Wednesday Meta agreed to a giant fucking settlement with a bunch of state AGs and a anonymous teenager who claimed they were harmed by platforms Meta owned like Facebook, Instagram etc. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/08/eff-statement-meta-settlementActual link to settlement there. Here's a radio show bit that went over it - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/podcasts/the-daily/a-historic-settlement-over-social-media-addiction.html?showTranscript=1 unfortunately it doesn't seem that Wayback or a few others have it cached yet. Youneed to show transcript for the text, and depending on browser turn off the vocal bit from playing. -- As you can see, the EFF doesn't think this is anything beneficial. It has more to do with current negative views of "techbros" and, if the above radio story is accurate about one of the witnesses for the prosecution, basically having a teen girl claim that instagram wasn't good for her mental health, made juries just fall over themselves because "AI and tech bros bad". As much disgust as I have for Zucc and Meta in general, this doesn't fix anything and instead makes a lot of things worse - mandatory restrictions on accounts for teenagers, which means that adult accounts will need to prove they're not some underage kid with even more data mining. Kids aren't given their opportunity to access tech based on when their parents think they're ready, but instead it will be up to platforms to do the parenting. Section 230 weakening makes it easier for gov't and private interest alike to go after sites they don't like for hosting user content which leads to chilling effects. This whole thing is a giant turd and the fact tha Meta chose to settle rather than fight it says that things look really shitty. Meta asked all the other alternate platforms be restricted just as much as they are as it would be unfair and the "kids will just use those instead" . What should we do about this, Anon? .
anything that kills off the internet is good
>>109683087It won't do that, it just makes it shittier and puts the people who have been shitting it up at all levels into positions of power. The Internet isn't going away, but if this continues a lot of the promise those who remember the old days had for it will be even harder to revive.
>>109683043RETVRN
>>109683550TOR, I2P, hell Freenet etc.. are all decent alternatives but aren't going to fix anything if the same legal shit (and ideals behind it) keeps pushing. ANything that's more anonymous or harder to track becomes outright illegal (unless you're working for whatever form of 'good guys' need it and are exempt). I think we need to deal with this shit on a policy level, technical solutions only exist as long as a backup for those who have the will and interest, but the moment using them becomes evidence of criminal activity, shit goes even further downhill - we need to stop before it gets there.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/meta-settlement-opens-new-front-global-fight-over-social-media-harm-2026-08-27/Other US states are bad enough, but it seems other countries are treating this as justification to crack down as well. I think we're going to need to deal with this both technologically and in terms of legal/policy changes otherwise we're going to be trying to run as the floor drops out beneath us.
>>109683043I'd say the best thing is to lean into anti-techbro sentiment and remind people that the actual best way to stick it to them is restricting, limiting and stopping their data collection. Anything that leads to more is a win for them. Conduct regular audits on random users and if they In regards to kids, it's a really hard position because these people want a silver bullet that will automatically protect kids on the internet and literally the only thing that works is parents being active, I see it all the time and unfortunately parents having the knowledge, the systems and the resolve to put boundaries in place is the only thing that works.
>>109685988Fuck got my train of thought disrupted. I meant to say, Conduct regular audits on random users and if they are anything more than the bare minimum, fine them.
>>109685988The problem with simply leaning to anti-techbro sentiment is that it tends to lean to a lot of collateral damage for both technology and conceptual stuff like free speech. Take AI for example, most of the virulent hater of it are generally misinformed and hate it for abstract reasons (ie vague yelling about "slop", "artists" issues from 'SOVL" to "Stealing hurrdurr", RAM/GPU/SSD prices rising and shortages, something something data centers, Musk and Zucc like it so it problematic by proxy bad etc...) and are not going to take a pragmatic look at it and provide thoughtful regulation for megacorps to keep them from predatory behavior, while preserving and spreading the benefit of the technologies themselves widely. We should absolutely continue to push for better privacy laws, limiting data collection in the way that the surveillance capitalism brokers have metastasized throughout almost all online services, but it must be done in a way that ensure that it doesn't either empower the intellectual property cartels or (either directly or indirectly) has a chilling effect on openness - like weakening section 230 for instance with the thing going on here. Most of the anti-techbro types aren't making a technical objection and really don't care if it means that people who self host or whatnot lose out. Same thing with the "protecting the children" bits. I agree with you that parents engaging with their kids is far better than expecting site owners to put down blanket restrictions to bubble wrap anything that require MORE data collection - and potential for leaks - to implement. This lawsuit was the sort of thing that in the past was righty fought or tossed out, but even watching analysts describe it suggest that it was more about emotional decisions rather than technical merits of of the case
>>109683043>mandatory restrictions on accounts for teenagers, which means that adult accounts will need to prove they're not some underage kid with even more data mining. Kids aren't given their opportunityYep all this>PROTECT THE CHILDREN!Trash is ponly here to make mandatory gov id to go on the internet.>I was le harmedAnyone under 18 who has access to the internet needs to have Child Protective Services take them away. This is how simple this is.
