Online Safety - Tumblr Posts
Ways You Should Know to Stop Apps from Running in Background
If you use Windows 11, you can choose to disable some certain apps to run in background. Which means they will not be able to perform any tasks when you are not actively using them, thus saving battery and system resources.
Which Windows 11 apps can be chosen to stop running in background
In Windows systems, apps that can run in the background have the ability to keep sending and receiving notifications, syncing information, and staying up to date, even when you are not actively in these apps’ windows, which are commonly called Background Apps. These apps usually do not have a direct UI (user interface). Once deployed and configured, they launch automatically at startup and run continuously.
Some apps from the Microsoft Store can run in background. For example, Communications apps, like WhatsApp, Slack, or Microsoft Teams; News and Weather apps. If you find an app using a lot of battery when running in background or you do not need an app which is not crucial for the system at all , you can choose to disable its background permissions on your Windows 11 with the 4 methods in this article. By disabling background apps, you can reduce system resource usage and improve overall performance of your Windows 11.
Method 1. Disable a background app in Settings
You can stop an app from running in background using Windows Settings.
Step 1. Open the Installed apps page in Settings
Step 2. Open Advanced options of the app
Another way to access to the permissions of the background apps page is through the Battery usage. You might also find other apps here rather than those in the page of Installed apps. Below is how to navigate to it:
Windows Settings-System-Power & battery
Step 3. Choose Background apps permissions to Never
Noted: Repeat the above steps to disable multiple background apps. But if you want your Windows 11 to stay connected and get app updates, you must set at least one background app to Always.
Method 2 Disable all background apps in Group Policy Editor
The second way to disable a background app is to use the Group Policy Editor app.
Step 1. Open Group Policy Editor
Step 2. Navigate to App Privacy
Open the following key in Local Group Policy Editor:
Step 3. Disable Let Windows app run in the background
Method 3 Disable all background apps in Registry Editor
If you know Registry Editor well, you can also disable a background app by modifying the value in it. Be careful when using the Registry Editor, or any incorrect changes might cause negative consequences on system stability and functionality. It is recommended to create a backup or system restore point before making any changes in the Registry Editor.
Step 1. Open Registry Editor
Step 2. Navigate to AppPrivacy
Open to the following key in the Registry Editor app:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\AppPrivacy
Step 3. Create a new value in AppPrivacy
Step 4. Set the value to 2
Method 4 Disable a background app with Wise Care 365
Wise Care 365 is an optimization and maintenance software that helps improve the performance and stability of Windows computers. It offers various features such as system cleaning, privacy protection, disk defragmentation, and more. It also includes tools like Startup Manager, Registry Cleaner, and Disk Cleaner to optimize your system.
By using the Startup Manager feature in Wise Care 365, you can easily disable any unwanted background apps. Now free download this useful tool at WiseCleaner.
Step 1. Open System Tuneup tab
Step 2. Find the desired app in Startup Manager
Step 3. Disable the desired app
Once you find the desired app or apps, check the boxes in front of them, and click on the Optimize button.
The 4 methods above can help disable your unwanted background apps and save battery and resources of your Windows computer. To find more source about disabling a background app, please click here.
Bought my uncle a burger and milkshake in exchange for letting me disrupt the holiest day of the week, NFL Sunday Football, so I could install a Pi-hole and free the household of ads...the thing abt the specific boomers I live with is they told me not to trust people on the Internet but they do not understand the algorithm or online advertising and think that Facebook has their best interests at heart. And every time I have tried to explain to them that no, blorbo from my dashboard is not selling my kidneys on the dark web but Google from your capitalism is definitely selling your web searches to every advertising company on the planet, they think I am paranoid. How could their personal friend Mark Zuckerberg want anything bad to happen to them etc. I am fighting battles I did not know existed!!!
How I got scammed
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security
I wuz robbed.
More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!
Here's what happened. Over the Christmas holiday, I traveled to New Orleans. The day we landed, I hit a Chase ATM in the French Quarter for some cash, but the machine declined the transaction. Later in the day, we passed a little credit-union's ATM and I used that one instead (I bank with a one-branch credit union and generally there's no fee to use another CU's ATM).
