This is totally predictable and exactly why we have been fighting for years to ban the use of facial recognition in concert venues.
Madison Square Garden is one of the only venues in the country that still does this.
www.them.us/story/jim-do...
IMPORTANT: The folks at LUCE: Immigrant Justice Network are organizing a week of action in MA to support the PROTECT ACT.
Stop Massachusetts' complicity with ICE kidnappings and violence. Show up for these events!
Yes, to the Governor, then state legislative leadership, then your state senator
Governor, your proposed social media legislation would cut many of these Hatian families off from access to lifesaving online resources.
Requiring social media companies to verify the age of every user means requiring online ID checks, which are completely unworkable for undocumented families.
Palantyranny
New, from me: Take the Palantir manifesto seriously, if not literally.
It reveals that our tech philosopher kings want public money, but without public accountability. This creates a dilemma for governments unaligned with its techno-fascist vision. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/palantir-w...
GOOD MORNING MASS!
This week is going to be critical for mounting vocal opposition to the dangerous and misguided social media surveillance legislation proposed by the @massgovernor.bsky.social and the MA House.
Drop this link in yr group chats, reskeet, do the thing
stoponlineidchecks.org/ma
This @bostonglobe.com piece highlighting substantive critiques of Massachusetts' "protect the kids" push for online ID checks is rock solid.
Many experts quoted along with parents and young people who would be directly impacted.
send this to yr MA legislators
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/19/m...
This @bostonglobe.com piece highlighting substantive critiques of Massachusetts' "protect the kids" push for online ID checks is rock solid.
Many experts quoted along with parents and young people who would be directly impacted.
send this to yr MA legislators
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/19/m...
yes. was i star struck? also yes.
this was so fun. some of my Boston alt-rock heroes are backing me up here. and i loved playing this song with a band of cis queer women. our liberation is intertwined <3
We do work on these issues. There hasn't been a lot of political opportunity on right to repair at the Federal level in recent years. But we are tracking it and partnered with other orgs. I know the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is working on it too.
So, if you can become a monthly sustainer, or make a one-time larger gift, or you have a rich gay uncle who lives in MA and would get why this sucks, please do whatever you can to support our work.
We are a small, scrappy, grassroots org run on donations and hope. Please chip in if you can!
We don’t just want to win. We want to win resoundingly, to send a warning to other states that this is not the way to address the harms of Big Tech. If we can defeat this effort in MA, we will be in a much better strategic position in other states and Federally. If we lose, we’re screwed.
Fight for the Future is a national organization, but our roots are in Massachusetts, and our leadership lives in the Boston-area. After analyzing the legislation and the strategic landscape, we’ve made a decision to go “all in” on defeating this bellwether legislation.
The situation looks grim: the Governor and House leadership are both on board with draconian age-gating methods -- but there is hope: the state senate seems much more skeptical of these proposals, and we have a real chance of getting age verification provisions dropped before the final passage.
The Massachusetts law came as a surprise to everyone, including us. We did not budget or plan for this fight.
But if a law like this passes here, with a Democratic super-majority, it will be game over for online anonymity and privacy.
The stakes could not be higher.
If you care about trans kids, undocumented folks, & basic human rights
AND you have $25 or so to spare, PLEASE consider donating to my org @fightforthefuture.org this week.
We've decided to go all in on fighting the dangerous online ID check laws in MA & we need help
fightforthefuture.org/donate
Authoritarians should not be able to get an app censored from hundreds of millions of people's phones by sending an email to two companies.
There is no universe where that will ever be a tenable situation for free expression.
You should have the right to install software on devices you own
There will be lots of discourse on this focused on the egregious hypocrisy of the MAGA crowd endlessly complaining about Biden admin "jawboning" of Big Tech
But imo the real story here is that Apple and Google's app store monopoly is a gift to dictators and a human rights nightmare.
One of the big conservative grievances against Biden was that his administration jawboned Facebook and others into removing COVID-skeptical and election misinfo content, but SCOTUS tossed that case because there was no proof the admin caused censorship.
Here, Bondi and Noem gleefully admitted it.
THREAD: I've now analyzed @massgovernor.bsky.social's proposed social media legislation and ...
... it is somehow even worse than the House bill that passed last week (which was already one of the worst bills on this issue we've seen in the US.)
You might wanna sit down for this. Here goes: 🧵
You would be hard pressed to find anyone in Massachusetts who thinks Governor Healey is "soundly-left" lol
And here's part 2.
The Governor's proposal would be a gift to Big Tech giants like Meta and Google.
It would be a gift to the Trump admin's crackdown on free speech and immigrant communities.
And ... it would not protect a single solitary child.
Take action here: www.stoponlineidchecks.org/ma/
Did @massgovernor.bsky.social use Chat GPT to write her new proposed social media legislation?
Because that would explain a lot.
I did a line-by line analysis here: www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2026-04...
But I also did some video explaining. Here's part 1:
No, Governor. Your bill would require every person in the state of to upload their government ID in order to post online.
That's blatantly unconstitutional and will face an immediate legal challenge.
So it won't turn off addictive features or limit use.
It will just cost MA taxpayers $$$
www.mass.gov/doc/supp-rel...
So ... now we're fighting two terrible social media ID check proposals in Massachusetts.
We'll get this call tool updated, spread it far and wide and use it to call your MA state lawmakers. There will be a "conference committee" we can pressure to fix the problems.
stoponlineidchecks.org/ma
The data is quite nuanced, and while it supports action to crack down on predatory business practices, it does not support an outright ban, which will not work and will lead to even more harm to young people.
Governor Healey's rhetoric does not line up with the actual evidence on this issue. While numerous studies have shown excessive social media use is harmful to youth mental health, other studies have shown that cutting LGBTQ youth off from social media actually leads to worse mental health outcomes
