Note: I am NOT a tech or security expert, so please don’t take this as an instruction manual or gospel. I’m an avid
researcher of authoritarian regimes, however, and I’ve lived in a place without net neutrality
before.
Please don’t let this
panic you. Nothing is going to come crashing down overnight. But while Ajit Pai’s
decision is making its way through the courts and fighting all the battles it
has to fight from opposition, don’t think the telecomm companies will spend
this time kindly sitting on their hands waiting for an official call to be
made. Chances are slim they’ll throw up paywalls immediately, but I feel fairly
certain they’ll take quiet, subtle steps to begin censoring/suppressing content
they don’t like. HOWEVER. I can’t accurately predict what will happen to our
internet when, so this list is me erring VASTLY on the side of caution.
So, to that end:
1) Get a VPN, which you should have had anyway.
This won’t save you from paywalls if they’re put up, but if, down the line, the
government decides to start censoring critical voices, they’re going to use
your IP address to track you. A VPN hides your IP address. VPNs are by no means
bulletproof, but they’re better than nothing. You can get some for free on the
App Store or Google Play, but I recommend finding one you trust and paying for
it. These tend to be more robust, and based outside the US, making them harder
for ISPs and the government to hack into. My personal favorite is TunnelBear.
It’s super easy to use, but not the very cheapest. It supports 5 connections, so
one VPN is enough for two people’s devices usually.
2) **If you
are an activist in a progressive/resistance group, I would STRONGLY urge you to
exchange phone numbers and possibly physical addresses with your colleagues. Your
Facebook groups are probably reasonably safe for now, but any standalone
websites will likely be shoved into slow lanes or blocked altogether. This will
require you to change the way you meet and conduct business. Make a phone tree
for urgent alerts. ISPs have blocked emails and texts from and between progressive
activist groups despite current net neutrality rules, and I have every reason
to believe they’ll do it more now that these rules are gone. The way we resist will change fundamentally
if our resources on the internet are blocked or restricted. We HAVE to be
prepared for this. This is the one thing you may kind of want to panic about, because without net neutrality, we will not have another Doug-Jones-in-Alabama situation. We will be suppressed. We will be silenced. The internet is our last bastion of mostly-free and equal speech. We MUST be prepared to engage other channels of communication FAST if the total repeal of net neutrality rules is successful. Make plans NOW so you’re not caught with your ass out if shit goes south.
3) Torrent/ download everything you’re going to
torrent nowish. ISPs—who are often co-owners or
stockholders in entertainment companies—won’t tolerate torrent sites for long. Also
please use a VPN while you torrent.
4) Consider backing up/downloading to your personal
hard drive any music you listen to on websites like Spotify, Soundcloud or
8tracks. These will most likely be behind paywalls if the ISPs decide to play
it that way. Even if you can afford to pay for access, the artists may not be
able to afford to keep their material up or they may be censored, so it may
eventually disappear. Be prepared for this possibility.
5) Same story with websites like AO3, fanfiction.net,
Medium, Deviantart, and any other platform on which you upload your and access
others’ creative content for free. I’m
not saying to go on a downloading binge RIGHT NOW, but just be prepared for
changes and definitely make sure you have backups of your own work.
6) Websites where your favorite creators sell their
wares, like Redbubble and Society6, etc., will also experience changes. If you
want to help these creators out, consider pledging their Patreons or donating
to them directly. More of their money will be going to just maintaining their
internet presence if paywalls go up.
9) Download/print this article too. Read it often. Also follow Sarah on Twitter. I’ve said this before, but she’s half the
reason I’m as savvy an activist as I am. Her book, The View from Flyover Country, is definitely worth
your money and time. Sarah has been eerily prescient in her predictions of how
this year would play out, and her insights are brutal but necessary.
10) Follow Amy Siskind on
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and visit her Weekly List website. She
maintains a weekly list of everything that’s happened politically since
January. Sarah Kendzior advised us to keep a list of everything that changes
around us, so we’ll remember what used to be normal, and how normal has been
warped. Amy’s lists are resource-dense and sometimes harrowing to read, but
they are a necessary archive of every single thing the Trump administration
doesn’t want you to remember and what the ISPs will likely censor sooner rather than later. **She
just put up a print version of the list for preorder on Amazon, which I STRONGLY
recommend you purchase if you can afford it.
11) If you are a student, get
as many resources off the internet and onto your hard drive as you can. There
are several websites up currently where you can download .pdfs of textbooks.
There are a few posts on this website that list them all, but I can’t remember
the tags I used for when I reblogged, so if someone else has those posts in
easy reach, please add a link.
12) If you live with your
parents and you don’t want them finding out what social media websites you use,
don’t panic just yet. The price plans for internet service I’ve experienced don’t
work quite like that. You pay a single monthly price for a social media plan,
which includes several platforms. Chances are your parents use Facebook, so if they want to and can purchase a “social media” plan to use FB, sites like Snapchat and
Tumblr and Twitter will most likely already be included, so you won’t have to out yourself
by asking for them. The company did not ask for any personal information like
my social media handles or my profile information. Hopefully American ISPs won’t
do this. They shouldn’t, because they already collect enough metadata on you to
not really need it. So unless your parents go through the onerous process of
requesting records (if these are even available to them), they won’t be able to
scroll through an hourly log of every website you access and when and what you
post.
13) KEEP RESISTING. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet. If we all give up and
pretend she has, we’ll squander our chances to take back what’s ours. The way I see it, we have two choices: to fight to keep what
we have, or to fight to get it back. Choice #1 has always been easier. Know
that there is an army of pissed off people right here alongside you, including
a majority of Republican voters.