A couple days later, I got a call from my credit union. It was a weekend, during the holiday, and the guy who called was obviously working for my little CU's after-hours fraud contractor. I'd dealt with these folks before – they service a ton of little credit unions, and generally the call quality isn't great and the staff will often make mistakes like mispronouncing my credit union's name.
That's what happened here – the guy was on a terrible VOIP line and I had to ask him to readjust his mic before I could even understand him. He mispronounced my bank's name and then asked if I'd attempted to spend $1,000 at an Apple Store in NYC that day. No, I said, and groaned inwardly. What a pain in the ass. Obviously, I'd had my ATM card skimmed – either at the Chase ATM (maybe that was why the transaction failed), or at the other credit union's ATM (it had been a very cheap looking system).
I told the guy to block my card and we started going through the tedious business of running through recent transactions, verifying my identity, and so on. It dragged on and on. These were my last hours in New Orleans, and I'd left my family at home and gone out to see some of the pre-Mardi Gras krewe celebrations and get a muffalata, and I could tell that I was going to run out of time before I finished talking to this guy.
"Look," I said, "you've got all my details, you've frozen the card. I gotta go home and meet my family and head to the airport. I'll call you back on the after-hours number once I'm through security, all right?"
He was frustrated, but that was his problem. I hung up, got my sandwich, went to the airport, and we checked in. It was total chaos: an Alaska Air 737 Max had just lost its door-plug in mid-air and every Max in every airline's fleet had been grounded, so the check in was crammed with people trying to rebook. We got through to the gate and I sat down to call the CU's after-hours line. The person on the other end told me that she could only handle lost and stolen cards, not fraud, and given that I'd already frozen the card, I should just drop by the branch on Monday to get a new card.
We flew home, and later the next day, I logged into my account and made a list of all the fraudulent transactions and printed them out, and on Monday morning, I drove to the bank to deal with all the paperwork. The folks at the CU were even more pissed than I was. The fraud that run up to more than $8,000, and if Visa refused to take it out of the merchants where the card had been used, my little credit union would have to eat the loss.
I agreed and commiserated. I also pointed out that their outsource, after-hours fraud center bore some blame here: I'd canceled the card on Saturday but most of the fraud had taken place on Sunday. Something had gone wrong.
One cool thing about banking at a tiny credit-union is that you end up talking to people who have actual authority, responsibility and agency. It turned out the the woman who was processing my fraud paperwork was a VP, and she decided to look into it. A few minutes later she came back and told me that the fraud center had no record of having called me on Saturday.
"That was the fraudster," she said.
Oh, shit. I frantically rewound my conversation, trying to figure out if this could possibly be true. I hadn't given him anything apart from some very anodyne info, like what city I live in (which is in my Wikipedia entry), my date of birth (ditto), and the last four digits of my card.
Wait a sec.
He hadn't asked for the last four digits. He'd asked for the last seven digits. At the time, I'd found that very frustrating, but now – "The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue, right?" I asked the VP.
I'd given him my entire card number.
Goddammit.
The thing is, I know a lot about fraud. I'm writing an entire series of novels about this kind of scam:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle
And most summers, I go to Defcon, and I always go to the "social engineering" competitions where an audience listens as a hacker in a soundproof booth cold-calls merchants (with the owner's permission) and tries to con whoever answers the phone into giving up important information.
But I'd been conned.
Now look, I knew I could be conned. I'd been conned before, 13 years ago, by a Twitter worm that successfully phished out of my password via DM:
https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/
That scam had required a miracle of timing. It started the day before, when I'd reset my phone to factory defaults and reinstalled all my apps. That same day, I'd published two big online features that a lot of people were talking about. The next morning, we were late getting out of the house, so by the time my wife and I dropped the kid at daycare and went to the coffee shop, it had a long line. Rather than wait in line with me, my wife sat down to read a newspaper, and so I pulled out my phone and found a Twitter DM from a friend asking "is this you?" with a URL.
Assuming this was something to do with those articles I'd published the day before, I clicked the link and got prompted for my Twitter login again. This had been happening all day because I'd done that mobile reinstall the day before and all my stored passwords had been wiped. I entered it but the page timed out. By that time, the coffees were ready. We sat and chatted for a bit, then went our own ways.
