As Congress continues to bungle online safety conversation, grassroots activists fight online ID checks
Digital rights organization, Fight for the Future, launched a week of action today against policies that require users to submit to online age and identity verification in order to access certain content. This week of action comes as Congress plans to meet to consider a slew of online “safety” bills, many of which would include some form of ID or age verification. As states, Congress, and countries across the globe have been considering and passing these ill-conceived requirements, the group is using the week to organize grassroots actions to make it clear: censorship and surveillance will never make people safer.
The week of action comes at the end of the year that saw multiple states pass some form of ID verification laws, and as the UK and Australia started to implement their own online age checks. Internet users have sparked outrage in response to these bills. As the UK Online Safety Act (UKOSA) went into effect over the summer platforms like YouTube started to block content deemed “unsafe,” and utilized AI that analyzed users content preferences to asses likely age. When the platform was incorrect, users were forced to upload government IDs in order to prove their true age. These processes put users at risk of their personal data being stolen or used to track their online actions, and disproportionately impact certain users.
During the week of action Fight for the Future and partner organizations are organizing online communities via the following events:
- Monday: r/pcgaming AMA
- Tuesday: Livestream response to Congressional hearing on kids safety bills (link to come)
- Wednesday: LinkedIn Live ((link to come)
- Thursday: r/prochoice AMA
Fight for the Future will follow these activist events next week with a number of actions, including mobile billboards, sidewalk decals, online ads, and creator content, all highlighting the massive opposition to online ID checks.
“Lawmakers and tech companies are acting like online ID checks fencing off the internet are the only way forward, when in actuality, this is just another misstep in the current arc of censorship and surveillance on the internet,” said Sarah Philips, campaigner at Fight for the Future. “As it gets harder and harder to access abortion, gender-affirming healthcare, and so many other life-saving resources, people are turning to an internet that is now increasingly censored and, if lawmakers get their way, behind an age-gate. Youth deserve access to resources and all of us need an internet that we can navigate without exposing our private information or giving up a government ID or a face scan to an insecure, exploitative company just to access a Reddit thread or a Youtube video. We work with online communities every day that are incensed about the future of the spaces they hold dear, are frustrated with companies collecting even more information about them, and irate that instead of regulation around privacy or anti-trust, all lawmakers can offer is more censorship and surveillance. ID checks are not the answer, online communities know ID checks are not the answer. It’s time for the people with power over these changes to wake up to what the rest of us know.”