We Should Probably Leave the Internet

The Child Protection Lie To Weaponize The Most Vulnerable

Within one week—ONE WEEK—the entire Western world simultaneously discovered that children exist on the internet. After decades of letting predators roam free, data brokers harvest minors' information, and social media algorithms optimize for addiction, suddenly, miraculously, every government from Washington to Westminster woke up with the same epiphany: “We must protect the children.”

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August 13th, 2025: YouTube will require United States citizens—not UK subjects, not EU residents, but Americans—to provide government ID. The land of the free, home of the brave, papers please to watch cat videos.

The UK announces potential VPN bans—not content with building walls, they want to eliminate ladders. Ireland proposes scanning your thoughts before they become messages. Australia bans humans under 16 from YouTube entirely. The EU resurrects chat control legislation under Denmark's presidency like a vampire that won't stay dead.

Within seven days. Seven. Days.

Personally, I am willing to boycott the internet over this. I'm willing to boycott Substack should they ever dare. Any platform that begins to require my government ID to access it, I am willing to walk away from and find alternatives if desirable.

Every platform that bends the knee deserves mass abandonment. Not gradual decline, not gentle protest, but immediate, total, catastrophic user exodus. Make them feel it in their stock prices, their quarterly reports, their very souls if they still possess them.

Because here's what they want: continuous biometric verification. Not just checking your ID once—scanning your face continuously while you consume content. Watching you watch. Measuring your pupils' dilation, your micro-expressions, building a real-time map of your emotional responses to every pixel.

Apple actually removed entire features rather than give the UK government the backdoor access they demanded—one of the few acts of corporate courage in this whole sordid affair. Apple, the company that manufactures in Chinese factories with suicide nets, has more moral backbone than your democratically elected government.

Spotify now restricts music behind facial verification in the UK. Music. Humanity's oldest art form after cave painting, now locked behind biometric gates.

“Use our facial age check. If inaccurate, verify with ID.”

Imagine Beethoven learning his symphonies require government documentation. Imagine Bob Dylan knowing his protest songs need facial scanning. Imagine Nina Simone discovering “Mississippi Goddam” sits behind an age verification wall.

They're not protecting children from harmful content. They're protecting power from harmful ideas. Every protest song, every revolutionary rhythm, every beat that makes you question authority—all require your face in their database first.

Delete Spotify. Use any method where you own your music instead of renting it from digital feudal lords. Mild hassle at first, then freedom—actual freedom, not the subscription-model simulation of it.

913 children die annually from self-harm or suicide in the UK—seventh place among causes of child death. Behind congenital malformations, cancers, transport accidents, falls, poisoning.

Has the government launched a massive privacy-destroying initiative to address the top five causes? Have they demanded facial scanning to prevent transport accidents? ID verification to stop respiratory disea— well… we know they tried.

They locked children in their homes during COVID, spiked youth suicide rates, destroyed their education, stunted their social development—then blamed the internet for the damage they caused.

The same government that enforced lockdowns now claims pixels are the enemy. The same Parliament that won't discuss grooming gang scandals censors those trying to expose them. The same week they launch age verification for “child protection,” Channel 4 airs graphic sexual content about porn actress Bonnie Blue at 9 PM when families are watching.

Let's talk about who's actually collecting your ID. Not your government—that would be too obvious. They've outsourced surveillance to private contractors with intelligence agency DNA.

Authentics, verifying IDs for X: CEO Ron Atsom, former Israeli intelligence Unit 8200. His father: treasurer of Netanyahu's Likud party. Company history: direct military surveillance support, intelligence gathering operations.

Founded 2002 as the technology arm of ICTS International. ICTS International was in established 1982 by former Shinbet members. This is an intelligence operation with venture capital funding.

AU10IX in Australia: more Unit 8200 alumni, more Shinbet connections. Creating “digital twins”—complete biometric profiles of every citizen who wants to tweet, post, or watch.

When you upload your ID to access Reddit, to hear “explicit” music on Spotify, to watch YouTube—you're not giving it to Silicon Valley. You're feeding it directly into intelligence apparatus that predates the internet itself.

Every creator who aspires to monetization on X should oppose this. Your ID will end up in the hands of intelligence services. Not might. Will. But I guess the sweet payouts are worth it.

300,000 British citizens uploaded Prime Minister Keir Starmer's face as their age verification. Three hundred thousand acts of beautiful digital vandalism. Norman Reedus from Death Stranding became an unlikely revolutionary icon, his polygonal face a mask for the resistance.

This is poetry. This is art. This is the human spirit flipping the bird to authority with such style that even the algorithms must applaud.

But the system adapts. They're implementing continuous biometric verification—real-time face scanning while you consume content. Your expressions monitored, your attention tracked, your humanity quantified and commodified in real-time.

