Ilya and Shane by linettesmth (SFW)
Dec. 25th, 2025 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mific posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fanart_recsCharacters/Pairing/Other Subject: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: linettesmth on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: Aaaand, it's the inevitable Klimt kiss portrait of Ilya and Shane, and very nicely done, too! I like the echoes of their team uniform colours in their robes.
Link: Ilya and Shane
despite the fact that jud’s form and view of christianity is a very pleasant one, i appreciate
Dec. 24th, 2025 01:38 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
tzikeh_tumblr_feeddespite the fact that jud’s form and view of christianity is a very pleasant one, i appreciate that no part of benoit blanc is converted. it’s not like i expected benoit to become a christian obviously, but i expected him to potentially stay for a service at the end, when invited. or to show appreciation for what jud is building at his church. even just appreciation that he’s welcome.
after the whole movie, when benoit is given the invite, he still says there’s nothing he wants less than to stay in that church. it’s very, very reasonable and realistic of a traumatized atheist, but i almost never see it depicted in this way. usually they come around to “see the beauty” in one way or another. i just really appreciate that they didn’t do that.
the best office holiday party date story of all time
Dec. 24th, 2025 07:29 pmaskamanager_feedA couple of years ago, someone shared what I consider to be the best holiday date story of all time, and it must be shared here again. Enjoy:
When I was fresh out of college, a dude in my social circle invited me to his fancy work Christmas party. He was a teacher, so I’d kind of assumed I was there as friend to act as a buffer between well-intentioned female colleagues who wanted to set him up with one another, with their daughters, etc. I was wrong! This invitation to a work Christmas party was meant to be the first date of a magical relationship between two people destined to be together. Why a magical relationship? When I opened the door, he said he’d hope we’d have a magical night leading to a magical relationship. Then HE DID A MAGIC TRICK. I was… startled.
The party was at a country club, where he drove around and around looking for a space while I said “they have valet. it’s only valet” over and over. Inside there was a coat check. He didn’t want to leave his coat–because there were additional magic tricks secreted inside. We went in, got our drink tickets and our seating assignment. I sat down at a table that was mostly single women several years older than we were. He offered to get me a drink, and I asked for a glass of any kind of wine. He came back several minutes later with a mudslide because girls love mudslides, because they’re chocolate and girls love chocolate. I don’t. But he tried! That’s sweet! Right? Over dinner, I tried to make that sort of general polite conversation people make around banquet tables with strangers. He kept jostling my arm to get my attention to show me another magic trick.
At the beginning of the evening, I really thought we were casual friends, but I was single and kind of open to dating this guy if we got on well. Maybe that hokey line was a story we’d tell our grandchildren! But it was becoming increasingly clear that this guy was Not for Me. That didn’t mean I wanted to embarrass him in front of his principal, though. I finally said something like, “Would you mind terribly saving those for after dinner? I’m really interested in hearing more about Harriet’s begonias, aren’t you?”
He pushed his chair back and stalked across the ballroom to a piano. He plopped down and proceeded to pound out an assortment of sad pop hits. There was Muzak-y Christmas music, but he was gonna play the piano anyway. At this point, I was embarrassed to have come with this guy. My tablemates were embarrassed for me. One of them left and came back with the glass of wine I’d asked for initially. I drank it while the middle aged ladies at our table told me all about their various bad dates. More wine showed up. Then someone asked if I like martinis and brought a martini. Apparently none of them drank, and, as my date played “You’re So Vain” while staring mournfully at me, I drank my way through pretty much all their drink tickets. I am an effusively nice drunk person. I told each and every one of these women that they were beautiful angels shaping tomorrow’s great minds to recognize the power of sisterhood and human kindness. Or something to that general effect. My memory is a bit fuzzy, for obvious, gin-based reasons.
My date wanted to leave, so I went to coat check. I tipped the coat check person, and he reached in the tip jar to fish out my money. I thought he was going to pay the tip. Nope. He told me coat check is free. I said I know. I put my tip back in the jar and sidestepped him when he tried to help with my jacket. His department chair and her husband appeared and said that my apartment was on their way and they’d be happy to drive me. I told them they were “hashtag relationship goals” and made an actual hashtag with my fingers.
I was driven home by way of Taco Bell by these very nice strangers. A week later, the guy called to say his work friends loved me and would I like to go out again. I would not.
A few years later, a friend was telling me about a legendary party her school hosted before she got a job there. A girl nobody knew got plastered and told everyone she loved and appreciated them while her boyfriend played the piano at her and drowned out the Christmas music. I did not reveal my identity. Maybe there’re two of us? I hope there’re two of us.