Contact your Congressfolks and ask them to support and pass HR4585, the “Save Net Neutrality” bill. It’s not as good as the FCC’s protections, but it’s better than nothing.
Also, remember to take a step back and allow yourself to
turn off from this for a little while. This from someone who’s suffered from
anxiety since I was a kid. So I get how
terrifying and exhausting it is just thinking about all the ways this could
fuck up our lives. Tumblr is really good at manufacturing moral outrage, and
this definitely IS something to be outraged about, but the posts that forecast
immediate and total doom for all internet users are flat out wrong and you
shouldn’t listen to them.
My askbox and messages are always open if you want to reach
out.
Behold the magic of compaction dynamics. Scientists from Mexico and
Spain dumped 25,000 tiny dice (0.2 inches) into a large clear plastic
cylinder and rotated the cylinder back and forth once a second. The dice
arranged themselves into rows of concentric circles. See the paper and the videos here.
A whole bunch of senators have signed and sent a letter to Ajit Pai, demanding him to once again delay the FCC’s vote on a net neutrality repeal until he comes clean about his sh*t. The letter even called
out
the FCC on their use of bots to unfairly tip the balance in favor of the repeal.
Your voices are starting to pay off, but the battle is far from over. If you haven’t done your part yet, please contact your senator or local representative and let them know how much you DON’T WANT net neutrality to be repealed.
Don’t stay silent! Positive change doesn’t come from apathy or inaction. If you keep this up and then some for as long as necessary, you guys could win this battle and stop this looming threat on an open internet.
I’m honestly so tired of the “poor poor Slytherins” bullshit flying around. They aren’t the oppressed group in the Harry Potter universe. They aren’t the people being hurt by societal beliefs and situations. They aren’t the people being stomped on by the ones in power. They ARE the ones in power. So many Slytherins are children of highly placed government officials, people who have societal power. Warrington whatever the fuck his name is wouldn’t be champion of the oppressed as Hogwarts Champion in the tournament, he’d be a symbolic representation of the upper class getting their spot. People booing him isn’t a bunch of elitist fucks hammering down on some poor sap, it’s a bunch of kids yelling at their bully getting the reward. Slytherin started as a supremacist group, and the rich, elite and powerful continue to have controlling interest in it. Muggleborn Slytherins wouldn’t be powerful, they’d be isolated, insulted and treated like second class students literally in their bedrooms. Slytherin Harry would here people violently insult, degrade and threaten people like his mother on a regular basis, and they wouldn’t change their minds and think that muggle borns are equal to them because of his presence.
Slytherin is the upper class. They’re the wealthy who try to steal everything from those they consider beneath them. They’re representative of the powerful who hurt the weak.
While we’re at it, the Chamber of Secrets is not a “panic room” and I wish that post would stop showing up on my dash. You don’t put a fuckhuge murder snake in a panic room and you sure as hell don’t put it in a SCHOOL for CHILDREN. Salazar Slytherin was aggressively fantasy-racist and the books are not subtle about this point.
As I understand it, the Order of Operations is as follows:
1. Focus on the Tax Bill. That’s happening this week. Shoot it down.
2. Immediately afterward, start promoting Doug Jones in Alabama and reminding everyone of Roy Moore’s problems. That election is on December 12.
3. In the meantime, Net Neutrality. The FCC votes on December 14th. Protest, boost, research, do whatever you can.
I know #MeToo is important, I know Old Man Donald is still being a jerk, I know North Korea has a nuke, none of these are going to be dealt with before Christmas. There are three fronts to this fight: taxes, Alabama, FCC. These are the focal points. If we can win one of those, it’s going to have ramifications for the future. If we can win two, we’re in a pretty good place. We win all three, 2017 was a Good Year.
Taxes.
Doug Jones.
FCC.
Focus.
And then remind everyone to renew their healthcare. That deadline is December 15th.
The function of the app is simple: In less than 60 seconds, connect the
account you use to make everyday purchases. Here, your purchases will be
rounded up to the nearest dollar to automatically donate each time you
reach at least $2 in spare change. Users can pause and resume their
contributions at any time. On the topic of his goals with the project,
Ziegler explains:
“Our short term goals are to get as many folks
home for the holidays as possible so we hope many folks join the
platform for Giving Tuesday and contribute their holiday spending change
to those in need.
Long term, we see the platform being used in a variety of
ways to bolster the voices of those in need beyond just a financial
contribution.”
This now exists. Today I’m linking my bank account to become the first customer. https://t.co/h2IcVlKoY5
The tax bill, which is inexplicably also a healthcare bill, will come to a vote in the Senate either late tonight or tomorrow.
This bill, if passed, will kill about 16 thousand people per year. This is because it will kick 13 million people off their health insurance, and studies have shown that for every 830 uninsured, 1 additional person dies per year.
Here are some things that are less deadly to Americans than this bill:
– Guns (about 13k a year die from gun homicide) – DUI (that kills 10k a year) – Heroin (it kills 13k a year) – Melanoma (kills 10k a year) – Isis (each year it will kill 13 times more people than Isis has ever killed) – 9/11 (this bill is equal in death toll to about 5 annual 9/11’s, actually) – The Iraq war (this bill will kill about 4 times as many Americans per year as were killed in the entire Iraq war) – World war I (it killed an average of 13k Americans per year)
This is why healthcare accessibility is the battle I’ve picked.
A Middleground 