Using a VPN won't protect you when ISPs and websites mandate ID verification with continuous biometric monitoring. The walls aren't just higher—they're inside your device, watching through your camera, measuring your existence.

Digital surveillance is invisible. Installed by algorithms. Enforced by machines. There's no van to surround, no meter to destroy, no human to confront. The revolution has no target because the enemy has no face. That's the entire strategy.

They don't care about children. If they did:

• They wouldn't have locked them inside during COVID

• They wouldn't ignore the top five actual causes of child death

• They wouldn't air graphic sexual content during family viewing hours

• They wouldn't block forums for quitting smoking and drinking

• They wouldn't censor discussions of actual child abuse scandals

This has never been about protection. It's about power. It's about control. It's about the internet becoming too powerful as an organizing tool, an information network, a revolution engine.

Arab Spring. Occupy. WikiLeaks. GameStop. Hong Kong. Yellow Vests. Brexit. Trump. The “wrong” elections, the “wrong” movements, the “wrong” ideas spreading too fast for traditional propaganda to counter.

The internet gave communities power. Real power. The power to organize without unnecessary leaders, spread information without gatekeepers, challenge narratives without permission.

That's what governments fear. Not porn. Not harmful content. Not even extremism. They fear you talking to each other without supervision.

Access to information has been crucial. The ability to speak freely, to expose government wrongdoing, to organize resistance—it's our greatest power. They know it. That's why they're killing it.

Google launched their digital credentials API eleven months ago. Before any of these laws, they were building the infrastructure. They knew what was coming because they helped write it.

The business model is breathtaking in its evil:

1. Help create laws requiring ID verification

2. Position yourself as the trusted provider

3. Charge for every verification

4. Become the toll booth of human existence

It's PayPal for your identity. Google wants to verify you once, then verify you to everyone else—for a fee. Every click, a micro-transaction. Every login, a toll. Your existence becomes another subscription service.

You will be required to fully identify yourself to use Apple and Google Maps. Maps! The basic human act of knowing where you are requires government documentation.

When someone says, we need an alternative internet, they're right. Not a different protocol or platform—a completely parallel system. Mesh networks. Peer-to-peer protocols. Encrypted channels. Physical gatherings. Actual communities in actual spaces.

Our cyberpunk isn't going offline—it's building new networks they can't control. The Amish aren't backwards; they're ahead of the curve. They saw this coming and opted out before opting out required revolution.

But we can't all become Amish. We need the coordination, the information, the connection. So we build alternatives. We create resilience. We prepare for the world where accessing Wikipedia’s increasingly propaganda based “information” requires biometric scanning.

Am I the only one that imagines it starts with age verification and the pathway ends with checking your social credit score? Probably not. We all see it. The progression is obvious:

1. Age verification becomes normalized

2. VPNs are criminalized (already being discussed in the UK)

3. Digital IDs become “voluntary” (BritCard proposal from Labour Together)

4. Digital IDs become mandatory

5. All online activity is linked to your real identity

6. AI monitors everything in real-time

7. Pre-crime prevention based on your digital profile

8. Social credit scores determine access to services

9. Wrong think becomes impossible because thinking requires typing, and typing requires identification

We're at step 3, accelerating toward 4.

In the same week that Western governments synchronized an unprecedented assault on digital privacy under the banner of child protection, Roblox Corporation—a $25 billion platform hosting 70 million daily active users, predominantly minors—filed lawsuits against content creators who document and expose predatory behavior on their platform.

While the United Kingdom requires biometric verification to access Wikipedia, while Australia bans teenagers from YouTube entirely, while Ireland proposes scanning messages before they're encrypted, a platform specifically designed for children deploys its legal department not against predators, but against those exposing them. The YouTubers targeted by Roblox aren't trafficking in speculation or defamation. They present documented evidence—screenshots, recordings, irrefutable proof of adults soliciting minors within Roblox's virtual playgrounds.

The corporation's response reveals more than corporate malfeasance; it exposes the fundamental dishonesty at the heart of the contemporary child protection discourse.

Consider the logical framework being constructed: Exposing actual predators results in litigation. Demanding biometric data from every internet user constitutes child safety. Documented grooming on major platforms merits no regulatory intervention. Reading through self-help subreddits without government identification represents an unacceptable risk.

Roblox fears liability more than predators. Each exposed case of grooming represents potential litigation, discovery material for class actions, evidence of systemic failure. Silencing whistleblowers proves more cost-effective than implementing genuine moderation. Intimidating YouTubers requires less investment than hiring human moderators. Quarterly earnings benefit more from plausible deniability than actual safety measures.

Meanwhile, governments cite platforms like Roblox as justification for surveillance infrastructure, yet never pursue meaningful action against executives who knowingly operate what amounts to unmoderated spaces where children and predators intermingle. Instead, they demand your grandmother provide passport verification to access knitting forums.