The post the best office holiday party date story of all time appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Food
Dec. 24th, 2025 01:48 pmysabetwordsmithWhat we put on our plates may matter more for the climate than we realize. Researchers found that most people, especially in wealthy countries, are exceeding a “food emissions budget” needed to keep global warming below 2°C. Beef alone accounts for nearly half of food-related emissions in Canada. Small changes—less waste, smaller portions, and fewer steaks—could add up to a big climate win.
( Read more... )
Fannish Fifty Challenge: Post # 46: due South Christmas Song
Dec. 24th, 2025 01:32 pmride_4everShort version from the TV episode:
Extended version:
playing: pokemon odyssey
Dec. 24th, 2025 12:14 pmtozkaThis one is a blend of Pokémon, Etrian Odyssey and Made in Abyss. The base game is FireRed, which I've never played.
Here's the description: On an island in the middle of the sea stands a massive maze known as the "Yggdrasil Labyrinth", which has been attracting adventurers from all over the world for years.
No one knows how deep it goes, or if there's anything at its end.
Some say there's a treasure of immeasurable value hidden within, while others claim the remnants of a lost civilization lie there.
In the game you'll play as Nyx, a young adventurer who joins the guild of Talrega with the goal of unraveling the Labyrinth's mysteries.
But something goes terribly wrong…
The gameplay is heavy on Pokemon with the world setting and some mechanics (like Etrian's F.O.E. bosses) from the other games. So you collect and battle Pokemon as usual, but the storyline is focused on exploring the labyrinth (and the ocean, which has mysterious islands to find) and doing sidequests. There's no Team Rocket or evil organization to defeat, nor gym leaders or champions. Likewise, there's no map to fill out like in Etrian games.
I'm about 4 hours into it and just about ready to progress to the second Labyrinth level! I'm really enjoying it so far. They've done an amazing job making "Etrian variant" Pokemon (which you can see here) and the game design is really fun.
The only thing I'm a little iffy on is they give you a "team" of two other characters, and then they don't do anything. They don't help with battles, or even explore the labyrinth with you! I'm guessing they're re-skinned rival characters from the base game (I didn't look it up) which makes more sense for how they act in THIS game.
Anyway, a bonus for me: the thing I'm using to play GBA roms on my 3DS apparently sucks up WAY less battery than the regular 3DS software. It's not an emulator, it's using hte 3DS hardware/software to run the ROM directly. Sooooo I'm currently able to play like 6 hours straight without having to charge! Maybe longer-- I'll have to keep testing and see.
(I actually replaced my 3DS battery a couple months ago but it keeps blinking low-battery red after like 4 hours, and idk if it's actually low or if the gage is just borked because of the new battery-- apparently it's a common issue. Anyway...)
If you're interested, I've put some of the more interesting Pokemon romhacks I've found so far in my Link Library here. I'm really interested in ones that use the Pokemon games as a base and create totally new storylines or settings-- if you know of any good ones that I haven't added to my list yet, let me know!
Birdfeeding
Dec. 24th, 2025 01:38 pmysabetwordsmithI fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
.
21 Feline Felon Photos Fresh from Santa’s Naughty List
Dec. 24th, 2025 10:00 amicanhascheezburger_feedIt is no big secret that cats are diabolically clever. Their smarts bring to mind early 2000s cartoons such as Pinky and the Brain, except for cats. And today we have been lucky enough to get ahold of several of the naughtiest criminal cat masterminds as well as the crimes which they have committed. Serving both as an enjoyable foray into the world of feline hijinks, but also as a warning for any and all feline pawrents, because when you have a felonious feline at home, you never quite know what they are going to think up next.
So at least with this collection you will have a barely fighting chance to be one step ahead of their shenanigans and be able to spare yourself some of the madness which they love to get involved in. so hold onto your hats and apparently loaves of bread (they particularly like stealing those) as we step into the world of the cat children who have most certainly ended up on Santa's Naughty List this year, and with very good reason.
icanhascheezburger_feedSuch a typical cat - goes wandering off on their own, makes you worry, and then shows up in the most random of places.
Have you ever walked into a room, expecting your cat to be in there, but they're nowhere to be found? So you search the whole house, and still nothing. You do another full sweep, this time more serious: opening cabinets, closets, looking underneath furniture, etc. You start to panic. Did you leave the door open by accident? A window? Think. Think! And just when you're about to grab your keys and start driving around the neighborhood, you hear them enter the room behind you. Who knows where they were, but they made sure you only found them when they wanted to be found.
