Wild Minds Weekly: In the Name of 'Safety'
You walk into Food Ration Center #657 to collect your weekly nutrition pills for your family (plant-based and lovingly manufactured of course).
"ID?", a uniformed man says.
You hold up your hand to scan your fingerprints and verify your ID. A red flash pops up in the corner of his AI-powered glasses. Something's wrong.
"Um sorry, you've been flagged for pushing anti-government sentiment."
"What do you mean?", you reply.
"On the 21st of July 2027, you left a comment on a Facebook post,
'Why is the government taking over our last acre of farmland to build solar farms, and then running geoengineering experiments with taxpayer money to block out the sun?' "
"It was just a question!", you protest.
"Sorry, but I can't give you your nutrition pills this week, the ban should lift next week if you behave."
Hello friends,
The UK's Online Safety Act is in full force.
What does that mean?
It means that Ofcom (Office of Communications) is forcing online platforms to use 'highly effective age assurance' to, supposedly, prevent children from being exposed to 'harmful' content - adult content, content that encourages self-harm, suicide, etc.
It applies to any platform where users can post content and interact with each other. So that's social media sites, video-sharing sites, instant messaging apps, basically, most sites and apps on the internet.
But what does 'highly effective age assurance' mean? (This is how it will affect you)
It means "Please upload your ID so that we can verify your age 🙏😊 (for the children)"
It means your identity can be directly linked to your online activity.
This also comes at the same time as an 'Elite police force unit' is formed to monitor social media for harmful misinformation.
So just to recap:
You'll have to use your ID to access social media platforms, WHILE an elite police force is formed to monitor social media.
Suspicious? Yes.
Concerning? Also yes.
The stage is being set for another leap in the governments surveillance power.
But this isn't just happening in the UK.
It's happening in Australia too - in fact, it's arguably worse.
By December 2025, Australia's Online Safety Act will enforce that under 16s are banned from social media.
Oh, you'll also have to verify your ID to use Google search.
Again, it's all framed as protecting children from harmful content.
The suffocation of personal freedoms is always done in the name of safety and security.
This is real and we've likely already been affected.
Some of you will remember that our website got blacklisted in April. Guess what went into effect in March?
Duties about illegal content – the illegal content duties are now in effect, and as of 17 March Ofcom can now enforce against the regime. In-scope service providers must have now completed their assessments of the risk of illegal content appearing on their service; the deadline to do so was 16 March.
There isn't any illegal content on our site, but it was definitely around that time we started hearing from people that they couldn't access our site because certain internet providers were blocking it.
Could have been a coincidence.
It also could have been a coincidence that the Wild Minds Community Facebook group was recently taken down with no warning. And what did Billy have to do to get it back?
Verify his ID.
By this point you're probably not feeling very optimistic, but thankfully, we're not powerless.
So, what can we do to take back our privacy and freedom?
Peter Kyle (the UK's Secretary of Technology) has kindly given us a hint. He went on the BBC and said,
"For everybody who's out there thinking of using VPN's, let me just say to you directly, verifying your age keeps a child safe... so let's not just try to find a way around."
It's for the children right?
(By the way, Members of Parliament VPN subscriptions are being paid for by taxpayer money -source)
So here's 3 things you can do to take more control of your communications and internet use:
- Use a VPN:
The reason this is step number 1 is that it stops your internet service provider from tracking and controlling your internet use.
Using a VPN was already a good idea before this, but if you care about your online freedom and privacy, using a VPN is bare minimum because you'll be able to access websites that have been blocked in your country (like ours). - Move away from large platforms:
All of these big tech companies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, etc are heavily incentivised to aggressively censor content and comply with these laws mandating they verify your ID. Why would they risk getting blocked in a country when they could just censor the 'misinformation'?
Using alternatives like DuckDuckGo for search is a start. The next step is collectively moving away from social media platforms to more private online spaces, this is exactly why we launched Wild Minds Network (click to join). - Use secure messaging apps for communication:
WhatsApp was supposed to be secure but I'm skeptical since they're owned by Meta so our data is almost certainly being used to train their AI (you may have seen 'Meta AI' popping up in various places).
Signal and Telegram are great alternatives - use Signal for group chats though because Telegram group chats are still stored on Telegram servers, which could get compromised.
Doing these 3 things for now, should at the very least allow you to access the information that you want, and communicate freely and privately even as institutional restrictions tighten.
Because at the end of the day, it isn't really about safety. It's about control over how you live.
Time to take it back.
To your freedom,
Rob (find me on X)
Wild Minds Community