>>109683133>who remember the old days had for it will be even harder to revive.Dud I have given up on the internet a long time ago. The independent forums of the 90s and 2000s are not coming back EVER. This is the twilight of the internet.Get ready for internet 2.0 where you need to confirm your gov ID to post anything on the 12 or so approved social media platforms. >b-b-b- what if weNo AI bots will shit up that place. It is over.
>>109686298I know its easy to doom spiral about everything, but giving up isn't going to help anything . We can try and make things less shitty. >independent forums of the 90s and 2000s While nobody thinks that its going to be exactly like the old days again , its more about the ethos connected to that era which can, and should, be timeless. Remember up until the mid 2010s or so, the same overall ethos was handed down from one generation to another; even the Eternal September was a relatively minor change in this regard! it was only when a new influx of combined social media with users with profoundly different introduction to and use for the Internet/Web. Even the younger generation we're seeing kids using 90s/2000s tech, which could be a good sign, but its a matter of those of us who were there at the time to convey that the underlying values are what's more important than the tech. Keeping the Internet as someplace separate from meatspace etc...kids complain about the stress of these interactions, but they have the option to go back to more pseudonymous interactions and treat the Internet bullshit as less connected to real life IF they choose it where they can. This means just letting an online beef be an online one instead of trying to get someone canceled or otherwise affect their "real life" etc Don't like megacorp bullshit? Well privacy laws and FOSS is one part of the solution etc. We can either roll over and give up so that the manufactured consent "bots" (figurative and possibly literal) can ensure that the private monied interests get their way through regulatory capture, or we can at least try to do something about it and not give up, encouraging others to do so as well.
>>109686699>We can try and make things less shitty.How?>I know its easy to doom spiral about everything,It is literally over. AI made it all impossible. Whatever you make will be impossible without government ID verification or the AI bots will overtake it all.And this is the real killer AI. Every basement retard can spin up his own chatbots who will flood your forum and take over. All artificial. Some pocket change to get more IPs for every AI chatbot and you can equally well go and fuck yourself. Can you not see how bot infested 4chan is these days? You can catch literally budget chatGPT talking to you in every thread.This excludes corporations who want to shill product see how bad it has gotten on /g/ ! In contrast even safe places like /vr/ have a notorious>Wait why is Atari being shilled now? Did they release a new retro console now?It is OVER literally OVER.>b-b-b-b- things 30 years agoAre irrelevant time is not a circle it is an arrow who moves forward. You can cry to politicians to not regulate the internet to death however if by magic you accomplish this(it is impossible in reality) all it takes is 1 bitter NEET to spin up his bot farm and fuck over your forum. >ids complain about the stress of these interactions, but they have the option to go back to more pseudonymous interactions andAll you get is kids talking to AI pretending to be real people. The internet is over all it will be for is to login like a retard, repeat the mandatory political bullshit the government wants from you on the social medias and buy shit from amazon before watching Netflix.What a shit show. The anonymous internet cannot survive. >b-b-b-The only option here is to disconnect and refuse online interactions. We all should have bean making IRL connections in real space and not online bullshit. It was a nice wild ride while it lasted. Simply download everything of interest and enjoy the last rays of light in the twilight of the internet. 1/2
>>109686788>>109686699Someone posted a picture similar to this however I can not find it now.Basically it did say that normies want more on the internet while nerds are about to leave for the woods.The only option here is to disconnect.
>>109686298I mean, forums are still around just most people don't use them much any more. And probably buried under a million reddit or SEO optimised results on searches. Truthfully I always found forums a complete pain in the ass to use, I always hung out in IRC or whatever. 4chan is essentially the perfect model for my mentality, even if the site isn't perfect.
>>109686835>forums are still aroundGive some links.>4chan is1) a FBI honeypot2) Retarded because it is to fast people post non stop and good threads die while clickbait rage content stays in the catalog.I miss forums. I wish I saved all the link to everyone I registered or visited in the 2000s
>>109686835>I mean, forums are still around just most people don't use them much any more.True, I recently I was searching for info about plagues in plants I was growing in my garden and how to get rid of them and the amount SEO results I had to wade through just to get to this one forum about homesteading and gardening was enormous. Luckily the forum was still active and was easy to search but most places are dead and or full of half deleted threads.Sadly most IRC channels don't really have an archive of easily accessible info about their topic of discussion unless they manage to inefficiently cobble something together with XDCC, I always preferred them as well.
>>109685988>I'd say the best thing is to lean into anti-techbro sentiment and remind people that the actual best way to stick it to them is restricting, limiting and stopping their data collection.Unfortunately the normalfaggot response to this is just "they already know everything about me, why does it matter if I also need to scan my government ID and record a 30 minute video of me turning my head in every direction while singing Christmas songs from now on?" every single time, without exception. They are not human.