I was on my way to the office when I checked my phone again. I had a whole string of DMs from other friends. Each one read "is this you?" and had a URL.
Oh, shit, I'd been phished.
If I hadn't reinstalled my mobile OS the day before. If I hadn't published a pair of big articles the day before. If we hadn't been late getting out the door. If we had been a little more late getting out the door (so that I'd have seen the multiple DMs, which would have tipped me off).
There's a name for this in security circles: "Swiss-cheese security." Imagine multiple slices of Swiss cheese all stacked up, the holes in one slice blocked by the slice below it. All the slices move around and every now and again, a hole opens up that goes all the way through the stack. Zap!
The fraudster who tricked me out of my credit card number had Swiss cheese security on his side. Yes, he spoofed my bank's caller ID, but that wouldn't have been enough to fool me if I hadn't been on vacation, having just used a pair of dodgy ATMs, in a hurry and distracted. If the 737 Max disaster hadn't happened that day and I'd had more time at the gate, I'd have called my bank back. If my bank didn't use a slightly crappy outsource/out-of-hours fraud center that I'd already had sub-par experiences with. If, if, if.
The next Friday night, at 5:30PM, the fraudster called me back, pretending to be the bank's after-hours center. He told me my card had been compromised again. But: I hadn't removed my card from my wallet since I'd had it replaced. Also, it was half an hour after the bank closed for the long weekend, a very fraud-friendly time. And when I told him I'd call him back and asked for the after-hours fraud number, he got very threatening and warned me that because I'd now been notified about the fraud that any losses the bank suffered after I hung up the phone without completing the fraud protocol would be billed to me. I hung up on him. He called me back immediately. I hung up on him again and put my phone into do-not-disturb.
The following Tuesday, I called my bank and spoke to their head of risk-management. I went through everything I'd figured out about the fraudsters, and she told me that credit unions across America were being hit by this scam, by fraudsters who somehow knew CU customers' phone numbers and names, and which CU they banked at. This was key: my phone number is a reasonably well-kept secret. You can get it by spending money with Equifax or another nonconsensual doxing giant, but you can't just google it or get it at any of the free services. The fact that the fraudsters knew where I banked, knew my name, and had my phone number had really caused me to let down my guard.
The risk management person and I talked about how the credit union could mitigate this attack: for example, by better-training the after-hours card-loss staff to be on the alert for calls from people who had been contacted about supposed card fraud. We also went through the confusing phone-menu that had funneled me to the wrong department when I called in, and worked through alternate wording for the menu system that would be clearer (this is the best part about banking with a small CU – you can talk directly to the responsible person and have a productive discussion!). I even convinced her to buy a ticket to next summer's Defcon to attend the social engineering competitions.
There's a leak somewhere in the CU systems' supply chain. Maybe it's Zelle, or the small number of corresponding banks that CUs rely on for SWIFT transaction forwarding. Maybe it's even those after-hours fraud/card-loss centers. But all across the USA, CU customers are getting calls with spoofed caller IDs from fraudsters who know their registered phone numbers and where they bank.
I've been mulling this over for most of a month now, and one thing has really been eating at me: the way that AI is going to make this kind of problem much worse.
Not because AI is going to commit fraud, though.
One of the truest things I know about AI is: "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week
I trusted this fraudster specifically because I knew that the outsource, out-of-hours contractors my bank uses have crummy headsets, don't know how to pronounce my bank's name, and have long-ass, tedious, and pointless standardized questionnaires they run through when taking fraud reports. All of this created cover for the fraudster, whose plausibility was enhanced by the rough edges in his pitch - they didn't raise red flags.
As this kind of fraud reporting and fraud contacting is increasingly outsourced to AI, bank customers will be conditioned to dealing with semi-automated systems that make stupid mistakes, force you to repeat yourself, ask you questions they should already know the answers to, and so on. In other words, AI will groom bank customers to be phishing victims.