Well, take that purrfectly relatable cat owner issue and multiply it by a million. Except this time, the cat did actually escape, for one and a half years. He's a previously feral cat (now a lazy house cat), named Touk. His pawrent was beside himself, and was just about to give up hope, when one day he looked up… and what did he see? His cat. Loafing on his neighbor's roof, calm as can be. We can only imagine the mixture of happiness, excitement, and rage he must have felt.
Now they're back together, and everyone gets their happily ever after, just in time for Christmas. It truly is a Christmas meowracle!
Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 24th, 2025 02:00 pmsinealaNothing. Working on it.
What I'm Reading Now
Comics Wednesday!
( 1776 #2, Marvel Winter Break Special 2025 #1, Will of Doom #1, X-Vengers #3 )
What I'm Reading Next
I woke up this morning to find that
lysimache had gifted me an ebook entitled Here Comes the Pizzer: The Found Poetry of Baseball Broadcasts, by Eric Poulin, so I guess that's what we'll be doing dramatic readings of aloud for Christmas Eve. While eating pizza.The title is a reference to this extremely classic Red Sox broadcast moment. Here comes the pizza.
(We usually read the Christmas story in Greek, Latin, or Old English for Christmas Eve but we can probably make some time for this.)
Villains Are Destined to Die, Vol. 8
Dec. 24th, 2025 01:32 pmmarycatelli posting in book_loveThe story is approaching the conclusion. Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes
( Read more... )
the identity of the hometown hero is revealed
Dec. 24th, 2025 06:29 pmaskamanager_feedA reader writes:
I was the original poster who wrote about the hometown hero American Idol contestant. Every time it has been posted, lots of people guess who it was or hope it was their favorite. And I have kind of wanted to let everyone believe it was their guy. But also, maybe the actual guy and his family should get the accolades.
It was Christmas 2008 at Children’s Hospital Colorado, and it was Ace Young and his family.
As I said, I had never watched the show but knew of him. But he had serious charisma. And distractingly bright blue eyes. I still remember how many grown adults giggled and blushed.
The post the identity of the hometown hero is revealed appeared first on Ask a Manager.
update: how do I adjust to returning to the office after working from home for 5 years?
Dec. 24th, 2025 05:29 pmaskamanager_feedIt’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.
Remember the letter-writer who asked how to adjust to returning to the office after working from home for five years? Here’s the update.
It’s now been almost five months since the 50% in-office mandate began, and it has been … an adjustment, but not nearly as difficult as I anticipated. I ended up choosing to spend one work week of the pay period in the office, and the other work week at home. (For context, the work week for our state government agencies is Wednesday through Tuesday, so that means I go in on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and then the following Monday and Tuesday.) I can’t comment on other divisions at my agency, but mine (human resources) was given the flexibility to decide how the 50% work time would look for each of us.
I also forgot to mention that this mandate only applied to employees who live 50 miles or less from the main office; anyone who lives more than 50 miles away and/or was granted a medical accommodation has been allowed to continue 100% (or close to) telework.
The return to office was also staggered in phases so as not to overwhelm building staff and resources. Human resources was in phase 1 but we were allowed to ramp up to a consistent 50/50 schedule beginning in July, as to allow time to make arrangements for child care, schooling, parking, etc. The final phase has been delayed to allow for renovations of the top floor to continue due to repeated delays in that area. My understanding is that the work should be finished in another month or thereabouts and the final group of employees will begin returning in December. (Which I’m sure they’re not too thrilled about because it’s Minnesota and winter weather/snow will surely impact their commutes!)
Personally, I have found that advance planning with meals and transportation have saved me a lot of stress. I stick to simple food and snacks that don’t require a microwave and I bring them in bulk quantities to last for the work week. That makes getting up half an hour earlier on those days less frantic! I also have my partner drop me off/pick me up which saves money on parking (except for a few days when he was out of town and I had to drive myself).
So overall the 50% return to office has gone relatively well, and we are being given (at least in my division) plenty of flexibility when, you know, life happens (illness, sick kids, family emergencies, etc.) and we don’t have to “make up” days not in office due to sickness, vacation, or otherwise planned time off. My agency has been handling the RTO mandate better than other state agencies, as I’ve been told by my work friends in state government. I know that the rate of medical accommodation requests under the ADA rose significantly when the RTO was first announced and then began but have since leveled off somewhat, based on a conversation I had with the DEI manager. My personal suspicion is that many of them were easy to deny because employees wanted accommodations to care for family or have flexible schedules that allowed them to leave early or come in late, and ADA accommodations are only intended to help the employee perform their job responsibilities with or without an accommodation.