>>109683043Products are designed more and more to serve the state, rather than the user.
>>109683043>What should we do about this, Anon? .Set up your own private and/or semi-private forums, chans, E2EE chat servers (prosody / jabber), block bots, block cell phones (loose lips).
>>109686298>>109686699The problem isn't AI or infrastructure.The people are fucked and everything else is downstream of that. Culture, community, friendships, relationships, high trust societies, etc.You can setup a billion forums, IRCs, TS, Matrix and XMPP servers, a billion intricately designed blogs and it will never matter because the people are fundamentally irreversibly fucked.People chose and still choose getting mind broken by algorithms and subsequently these people have nothing to offer. You're not gonna fix that with a quirky frontend. What I hate so fucking much is how people fundamentally misunderstand why we used the tech we used back then. If we had a better alternative to IRC and phpBB we would have fucking used it. We have better alternatives now but the people are gone and they're not coming back.
>>109687315>The problem isn't AIYes it is you dumb fuck. Not reading any further. Anything not backed by government ID will be flooded with AI bots. Anonymity is dead.
>>109685988>he actual best way to stick it to themThe best way to stick it to them is ignore them.They make money by attention, if you don't like them DON'T GIVE THEM ATTENTION.
>>109687315>the people are fundamentally irreversibly fucked.This. TikTok isn't winning because of some government push it's winning because people are addicted to slop that fills their day.It's why everyone is lonely. They doomscroll endlessly.Old forums and shit were 'alive' in that you went to them 2-3 times a week and posted about something relevant. Now everything is constant engagement and it's toxic as fuck to being a person.The place where it's a problem is the slow encroachment of ID verification in order to access money or government services,a nd the state's desire to pawn the job off to a patsy corporation that will give the state all the data is sucks from you.
>>109687315I do not see a problem. If people are captured by the system, let them remain contained in said systems. Quality over Quantities. If I get a new poster to my chan once every month, that works for me. Block all bots. Block all cell phones. Block all AI. Bring back the pre-2008 internet.
>>109687344Government ID is downstream of the people being fucked as well. A bunch of 12 year olds achieved more when they protested SOPA/PIPA/TTIP in the early 2010s than the entire e-celeb, activist, journalist, lawyer and advocate sphere has accomplished in the 15 years since.Even when they're trying to cargo cult what the internet used to be they just cling on to the recent trend they got told about by another fucking e-celeb and think if they just do this current thing magically everything will be alright again.>bro if we just launch another citybuild>bro if we just move to this youtube/twitter/slack clone>bro if we just move to IRC>bro if we just start writing blogs again>bro if we just bring back personal websites>bro if we just make another forum/BBS>bro if we just make another usenet group>bro if we just block bots (You are here)I have no idea what the next bullshit story will be but it's guaranteed to be as retarded as any that came before and achieve just as much which is fucking nothing.
>>109687417I thought USAID was defunded, no?
Why not segregate? Why do our networks need to be connected to India and China?>commerceThere's the real problem. Globalism.
>>109687344Some people were pretty active, but to be honest many forums were culturally kind of shit, the old adage of giving a loser power and they go crazy with it. God forbid you create a thread on a topic that was last discussed 2 years ago and the shitty forum search didn't find anything, and you are only allowed one search every 10 minutes, But then people get pissed you necro'd a thread.
Obviously we need to bring back livejournal
>>109688194>liveleakftfy
>>109688186>But then people get pissed you necro'd a thread.LOL not that big of a problem.>of giving a loser power and they go crazy with it.As opposed to????Reddit mods going ultra power crazy?Discord mods being the next level of power crazy?Google and youtube payed mods being so vindictive and unhinged that they deplatform you? And literally the only protection you have is that you are to small for anyone to notice you? However once you reach that above 1000 subs get ready for some ass raping.
>>109688224>still seething about youtube clamping down on conspiracy theorists 20 years ago
>>109683043It's a thinly disguised censorship drive to censor online criticism of the Gaza genocide.
>>109688234>about youtube clamping downYES. Also racist content and edgy humor. Also there was this guy who basically called the CEO of youtube a bitch and told her to unban him. He got next level deplatformed!>clamping down onIt was fun you zoomeroid fuck! Literally no one believed alex jones however we watched him for the fun of it the world he did spin was so engaging with illuminatis and bildebergers and the shit he did painting himself like the joker it was fun! Better then shit made for TV or in the movies.
>>109688273Why are zoomers always so performative and why don't they understand that's why everyone immediately knows they're underage shitstains larping about a time they didn't experience?
Ohhhh.... you're a crazy person. I mean I'm all for stronger protections of privacy but people like you really undermine it when you act like a schizo
