Nanny State No! Nanny Corp Yes!

I regret to say that I share a country with the cause of international upset - Collective Shout. A handful of neo-puritains out to cause mass censorship in the name of "protecting women and children". These are, I heavily suspect, the same sort of people who'd chase each other out of the ladies' restrooms for not fitting their personal ideals of femininity. And if they're not doing that, they're certainly recycling the Satanic Panic for yet another round of "This Thing I Personally Don't Like Is Dangerous To Everyone(Someone Think of the Children)."

So they got a bunch of games pulled from their platforms by using pester pressure against the credit card giants.

If it was the government doing this, there would have been an enormous hue and cry all over the right wing news sphere. But, as far as I'm aware, it's only been on my news feed this morning. After Valve exposed all the company lies out in the open.

This has been going on for a week. Like, shortly after I published last week's entry, I got wind of the nonsense that's been going on. And of course Collective Shout has been exposed by multiple reporters as a bunch of puritanical NIMBY types who are more about the big splash than the long game. And of course they don't actually care about protecting women and children, nor the extant laws already in place to prevent anything they say is going on.

Collective Shout has done nothing to campaign for the addition of consent to sex education. They've done nothing about wage gaps. They've done nothing about campaigning to make the scientific names for personal anatomy part of early childhood education so that little kids can have the proper lexicon to report Uncle Bad Touch. [Anatomical terms should never be considered bad words. That kind of thing can help the grabby/handsy sort get away with their nasty habits]

They have done a lot of campaigning about censoring various examples of media. And I'm certain they'll join the united front of TERFs and other fascists to attempt to be rid of transgender, genderqueer, and finally just queer folks. That includes my family as well as myself.

And they'll definitely accuse all their potential targets of association with evils that can't possibly be defended by anyone. Protecting the children is very motivating to everyone. Only horrible people don't want to protect the children.

The problem lies in the actions they're taking to try. Or... look like they try.

As I said earlier, some of their claimed victories are over things that aren't truly necessary. Like forbidding children from buying MA+ rated games. They already can't do that. And some of their victories have the opposite effect.

Their "victory" over preventing the sale of salacious/violent/adult games has backfired. At least one of the platforms hosting them is now giving out those games for free. Which means that credit cards, and therefore any ID justification and tracing, is no longer part of the equation.

They're also behind the age-gating of YouTube that's happening in Australia right now. Because our current Prime Minister has all the spinal integrity of wet cardboard. He bowed to pester power like it was his job.

Thing about Collective Shout is... they're just against adult content. They want to purify the internet of all the filthy things to protect the children. So they say. Preventing kids from watching YouTube? That's not doing a lot, to be honest.

I should also note that this mob isn't doing a single thing against online bullying. Something that's a bigger threat than a kid tripping over a video nasty on YouTube.

Speaking of video nasties... one of the things they want blocked from anyone under the age of eighteen is the news. Kids will stay in whatever bubble they're assigned and not learn anything about the world, politics, or what's going on beyond their backyard fence. And I can bet my last dollar that other things, like long-form video essays about such stuff, will be age-gated too.

What sort of impact could this have? Who knows. Kids have always found ways of reaching forbidden fruit. And one of those avenues is via the very predators that Collective Should alleges to be attempting to stop.

Their acclaimed victory... is not.

I've also noticed that they don't have any contact information on their website. Not beyond their socials, which lets them block anyone who's making their lives inconvenient. So they're cowards, too.

They make a big noise and let other people weather the resulting outrage. They don't want to face any of it themselves, declaring victory no matter whether or not it was one. Onto the next non-issue to create pester-power over.

Never mind whatever devastation they leave in their wake. All so they can feel superior and accomplished.

I wish they'd pull their heads in, keep their noses in their own business, and get a better hobby.