I would like to address a few of the comments which made it sound like I had no clue about office life! Prior to March 2020, I had always worked full-time on-site at every job post-college. So it was not a new work situation; rather, I was asking for help in moving back to a mindset that required me to look and act more professional than was needed during telework. There was a lot of useful advice and I thank everyone who offered suggestions! For those of you readers who have experienced a similar circumstance, regardless of job or industry, or are confronting a RTO situation, I can empathize.
Alison and readers, thank you so much for all the wisdom, advice and hilarious commentary. AAM remains one of my absolute favorite sites!
The post update: how do I adjust to returning to the office after working from home for 5 years? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
he knows if you've been bad or good
Dec. 24th, 2025 05:57 pmpensnestAnd now, my crocheted llama has mysteriously acquired a Santa hat.
Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 24th, 2025 12:07 pmosprey_archerChristmas books! So many Christmas books. Look, the problem is that so many Christmas books are short, all right? Like Janice Hallett’s The Christmas Appeal, a slim novella that I definitely should have read last year when The Appeal was still fresh in my mind, as I spent about half of The Christmas Appeal remembering who was who. But it was still a fun fast read and there was a cameo by my girl Issy, who remains just as Issy as ever, bless her little heart.
Continuing this murder kick, I read J. Jefferson Farjeon’s Mystery in White, a fascinating example of the genre in that the closest thing the book has to a detective is a guy from the society of psychic research who keeps murmuring about how it’s like the crime WANTS to be solved… well, that’s one way to explain why the heroes keep literally stumbling upon the evidence. Enjoyed the snowy atmosphere and the character portraits, especially the chorus girl Jessie, who should have gotten David in the end IMO. Not sure they were really that well-suited, but I was annoyed that a more class-appropriate girl appeared three-quarters of the way through the book.
And also Agatha Christie’s Murder for Christmas, known in the UK has Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, but presumably American publishers were afraid that without the word murder in the title American readers might assume that Poirot is having a holly jolly Christmas eating plum pudding without any murder at all. Quite enjoyed this one. Always nice to see a horrible family dynamic play out in a murder mystery.
Also Ruth Sawyer’s The Long Christmas, a collection of Christmas legends from around the world and a reminder that the Christmas Spirit, for all its current holly jolly picture-perfect Hallmark movie reputation, can in fact be pretty metal. The Christmas spirit is not about giving a bit of spare change to a photogenic waif before retreating to your mansion with the gingerbread on the eves perfectly outlined in Christmas lights. The Christmas Spirit says, “Oh, none of you are going to share your fireside and your last crust of bread with this weary footsore traveler on Christmas Eve? Well, then, I am going to raise the floods and drown your entire selfish town.”
Although Sawyer’s This Way to Christmas did not repeat this particular story, some of the other stories overlap with The Long Christmas. Published in 1915, the story centers on a little boy facing a lonely Christmas on a snowy mountain where none of the neighbors speak to each other, for they are of all different nationalities and races: German-American, American Black, Brazilian Portuguese, and small Ruritanian country that just got invaded by Germany.
However, our hero (inspired by a visit from a fairy wearing a squirrel suit) visits each cottage, hears a Christmas story from each person, and in the end inspires his foster parents to invite them all to Christmas, invitations in the form of signposts saying THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS, hence the title.
And in the archives, I read Lee Kingman’s The Magic Christmas Tree, illustrated by Bettina. Little Joanna is lonely because she’s the youngest of ten and always in the way, until she finds her own special secret place: clearing in the woods with a pine tree just her size. Little Julie is lonely at home because she’s the only child in a vast mansion, but finds solace when she finds a little pine tree in the woods perfect for a hideaway. And then at Christmastime, Joanna hides a beloved doll by the tree… and Julie, thrilled by this magical appearance, brings the mystery doll a little doll bed and fur coverlet… and when Joanna returns with a baby doll so her doll won’t be lonely, she in turn is astonished…
OMG. So cute. I do wish it were longer so there was more time for the girls’ friendship to develop after they finally meet.
What I’m Reading Now
Unable to face another Christmas book, I broke down and started Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle... which turns out to start on Christmas Eve! The German POWs are having a Christmas tree. One of the other zeks is making a Christmas present. I can’t even. I’ll never escape.
