Do Not Let Governments Censor You

 As I am typing this, there is an international effort to gain control of the internet and put you and your loved ones in danger. Many countries are passing laws to force websites to require you to give them your ID, else restrict or ban you from accessing their services. The United Kingdom is not the only victim to this tragedy. It is coming to the United States. It is coming to Europe. It is coming to Australia.

It is coming to you.

Our rights are being actively threatened and attacked, rendering us with no choice but to give our private information to random companies where they can be easily stolen and tracked. And no, they will not listen to their citizens. As individuals, there is not too much we can do about it, but there are still plenty of actions we can take.

Use Alternative Platforms

There are so many platforms out there on the internet. We are not stuck to Meta, Youtube, X, or any other major platform company. We have indieweb platforms, the Fediverse, Open-source platforms, The Onion Router, and so many other ways we can share our creations and communicate.

Keep in mind that many of these spaces are less moderated, so you will likely come across disturbing content and malware when stepping away from major platforms. The internet is still very much a Wild West, you just never stepped out of the small commercialized version.

Download Everything

Download anything and everything that you like. Don’t let the government and these companies take art away from you nor the rest of society. Taking away your access to them is just the first step. Disappearing art is the next step. Either it be banning, deleting, or even book burnings. Make it difficult for them to make art disappear. Make it expensive, inconvenient, and more trouble than they would find worth their time and money.

The only way to do this is by everyone downloading everything en masse. After all, it is easier to destroy one hundred copies than it is to destroy billions.

Artists! Have legitimate ways for people to download and archive your art! It is only piracy if you let it be!

Go Old School

Go to the library for information, market with cheap methods such as handing out flyers. When push comes to shove, go offline and do whatever it is people have done before they got on the internet. No, it will not be easy, but neither is life under worldwide tyranny.

Do Not Comply

But no matter what happens, do not comply. If the governments want to play these childish games, then prove you are an adult by not playing at all. These are games that you lose by playing, and you will always lose. Do not give these companies your traffic, your time, or your money. Stay away from them even after you start seeing results. Yes, you will lose contact with people that you care about. However, you can always find more people. You can’t find a new identity. When a data breach happens and your ID gets nabbed, you are permanently fucked.