This is a mistake the finance sector keeps making. 15 years ago, Ben Laurie excoriated the UK banks for their "Verified By Visa" system, which validated credit card transactions by taking users to a third party site and requiring them to re-enter parts of their password there:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090331094020/http://www.links.org/?p=591
This is exactly how a phishing attack works. As Laurie pointed out, this was the banks training their customers to be phished.
I came close to getting phished again today, as it happens. I got back from Berlin on Friday and my suitcase was damaged in transit. I've been dealing with the airline, which means I've really been dealing with their third-party, outsource luggage-damage service. They have a terrible website, their emails are incoherent, and they officiously demand the same information over and over again.
This morning, I got a scam email asking me for more information to complete my damaged luggage claim. It was a terrible email, from a noreply@ email address, and it was vague, officious, and dishearteningly bureaucratic. For just a moment, my finger hovered over the phishing link, and then I looked a little closer.
On any other day, it wouldn't have had a chance. Today – right after I had my luggage wrecked, while I'm still jetlagged, and after days of dealing with my airline's terrible outsource partner – it almost worked.
So much fraud is a Swiss-cheese attack, and while companies can't close all the holes, they can stop creating new ones.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to post about it whenever I get scammed. I find the inner workings of scams to be fascinating, and it's also important to remind people that everyone is vulnerable sometimes, and scammers are willing to try endless variations until an attack lands at just the right place, at just the right time, in just the right way. If you think you can't get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security
Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Skip Google for Research
As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms
As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.
Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.
⁂
Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
The end of online privacy
Now, this isn't something I usually post about from my silly goofy k1nk account, but I have more followers on here than main.
This applies to everyone. If you're reading this? It's going to effect you.
I'm sure perhaps some of you have seen around about a this thing going around... KOSA, is one of the ways it's being referred to.
If this shit passes, lemme tell you...
LGBTQ+ adults and minors seeking help and community,
people looking for abortions,
people organizing protests,
anyone using their free speech to voice concerns about injustices,
even FAN ARTISTS...
Even people reading fan fiction...
And for the purposes of where I'm posting from... people sharing and enjoying their k1nks, wanting to post things with safety and privacy... smut artists and writers, people even LOOKING for smut...
It's all gone. No privacy.
They'll have your face, your name, your age, where you live.
You'll need an ID to use any US-based platform, even if you're NOT in the United States.
Instead of dooming, here's what you can do to stop this shit in it's tracks 👍
Here is a website where you can sign a letter just by filling out a form, (it takes less than 30 seconds) and where you can call reps.
I HIGHLY suggest leaving calls if you're able, and if you have phone shyness, do this after 6pm, since it will leave messages instead.
I'm shy, but I did it!
Here's another letter to sign, takes less than 20 seconds.
Here is a form you can fill out sharing how the social media has POSITIVELY effected you.
Share all of this with as many people as you can. Our safety, freedom, joy, and protection online is at risk more than ever.
(Here is the thread where I found all of this information.)
STAY SAFE!
alright i am sick of yt to mp4 sites being shady and full of viruses and finding websites that seem to be working and then don't work (looking at you y232 (no hate, just frustrated))
so HERE'S HOW YOU DOWNLOAD YOUTUBE VIDEOS WITH VLC!! VLC FREAKIN RULES!!
get your youtube link
open vlc, go to media > open network stream
paste your url in the box and PRESS PLAY!
wait for the video to open then go to tools > codec information
copy the entire file location (click the box, then ctrl-a to select all, then ctrl-c to copy)
paste into your browser of choice (i use firefox)
right click video and press "save video as", choose your file format if you want
DONE! NO VIRUSES OR SKETCHY STUFF!
the quality might be a little crummy but if you don't mind that, then shabam! video on your computer! then you can email it to yourself and have it on your phone too if you want! if you need a guide with pictures wikihow has you covered my friends
happy downloading and stay safe on the internet :D
i hate seeing people now making fun of those who care about privacy online. i've seen people saying things like "well they already have your data. what are companies going to do with it" and it's like, that's not the point. it's that companies /shouldn't/ be able to have my data and sell it. am i aware they probably already have my data? yes, absolutely. but i'm still going to try and keep them from monetizing it any further, why are we defending companies selling data they shouldn't have to begin with though?
