asking social media companies to knock it off with the privacy nightmares that no one asked for: instagram locations edition.
It's not what they saw in porn that's the problem. It's what they saw in seminary.
"Yes, please make it so that we're isolated legally." The porn industry didn't lobby for these provisions. It's an exemption that pretty much only serves insulate tech platforms like X and Reddit — platforms carry adult content but want to shift the moral panic elsewhere.
I can't stress enough how little the politicians who write age-verification bills know about the internet or law. Wyoming claims "the porn industry lobbied heavily" for a provision that counterproductively made us the main target of the law — besides the fact that we never even lobbied in WI.
"Age verification mandates should also be seen as a labor rights issue. By forcing privacy-invasive hurdles onto the consumer side, these laws effectively shut down the market for legal adult work, undermining the economic stability of performers"
Pastors living "in constant fear of their sinful addiction being exposed" while simultaneously campaigning for government-mandated surveillance to expose it is some industrial-grade religious kink. www.christianpost.com/news/pornhub...
Hey, do you live in Washington State and have been affected by the Visa and MasterCard porn censorship bans? Please get in touch with me! I have an in-person meeting with State Senator Alvarado coming up about this topic and I would love to bring stories from people who've been directly harmed!
Gamers should understand that the deplatforming we're seeing on Itch and Steam are only the first step. Payment processors are the weakest link so that's what censors go after first.
The state's evidence includes a screenshot of a lego stripchat club and a chat log where someone says "I bet you cum to hello kitty"
Louisiana's AG is suing Roblox for failure to age-verify, mirroring the same attacks we've seen in conservative states over adult sites. It was never going to stop with porn. Literally anything a kid can access will require state-mandated identity and surveillance.
like the kind made by Santorum
@mikestabile.bsky.social can you please share?
Who's talking about censorship issues on #booktok? I feel like gamers and furries and librarians have been dialed in for sometime but I get the feeling that authors and readers don't realize what's coming.
And trust me, if they get their way, they'll be demanding your first born (forced birth) next.
There's much in this article that's worth reading — note the Heritage Foundation openly boasting about ending this "odious" industry — but the lede where @angelelatham.bsky.social compares age-verifiers to fairly tail bridge trolls might be the single best AV intro I've ever read.
“Once the door has been opened for regulating one type of content that door is cracked open for any other kinds of content that the government wants to touch." — @jmiers230.bsky.social
“Anyone who believed that government censorship of internet speech would stop with adult content was profoundly naïve. Had the mainstream tech industry taken the threat against us seriously rather than argue that our speech was less worthy of protection, we might not be in this situation.”
Every day, more of us become vulnerable to prosecution or litigation under US censorship laws. While we fight, it's also essential that we protect ourselves. FSC has a guide to help platforms and creators navigate the age-verification landscape. www.freespeechcoalition.com/toolkit
Florida isn't even pretending at this point. A memoir about gender transition is being flagged as porn by legislators. No offending passages, just mere existence is "propaganda" and grooming. Florida is approaching Putin levels of state media censorship. www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/08/12/o...
Kavanaugh writing that it's "likely unconstitutional" but can go into effect anyway is emblematic of where we are. "We believe that shutting down the free press is likely unconstitutional, but we'll allow it for now." bsky.app/profile/chri...
This is not a definitive ruling on the issue, but they declined to enjoin the law while it works its way through the courts. But the rapidity with which adults are losing access to privacy online — at the behest of the government — is staggering.
The Supreme Court says Mississippi can force people who use platforms like Instagram, X, Bluesky and Reddit to scan their face or otherwise prove who they are to access content on those platforms. Just a few weeks ago, we were told that would only ever apply to "porn."
VPNs absolutely dominating the App charts in the UK following the disastrous Online Safety Act. www.digitec.ch/en/page/onli...
Because you can’t have an ascendant Christian Nationalist movement without a satanic panic.
Musk learning into adult content at the same time as South Dakota enacts a law allowing the Attorney General to arrest him for it. 🍿
I think we found our new fed chair
But Florida's AG has already stated that he's defining "harmful to minors" incredibly broadly, and is effectively pressuring schools to remove books using the Miller standard — even though it's ludicrous. And remember: everything they're doing to schools they'll do to bookstores and the internet.
