I’ve done a complete 180 on the social media age verification laws. I fully agree with them and support them, and I’m glad to see other countries like the UK adopting them – because by enacting them, the establishment hasn’t simply shot itself in the foot, it’s blown its legs off with .50 calibre explosive-tipped ammo.
What it has done is drive young people – young men and boys particularly – off of curated, moderated platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Reddit and Discord, where the narrative is strictly controlled, and onto uncontrolled platforms like Telegram, Signal and Locals.
Better Bachelor, which is on Locals and has no age verification, has seen a huge uptick in teenagers and young men who have either been kicked off mainstream platforms or have refused to do the facial recognition process required to stay on them.
So they’ve come to us looking for alternatives. Far from cutting off the young people from their ability to communicate, the establishment has driven it underground into the radical far right unmoderated spaces.
If they think kids were getting radicalised by extreme content in the moderated spaces, wait until they see what they get exposed to on places like Signal and Telegram.
These laws have succeeded where us older men’s efforts to get the kids off of the mainstream platforms by encouragement, pleading, and explaining about censorship have failed. It took the force of law to kick the young sheep off the mainstreams and into our arms.
Thank you, Albo. You may well have just helped us save an entire generation of young men from your propaganda and indoctrination!