how i sleep knowing i will pirate every single thing released on disney plus
resources for staying safe online
always important, but i feel like especially recently. particularly stuff that’s a bit more than just the usual “don’t post personal info”
feel free to share this post on twitter or anywhere else, staying safe is important
justdeleteme.xyz - direct links to delete accounts
how a photo’s hidden exif data exposes your personal information
have i been pwned? - check if your accounts have been compromised in a data breach. CHANGE ANY ACCOUNT THAT USES THE SAME EMAIL AND PASSWORD
online harassment field manual
form for removing personal information from google (for the eu), see also: “remove your personal information from google”
extreme privacy: what it takes to disappear (personal data removal workbook)
filter lists for ublock origin, and more
restore privacy - online privacy resources center
privacytools.io
online spyware watchdog
how secure is your password?
defensive computing checklist
cloudflare dns
non-technical tips on staying anonymous
webrtc leak shield - chrome, firefox
web safety tutorials by the electronic frontier foundation
crash override network - resources for victims of doxing and online harassment
Reminder that the safest way to communicate is using end-to-end encryption (shoutout Signal for being the best option out there) and even then make sure you trust the person you're talking to. No level of encryption can protect you from the other party accidentally outing you.
PSA: never discuss private affairs in your DMs, especially contraception and abortion. Social media moguls will absolutely sell you out to the government. There are already cases of people being charged based on evidence in their DMs.
resources for staying safe online
always important, but i feel like especially recently. particularly stuff that’s a bit more than just the usual “don’t post personal info”
feel free to share this post on twitter or anywhere else, staying safe is important
justdeleteme.xyz - direct links to delete accounts
how a photo’s hidden exif data exposes your personal information
have i been pwned? - check if your accounts have been compromised in a data breach. CHANGE ANY ACCOUNT THAT USES THE SAME EMAIL AND PASSWORD
online harassment field manual
form for removing personal information from google (for the eu), see also: “remove your personal information from google”
extreme privacy: what it takes to disappear (personal data removal workbook)
filter lists for ublock origin, and more
restore privacy - online privacy resources center
privacytools.io
online spyware watchdog
how secure is your password?
defensive computing checklist
cloudflare dns
non-technical tips on staying anonymous
webrtc leak shield - chrome, firefox
web safety tutorials by the electronic frontier foundation
crash override network - resources for victims of doxing and online harassment
“Proshippers are dangerous to children!”
Me, reading “immoral” books since age 11, 16 now, yet to have killed, raped, or tortured anyone:
Children are not put in danger simply by exposure to specific things. In fact, for many things, the sooner we learn them the better. I know a lot of people are going to interpret this in bad faith and the worst possible way, but;
Children actually need to be exposed to things in order to actually understand them and properly learn about them in a safe manner that will set the groundwork for the rest of their life.
I'll use an example that has absolutely nothing to do with sex or anything 'proship.'
The good old 'the dog went to live on a farm' analogy. When I was younger and my pets died my parents always told me that my pets had gone to live with other families who needed hem more. That pets were like Nanny McPhee; they went where they were needed.
This devastated me.
I spent years wondering what I'd done wrong. Why I wasn't good enough. Why my beloved pets had decided I didn't need or love them anymore. Where had they gone? Why had they gone? Did they love their new families more than me?
Literal years spent plagued with torment until I hit a new school year and we learned properly about death in biology. Then I spent weeks feeling betrayed, ridiculed and stupid because my pets hadn't abandoned me for a more deserving family. They'd up and died.
And death is sad, yes. I would've been sad for weeks. Months, maybe. I'd miss them forever. But I understood death. I would've understood and accepted death far quicker than I did the notion that the pets I loved so much had simply up and decided to fuck off one day.
If my parents had been honest with me they could've used my pets' deaths as opportunities for literally so many things. How to understand and deal with grief. How to understand and accept death. How to mourn. How to reminisce. How to manage and process and understand and accept my emotions. How to ask for comfort and self-soothe.
Instead all they taught me was that they thought I was too stupid to understand things and that I could've trust a word they said anymore.