Three forces converge in this moment, each feeding the others:

First, platforms like Roblox, which require just enough danger to remain engaging but not enough to trigger shutdown. They occupy a carefully calibrated zone of acceptable risk—dangerous enough to generate the horror stories governments need, safe enough to avoid criminal prosecution.

Second, governments seeking pretexts for population monitoring. Every unmoderated chat room becomes ammunition for surveillance expansion. Every groomed child transforms into emotional leverage for dismantling privacy rights. Every parent's legitimate fear becomes political capital for authoritarian overreach.

Third, intelligence-adjacent contractors who profit from verification infrastructure. They transform the panic into pipelines, fear into data flows, protection rhetoric into surveillance reality.

The content creators documenting predatory behavior represent an existential threat to this ecosystem. They demonstrate that protection requires neither mass surveillance nor biometric databases—merely a phone, admittedly great interrogation skills and accountability. Their effectiveness undermines the entire justification structure.

Here lies the uncomfortable truth: The child protection industrial complex and the authoritarian control web requires endangered children to function.

Every predator operating on Roblox, Kik Chat, Telegram, Facebook Dating, etc. becomes future justification for expanded surveillance powers. Every documented case of grooming transforms into emotional ammunition for privacy erosion. Every parent's nightmare becomes a blank check for authoritarianism. If children were genuinely protected—if platforms were actually safe—how would governments justify scanning private messages, requiring identification for Wikipedia access, implementing continuous biometric monitoring, criminalizing VPNs, or destroying encryption?

The danger isn't a bug requiring fixes. The danger is the feature enabling everything else.

Governments don't fear predators; they fear heroes who might solve problems without surveillance. Platforms don't prevent harm; they prevent prevention. The system doesn't protect children; it protects the machinery that converts their vulnerability into political and economic power.

In a functional society, Roblox executives would face criminal investigation for knowingly operating platforms where predation occurs while failing to implement adequate safeguards. The YouTubers documenting abuse would receive commendations for public service. Governments would pursue corporate accountability rather than population surveillance.

Instead, we witness the precise inversion: Whistleblowers require legal defense funds while platforms profiting from inadequate moderation receive regulatory protection. Those demanding everyone's biometric data claim moral high ground while those exposing actual predators face litigation.

The revolution won't require age verification. But apparently, actual child protection will require more than good intentions—it will require recognizing that those claiming to protect children are the very forces ensuring their continued vulnerability, because that vulnerability has become too valuable to eliminate.

The question isn't whether this represents conspiracy or convergence. The question is whether we'll continue accepting “think of the children” as sufficient justification for our own digital imprisonment, even as those same children remain unprotected on platforms whose executives sue anyone documenting the danger.

The children deserve better than becoming passwords to tyranny. They deserve actual protection, not surveillance theater performed on the graves of their innocence while their actual predators operate with impunity and their defenders face lawsuits.

Benefit doesn't outweigh the cost to privacy and freedom. It never does. Because the benefit is imaginary and the cost is everything.

They're not weighing protection against privacy. They're weighing control against chaos, order against freedom, their power against our autonomy.

And they've made their choice.

Now we make ours.

If it comes to signing up with government ID: Resist. Walk away. Boycott.

Not eventually. Immediately.

Not quietly. Loudly.

Not alone. Together.

The article’s title screams “ditch the Internet.” Pure clickbait. The real Internet—not the sanitized, subscription-walled bullshit they’re trying to trap you in—is our power. Our last power. The power to organize, communicate, resist. That's why they're taking it. That's why we can't let them.

Every platform that requires ID: Abandoned.

Every service that demands biometrics: Boycotted.

Every company that collaborates: Bankrupted.

Including Substack. Including YouTube. Including everything we've built and loved if it becomes a tool of surveillance.

Ideas have momentum. Resistance is contagious. If we stand together now—actually together, not just hashtag together—we can stop this.

But only if we act. Now. Before the walls finish rising. Before the gates slam shut. Before the last free electron is tagged, tracked, and terminated.

They want to be “parents” to the world's children? Let them parent empty platforms. Let them surveil ghosts. Let them verify nobody.

The revolution won't be televised—it will be the conscious, coordinated, catastrophic withdrawal of our participation from their panopticon. It’s already happening.

Walk away. While you still can.

Before walking requires identification too.

The time to act is now. Not tomorrow. Not after the next election. Now. While we can still coordinate. While we can still communicate. While we can still choose.

The future depends on what we do in the next few months. Not years. Months.

Choose wisely. Choose freedom. Choose resistance.

Or choose convenience, and watch your children grow up in digital chains, their every thought—should they still be capable of one—monitored, their every expression measured, their every dream requiring government approval.

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