I’m sick and tired of the government treating teenagers as the problem. Sure, some have caused trouble, some have gone out and hurt people, but not all of them. Just because adults give us an addictive algorithm, problematic posts on that algorithm and suicidal stunts on those posts doesn’t make us the problem. It makes them the problem.
We’re not on our phones out of free will, we’re on our phones because the entire world is on our phones. Our friends, people we enjoy watching and even our bank cards. But through it all, we’re apparently the problem.
Not because these apps are made to keep us on them, not because some rich old white man in California makes billions off us being on our phones, not because the government is stopping the kids using the social media that it’s apparently okay for 16 and over to use, no, we’re bad people who have been stuck staring at screens entirely because we decide to.
I don’t know why we’ve decided that it’s okay for adults to use it, but not kids, because it’s still just as bad.
Are you catching on now? Wonderful, because these rules aren’t actually in place to “protect the kids,” as you might’ve realised by now. No, they’re in place, so that the 56 million adults in the UK have to give up all their privacy to post something. At the same time, the right to protest has been forgotten, with police arresting people of all ages holding up placards for causes they care about.
What do we call this kids? You won’t know, because the internet is so heavily censored, now that every website you use knows your every last personal detail. This is proven by our current government, who have been spotted censoring news about the genocide in Gaza because they have ties with Palantir, who generate hit lists for the Israeli military.
But I’ll tell you: it’s the beginning signs of government censorship, surveillance and an authoritarian state.
We must fight back. Every time you see a post online, raise awareness about these issues by posting govcensor.uk in the comments. It will link them to this article. Every time you see any government employee, tell them to defend the right to protest. This will help with eventually protesting everything discussed above.
If you’re reading this on govcensor.uk, there will be a link, that you can put an email in to stay up to date with how well things are going.