Honestly the overbearing safety net we trap children in only robs them of opportunities to be healthy, functioning, developed adults. Children do not need to be sheltered from the entire world until we suddenly drop-kick them into it at 16 or 18.
I'm not saying we need to start hounding eight year olds about pornography and fictional shipping. But what we do need to do is safely introduce them to the world they live in and give them the tools needed to live in it.
Cyber Safety (thiz cat cyberbulliez)
“everyone go report this post for suicidal idealization right now so that the police can find their IP address and go to their house . you have no excuse not to reblog this and if you ignore it you are a bad person” do you actually know how messed up that wording is ?? I know you are trying to help , but you are both making people with OCD heavily uncomfortable and you could potentially be putting someone’s life at risk . some of us need to vent online because we cannot afford a therapist and we live in abusive households . our abusers would act all sad in front of the police to us dealing with suicidal thoughts , but you don’t want to know how our abusers would react once the police left . it can be heavily dangerous for both minors and even adults . the fact that we can’t even trust people online to keep us and our secrets safe due to a vent post is disheartening . don’t make our safe place into an unsafe place .
“why don’t you contact any of your irl friends or an association that can help you ?” I did . for years in a row . and you know what ? I only wasted my time and energy because a lot of people love to pretend they care , but they won’t even check in your direction when you are hanging between life or death . “just get a job to afford your own house” well , what do you think I am trying to do ? as if getting my own place will actively stop abusers anyway . even if people like me do manage to leave , a whole bunch of us is currently dealing with trauma bonding , which will most likely make us regret leaving and we may go back to our source of pain because the abuse is familiar and our brain doesn’t know what to do or who we are if we are not actively being abused . for the record , most of us are not allowed to go away in the first place .
may I mention , a lot of people will suicide bait you , so please be careful who you put your energy into . there’s people who enjoy themselves when they see you suffering for them , and they will keep the act for as long as you allow them to . if you genuinely feel that someone is lying about suicide , take care of yourself first . I am begging you .
also , tag your stuff correctly . I sometimes forget to tag triggers when reposting something , but I always check later if it’s necessary to tag anything that I might have missed . if I have missed an important tag in a post , let me know . anyway , if you wouldn’t like to accidentally get triggered , well , then don’t do something you know will trigger others on purpose just because you didn’t bother taking five seconds of your time to add a couple of hashtags . I am tired of seeing posts about suicide when I am not in the mood .
Do lawmakers even know how stupid KOSA truly is as a bill, if not dangerous. Think about it: having to give ID containing SENSITIVE INFORMATION (literally against Internet Safety 101) just to go on the internet. Being a minor having to do that is so dangerous and would put them in more danger at the hands of predators.
People who have to use the internet for educational uses will have to go through stupid, unneeded steps just to look up the purpose of the mitochondria!
Trans and Queer youth are in danger. Fandom spaces are in danger. Children, the very group of people that this bullshit bill is claiming to protect, are in DANGER!
The States having full monopoly over the internet is so, so ungodly stupid and dystopian. I can’t imagine being someone not from the States and having to witness all of this.
The bill doesn’t protect kids, it only puts them in more danger.
CALL YOUR REPS! SIGN PETITIONS! KEEP KOSA TRENDING! LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING!
THIS IS AN ISSUE FOR ALL OF US! NOT JUST A SELECTIVE!
SIMILAR BILLS HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE AND BEEN STOPPED THANKS TO THE INTERNET! LET’S DO THAT AGAIN!
STOP KOSA!
Tips for kids online
Pseudonyms! Use them! Even if it’s a nickname, a favorite character’s name, a letter, your username, use a pseudonym. Especially if you have a unique name
Private information is PRIVATE. Last name, age, full birthday. Things that could be used to identify you should not be shared. Remember those “enter anyone’s name and learn everything about them” websites? They aren’t kidding around, and they’re dangerous.
Your house is your business. Don’t share your home address, school name, city, even sharing what state you live in could be risky. There’s no reason for people online to need to know this, there’s no reason for people online to ask for it. This is a red flag
Pictures are worth a thousand words. Take note of what’s in pictures you post. Can you see a state flag? A pet’s collar with a home address on it? Does that screenshot have your phone number in it? Be careful with EXACTLY what you post.