HB1069, the law that was struck down, used vague terms like "sexual conduct or "pornography" to justify the removal of books. The judge in this case knocked those out as too vague. As a result, the standard reverts back to the Miller Test (as applied to minors) — "material harmful to minors"
A district court judge has struck down a 2023 Florida law effectively banned on books with "sexual content" in schools. An unqualified and important win for free speech. Unfortunately, I fear Florida's AG may have already moved the goalposts to allow censorship to continue
The moment a woman is released from incarceration is supposed to mark a new beginning. But for many, especially those with untreated health conditions, trauma, or chronic illnesses, reentry is more like walking off a cliff with no net below.
This is what happens when you take away due process. No evidence. No trial. Just seizure and shackles.
BREAKING: Federal court blocks and limits most of Florida law targeting school library books. The only constitutional application is its "harmful to minors" provision, which limits obscene material that had already been banned from school libraries. More to come at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com
Payment processors are now holding games — works of fiction involving no actual human — to the same standards as actual filmed adult content. How long before this is applied to books, or Hollywood movies? Push, a book that deals with incest, is not actual incest. itch.io/docs/creator...
"The games purge also serves as yet another example of the way payment processors have become weaponized by both governments and activists, since they can serve as a means of suppressing speech without having to resort to more unconstitutional or objectionable methods."
yup
This is a feature, not a bug. Adults don't want to scan their face or upload an ID every time they go to access sex-related content. www.bbc.com/news/article...
My post about the dildos getting thrown at WNBA players got flagged by sex censors so I made a few modifications to get it past security.
Both laws are unique in ways that may limit immediate threats. SD has a notice and cure provision; Wyoming's is limited to material that is "obscene", though as we've seen in libraries these are fungible terms among conservative activists. But it's a sign of what's to come.
The South Dakota law includes criminal penalties for site owners who refuse to comply, suggesting that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Gab's Andrew Torba could be arrested in South Dakota if they refuse to comply. That's not to say that enforcement won't be arbitrary or asymmetrical.
US age-verification requirements are now going far beyond "porn." Two of the most recent states to enact legislation require face scans or other verification measures for *any* site with *any* amount of "material harmful to minors" — including Amazon, Reddit, Discord, Twitter and Netflix.
“What is your basis for saying she puts roast beef in her pockets and in her pants?” I don’t even know where to begin. You just have to read these two pages.
Platforms aren't over-censoring to sink your lousy bill. They're over-censoring because the bill is vague, the penalties massive and compliance is a logistical nightmare. This happens every time the government gets into the censorship game. EVERY DAMN TIME. And it will continue to happen.
How bad is the Online Safety Act roll out going? UK officials have started spreading rumors that it's the internet's fault — accusing sites like Reddit and Twitter of purposely overcensoring to undermine the unpopular censorship law. That's Trump-firing-economist-for-reporting-bad-numbers bad.
Seen a couple of these headlines. The bill hasn't moved, so far as I can tell. It was assigned to a committee back in May when it was introduced. From what I can gather, a British journalist looking at the bill read the date 05/08/2025 as "Aug 5" rather than the US order, "May 8."
Remember that the Closing of the American Internet didn't start with YouTube. It started with Pornhub. You just believed them when they said it would stop there.
Age-verification protocols are driving away half of all visitors to major adult websites in the UK, just as intended. www.ft.com/content/618f...
think i found some material 'harmful to minors'
“Losing anonymous internet access means giving companies and government agencies more power to track our activities online, transforming the American conception of the open internet into something reminiscent of the centralized tracking systems we’ve long opposed in China and similar countries.”
Yes, it’s really annoying for him to have to look at poor people while driving from his gold-plated office to his golf course, so he’s having them removed from his sight line
I wishnincoupd say that sex workers haven’t been warning folks that all these bills guided as “protecting kids” were actually ways to control access to data and information, but people ignored us because it was only happening to slores and pervs.
Multiple men have impersonated ICE agents to assault women & @demwomencaucus.bsky.social is demanding action. “People cannot tell the difference between a real agent & a criminal & that makes everyone less safe – especially immigrant women who are the most vulnerable," @velazquez.house.gov told me.
Wikipedia has lost its lawsuit against the Online Safety Act, meaning it could have to verify the identity of every contributor/editor on the site, or consider ceasing or drastically restricting operations in the UK. www.bbc.com/news/article...
"When porn creators move from one platform to another, they bring their communities with them, creating an influx of traffic that would please anyone. Later on, after capitalizing on maximizing viewer eyeballs, sites dispose of a now-troublesome vestige of their early success."
I’m starting to think this isn’t sustainable
Blink twice if you are being paid to write this.
