It is absolutely wild to me that at the same time the Online Safety Act is coming in to supposedly "save the children" and basically causing every UK-linked independent community to shut down that we simultaneously have meta at the other end of the scale saying it's perfectly fine, complete with specific examples, to call LGBTQ people "mentally ill" or use slurs against them.
Both of these are at such extremes of the spectrum that the centre ground is no longer in the same universe as either.
@interpipes They're both serving the same purpose, though.
@mhoye @interpipes Yes. Both are ripping access to critical information away from LGBTQ+, questioning, non neurotypical, etc. children. One by deluding them with harassment and driving them towards suicide if they seek out community, and the other by simply deleting community.
@dalias @mhoye @interpipes There need to be huge backlash to this.
@TheVampireFishQueen @dalias @mhoye @interpipes for years I was a moderator on one of the worlds most popular rave, lifestyle and drugs harm reduction advice forums - but from 2010s onwards it was widely blocked to <18 users by all UK ISPs and mobile providers on "family friendly" settings - we lost about 80% of traffic from young people (and a whole new generation is getting the same health problems from ketamine use that Gen X/Y did, as they didn't see the harm reduction info)
@vfrmedia @dalias @mhoye @interpipes Did you guys try to contact the ISP and mobile providers about that?
@TheVampireFishQueen @dalias @mhoye @interpipes alas, it would have 0 effect, one of the blocking categories is "drugs use" and there was plenty of it mentioned on the forums - even the official govt harm reduction websites are often blocked by these filters. The argument the ISPs give is the parents are often paying for the mobile or internet connection (which unfortunately even bites young adults in the arse if they have to move back home to their old family house)
@TheVampireFishQueen @vfrmedia @dalias @mhoye the largest ISPs are basically obliged (they were told “do it or we’ll make you”) to “protect the children” with on-by-default content filtering. Drug related content unfortunately falls squarely under “adult content”, the categorisation will have been correct, even if the harm of blocking not understood.
Smaller providers such ourselves were not included, but most people shop for broadband on price
@interpipes @vfrmedia @dalias @mhoye Thing is the Internet filters have failed hard and have done more damage then good.