Once you post it, it’s not yours anymore. Anyone on the internet can share a post, take screenshots, repost to other websites, send to other people, etc. Once you post something, what happens to it is out of your hands. Make sure you be careful with what you post.
Face and voice can reveal a lot about you. They can reveal age, agab, in some cases they can be used to determine where you live (accents anyone?) be careful.
Please kids on the internet, BE SAFE. Remember these are strangers. Remember the internet is full of real people with their own motives and intentions. Remember that you can’t control the internet. Please please PLEASE be safe!
GET KOSA TRENDING.
STOP SCROLLING NOW!
AS OF FEBRUARY 21ST, 2024, WE GOT FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE DAY OF DECISION OF THE KOSA BILL, WHICH WILL CAUSE MASS CENSORSHIP ROUND THE INTERNET IF PASSED. OR DOOMSDAY. WE NEED EVERYONE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS AND CONTRIBUTE. I'M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU ALL.
WE'RE DOWN TO THE WIRE BUT WE CAN'T GIVE UP YET. IF WE GIVE UP, EVERYTHING IS OVER. IF WE DON'T, AT LEAST WE HAVE A CHANCE.
I'M THE ONE WHO SOUNDED THE ALARM, AND I'M NOT GOING TO CURL UP AND DIE YET.
Reblog this post in every LEGAL way you can under the Tumblr guidelines with the appropriate tags. TELL AND TAG EVERYONE YOU KNOW, then add the tags to see below... and more if you can think of any complying.
Visit badinternetbills.com if you want to find a way to defeat KOSA. It WILL NOT take much of your time. Reblog with any other information or sources, too-- but make sure to reblog if you can.
Reblog if you support lgbtq+ content.
Reblog if you support questioning queer youth and/or abused youth getting the information they need.
Reblog if you support Ao3 and/or other sites that wholeheartedly preserve talentedly made media.
Reblog if you're going to repost this on other sites than Tumblr and spread the word across Twitter, Tik Tok, Pinterest, or elsewhere, alongside the link to badinternetbills.com.
Reblog if you think KOSA is unfair and shouldn't be anyone's problem -- including the adults ALL OVER THE DAMN EARTH forced to face the mass censorship it causes because "think of the American Children!".
Reblog if you support internet activism and Palestine.
Reblog if you hate fascism or censorship, and don't want actually serious and helpful conversations censored on the internet.
Reblog if you value the internet in any way at all whatsoever.
CHECK THIS PETITION, TOO! https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-kosa?recruiter=1331807538&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&recruited_by_id=57368c40-d0fd-11ee-98f7-2175430f819f&share_bandit_exp=initial-36809664-en-US
(Also, please reblog with at least "stop kosa" as a tag and not "kosa". I made the mistake of not adding just "kosa" as a tag...)
We won't let this stand any longer. Let's start a riot and get this trending.
Do lawmakers even know how stupid KOSA truly is as a bill, if not dangerous. Think about it: having to give ID containing SENSITIVE INFORMATION (literally against Internet Safety 101) just to go on the internet. Being a minor having to do that is so dangerous and would put them in more danger at the hands of predators.
People who have to use the internet for educational uses will have to go through stupid, unneeded steps just to look up the purpose of the mitochondria!
Trans and Queer youth are in danger. Fandom spaces are in danger. Children, the very group of people that this bullshit bill is claiming to protect, are in DANGER!
The States having full monopoly over the internet is so, so ungodly stupid and dystopian. I can’t imagine being someone not from the States and having to witness all of this.
The bill doesn’t protect kids, it only puts them in more danger.
CALL YOUR REPS! SIGN PETITIONS! KEEP KOSA TRENDING! LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING!
THIS IS AN ISSUE FOR ALL OF US! NOT JUST A SELECTIVE!
SIMILAR BILLS HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE AND BEEN STOPPED THANKS TO THE INTERNET! LET’S DO THAT AGAIN!
STOP KOSA!
📵 Check out this insightful video for tips on safeguarding your mental well-being from violent imagery. Let's keep our minds safe and our online experiences informative!