Contact your local MP and spread this far and wide:

Subject: Urgent Action Required – Online Safety Act Harms

Dear [MP’s Name],

I am writing to you as a concerned constituent to demand urgent review and amendment of the Online Safety Act (OSA). While its stated aim is to protect users, it has already created serious harm to privacy, freedom of expression, and access to public knowledge.

The Government’s response to the Change.org petition failed to meaningfully address any of these widely raised concerns, offering vague assurances instead of evidence or concrete changes. This is unacceptable in a democracy.

Key problems now being reported:
• Excessive censorship – Vague definitions of “harm” are silencing lawful speech, political debate, and online communities.
• Privacy risks from mandatory age verification – Requires intrusive ID checks (including facial recognition), creating huge data breach risks.
• Threat to public-interest platforms – Wikipedia and similar sites could face UK restrictions if forced to verify all contributors.
• Erosion of encryption – Weakening secure communication systems in a way experts call “authoritarian” and “technically incoherent.”
• Ineffectiveness – VPN use has surged by over 500%, making the law easy to bypass while still harming UK-based platforms.
• Harm to vulnerable communities – Risks “outing” LGBTQ+ individuals and deterring use of safe online support spaces.

Recent events highlight the urgency:
• High Court ruling (Aug 2025) dismissed Wikimedia’s challenge, but confirmed Ofcom must act proportionately.
• Major online communities and platforms have blocked UK users or imposed invasive checks.
• Civil rights groups and tech experts continue to warn the OSA is fundamentally flawed.

I am asking you to:
1. Support a full Parliamentary review of the OSA’s harms and unintended consequences.
2. Press for immediate amendments to protect privacy, encryption, and public-interest platforms.
3. Suspend or repeal the most damaging provisions until they can be replaced with proportionate, evidence-based measures.

This is not a partisan matter — it is about protecting fundamental rights, digital freedoms, and public trust. I request a written reply outlining your position and the actions you will take.

Yours sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]

Better social media is possible.

In his new book Move Slowly and Build Bridges, Robert W. Gehl tells the story of the activists, software developers, artists, and everyday people who have built the fediverse, a noncentralized alternative social media system. Unlike big tech corporations like Facebook, TikTok, or X, the fediverse is comprised of thousands of small, independent communities who use a Web protocol to communicate with one another.

These small communities govern themselves and moderate content at the human scale — compare that to Facebook and X, which try to moderate global conversations. And the fediverse isn’t built in order to gather user data and sell attention to marketers — it’s a more privacy-respecting social media alternative.

The most notable part of the fediverse is Mastodon. Founded in 2016, Mastodon was positioned as an alternative to Twitter. Like Twitter (or X), Mastodon members can post, like, share, and connect with one another across the world. Unlike Twitter/X, Mastodon can be completely under the control of its members, from how it’s run to its underlying software.

Making a noncentralized, ethically run social media system isn’t easy. The people building the fediverse have faced long hours, burnout, angry debates, and, worst of all, bigotry, death threats, and discrimination. They face constant, nagging doubts: Can we really do this? Can noncentralized social media survive in a world that is used to corporate social media? Can we—all of us—have our own social media?

As Move Slowly and Build Bridges shows us, the answer is yes, but it’s going to take a struggle.

Lactose in enough quantities gets my tummy rumbling in a bad way so I'm trying out alternatives.

Oat milk in hipster coffee drinks is pretty good.

Soy milk as a protein and calcium beverage is fine. Tastes OK.

There is lactose-free milk too but that is still suspect. Either it's not all the way lactose free or too much of any kind of dairy quakes my intestines.