Back in August of 2025, we announced a temporary block on account creation for users under the age of 18 from the state of Tennessee, due to the court in Netchoice's challenge to the law (which we're a part of!) refusing to prevent the law from being enforced while the lawsuit plays out. Today, I am sad to announce that we've had to add South Carolina to that list. When creating an account, you will now be asked if you're a resident of Tennessee or South Carolina. If you are, and your birthdate shows you're under 18, you won't be able to create an account.

We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)

Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/

In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.

I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update for dw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability.

In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)

In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.

I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to update dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to.

I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.

I expect you've all seen this?

Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
Discord will soon require age verification to access adult content

Just, UGH.

I am currently rewatching Star Trek TNG, I finished season two last night. When I first watched it, I was a bit younger than Wesley Crusher. Now I guess I'm the age of Captain Picard and Dr. Pulaski, whom I find far more likeable now. It's also a bit weird to try to unite my old love for Data with my annoyance with AI left right and center whether you want it or not right now. I'm sure it's just a question of time until I can't turn it off on my phone anymore.
I fell for an AI account on Bluesky for a while, which annoys me. It turned up after I posted a flower photo and had nature photographies with some remarks posted over a longer period, and the number of followers and followees almost matched, so it didn't click right away and I stupidly followed back because pretty pictures. Then I got a decidedly overly enthusiastic DM asking for my name and for literary discussions, followed by a flood of comments to my previous posts. When I then looked closer at the account, I realized the photographs were geographically all over the place and the remarks accompanying them strange blah blah and the number of followees had exploded. Thus it is now blocked and I guess I've learned to be more suspicious.
It even spoils the fun of making new online friends now. Booh. Not to mention the stupid spam comments bothering authors on AO3.
At work we have had catalogues unavailable because AI bots behave like DDOS attack when they are harvesting bibliographical data.
Netflix is currently in a feud with German voice actors. They are boycotting dubbing jobs for Netflix, as Netflix wants to make it mandatory in their contracts that they allow AI to be trained with their voices without them getting paid. So they basically want them to work on making their work redundant for free. WTF. I'm glad that I have never gotten around to subscribing, so now I don't have to feel obliged to get used to doing without the service.
Am I now sounding like one of the people once who declared the internet the end of all that is good and well?

A good final ep that closed enough storylines to give some closure while leaving enough open to really make me look forward to the next season. Also, some really amazing moments.

I loved the reunions between Lucy and the Ghoul and Lucy with Max. Max and Thad were great together again, I loved their friendship. Hank remains the worst. And I want to know everything about Steph.


( Welcome to the wasteland. )

Sometimes, reading stuff about US fundies is depresseing.

And sometimes it's: "TradCath influencer Sarah Stock admits to cheating on her husband with married man Elijah "women are just a bunch of holes" Schaffer. Stock and her husband were waiting until marriage to have sex while she was sleeping with Schaffer. During this affair, she ended up pregnant and had an abortion".

Also twinks. And a missing family? The FBI?

On Monday, I lightly hit the door of a closed cabinet in the cupboard in my third room, and it just fell to my feet. After recovering from the bafflement I checked the opposite side and found that door was only hanging on one hinge, too. At first I assumed the screws had gotten lose over the years - I bought the thing from the appartment's previous owner - but upon closer inspection it turned out a previously covered up part of the hinge was made of plastic which had broken through. Joy.
I am not really seeing myself repairing this, I think it would need more hands than two, and drilling new holes into the fake wood. I am not particularly attached to that cupboard either, it is obviously not the fanciest quality, and it would probably be a good idea to get something else instead of investing work in it in case this is the start of it collapsing altogether (I checked of course, the relevant parts for all else seem to be metal). Sigh. I very much do not want to start looking for furniture.
So for now, I just removed the second door, too, and am now waiting for them to grow feet and go to the cellar on their own. To have something nicer to look at in it, I swapped the collected stationary in it with the collected photo boxes, which I had actually wanted to live there recently but then found couldn't because two of the boxes were a few millimetres too big for the doors still to close, a problem that has now removed itself. ;-) As it still has a bit of a "doors missing"-look, I made a light chain to kind of frame the cabinet:




( close-up, turned off )

I made the mistake last week to declare myself fit for work too early - there currently is so much going on and being decided and changed that I really wanted to be present. Then I started to cough and generally became even more sick than I had been. Joy. So now I am probably out of order longer than I had been if I had just stayed on the couch one or two more days. I am now somewhat paranoid that I won't get well enough in time to see the Drei Fragezeichen movie one more time at the cinema, although that is probably silly, it seems to be successfull and I am definitely on the way to recovery now.

My phone declared yesterday that it wished to update to IOS 26.2.1 overnight, but it turns out it didn't. I have no idea why. It seems my possessions have decided to annoy me just so I don't get too relaxed with my cold on the couch. ;-)

Edited to add: I have taped the light chain in place in the mean time and now the cabinet has a "doors missing with light chain"-look, so it may end up living somewhere else.

Hi all!

I'm doing some minor operational work tonight. It should be transparent, but there's always a chance that something goes wrong. The main thing I'm touching is testing a replacement for Apache2 (our web server software) in one area of the site.

Thank you!

Thank you all for being here in January! And good luck for February over at sakanawords!

Tally

( Days 1-30 )

Day 31: alightbuthappypen, badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

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Random Trailers:

# Avengers: Doomsday / X-Men

January...in which the main event is still Mum's situation, but things calm down a bit. She caught a bug and felt like crap for a few days, but is getting better now. Maybe from the end of next week on she can start standing/training to walk properly again. /fingers crossed

We finally get fibre glass (after five years or so), I set up the home network anew and use Gemini 3 to program some phython scripts for me.
The dead tree in the garden is finally removed.
Work has ups and downs, but is more or less fine and I'm glad I didn't take (or had to take) extended vacation.
Vesta enjoys the snow.

( Mum )
( Home repair )
( Tree removal )
( Fibre glass & router setup )
( Garden/Yard in January )
( Dog, Walks )
( Gemini 3 as personal programmer )

Has anyone used AI as their personal programmer (or otherwise) and created something amazing for their life yet? trobadora, for fixing a bad case of writer's block, maybe? /pulling you to the dark side...

How have we already reached the end of the month?! Final check-in for January today! Tomorrow I'll post the final tally, and WED will continue over at sakanawords. :D

Today's writing

A lot of writing - my deadline is in about 7 hours hours, and I've filled in all the gaps in my story by now, but there are still a few things I want to add before I post later tonight. *flails*

Tally

( Days 1-25 )

Day 26: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 27: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 28: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, chanter1944, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme
carenejeans,
Day 29: badly_knitted, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 30: badly_knitted, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula@sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 31: china_shop, trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

Rushing towards the deadline ...

Today's writing

I have once again reached the "should I just scrap all of this and start over?" point. I tell myself to just keep writing for now; I can still start over and write a whole new story after the deadline. For now, I need to finish this draft so I can post it.

So I keep writing. For now.

Tally

( Days 1-25 )

Day 26: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 27: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 28: badly_knitted, brithistorian, china_shop, chanter1944, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 29: badly_knitted, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, shadaras, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 30: china_shop, trobadora

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)