What I Plan to Read Next
Non-Christmas books! Anything but Christmas! In particular, I’ve got Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary and Mai Ishizawa’s The Place of Shells checked out, while Emile Zola’s Therese Raquin and Elizabeth Enright’s Then There Were Five are on hold.
EFF’s ‘How to Fix the Internet’ Podcast: 2025 in Review
Dec. 24th, 2025 04:45 pmeff_feed2025 was a stellar year for EFF’s award-winning podcast, “How to Fix the Internet,” as our sixth season focused on the tools and technology of freedom.
It seems like everywhere we turn we see dystopian stories about technology’s impact on our lives and our futures—from tracking-based surveillance capitalism, to street level government surveillance, to the dominance of a few large platforms choking innovation, to the growing efforts by authoritarian governments to control what we see and say—the landscape can feel bleak. Exposing and articulating these problems is important, but so is envisioning and then building solutions. That’s where our podcast comes in.
EFF's How to Fix the Internet podcast offers a better way forward. Through curious conversations with some of the leading minds in law and technology, EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn and Activism Director Jason Kelley explore creative solutions to some of today’s biggest tech challenges. Our sixth season, which ran from May through September, featured:
- “Digital Autonomy for Bodily Autonomy” – We all leave digital trails as we navigate the internet—records of what we searched for, what we bought, who we talked to, where we went or want to go in the real world—and those trails usually are owned by the big corporations behind the platforms we use. But what if we valued our digital autonomy the way that we do our bodily autonomy? Digital Defense Fund Director Kate Bertash joined Cindy and Jason to discuss how creativity and community can align to center people in the digital world and make us freer both online and offline.
- “Love the Internet Before You Hate On It” – There’s a weird belief out there that tech critics hate technology. But do movie critics hate movies? Do food critics hate food? No! The most effective, insightful critics do what they do because they love something so deeply that they want to see it made even better. Molly White—a researcher, software engineer, and writer who focuses on the cryptocurrency industry, blockchains, web3, and other tech joined Cindy and Jason to discuss working toward a human-centered internet that gives everyone a sense of control and interaction; open to all in the way that Wikipedia was (and still is) for her and so many others: not just as a static knowledge resource, but as something in which we can all participate.
- “Why Three is Tor's Magic Number” – Many in Silicon Valley, and in U.S. business at large, seem to believe innovation springs only from competition, a race to build the next big thing first, cheaper, better, best. But what if collaboration and community breeds innovation just as well as adversarial competition? Tor Project Executive Director Isabela Fernandes joined Cindy and Jason to discuss the importance of not just accepting technology as it’s given to us, but collaboratively breaking it, tinkering with it, and rebuilding it together until it becomes the technology that we really need to make our world a better place.
- “Securing Journalism on the ‘Data-Greedy’ Internet” – Public-interest journalism speaks truth to power, so protecting press freedom is part of protecting democracy. But what does it take to digitally secure journalists’ work in an environment where critics, hackers, oppressive regimes, and others seem to have the free press in their crosshairs? Freedom of the Press Foundation Digital Security Director Harlo Holmes joined Cindy and Jason to discuss the tools and techniques that help journalists protect themselves and their sources while keeping the world informed.
- “Cryptography Makes a Post-Quantum Leap” – The cryptography that protects our privacy and security online relies on the fact that even the strongest computers will take essentially forever to do certain tasks, like factoring prime numbers and finding discrete logarithms which are important for RSA encryption, Diffie-Hellman key exchanges, and elliptic curve encryption. But what happens when those problems—and the cryptography they underpin—are no longer infeasible for computers to solve? Will our online defenses collapse? Research and applied cryptographer Deirdre Connolly joined Cindy and Jason to discuss not only how post-quantum cryptography can shore up those existing walls but also help us find entirely new methods of protecting our information.
- “Finding the Joy in Digital Security” – Many people approach digital security training with furrowed brows, as an obstacle to overcome. But what if learning to keep your tech safe and secure was consistently playful and fun? People react better to learning and retain more knowledge when they're having a good time. It doesn’t mean the topic isn’t serious—it’s just about intentionally approaching a serious topic with joy. East Africa digital security trainer Helen Andromedon joined Cindy and Jason to discuss making digital security less complicated, more relevant, and more joyful to real users, and encouraging all women and girls to take online safety into their own hands so that they can feel fully present and invested in the digital world.
- “Smashing the Tech Oligarchy” – Many of the internet’s thorniest problems can be attributed to the concentration of power in a few corporate hands: the surveillance capitalism that makes it profitable to invade our privacy, the lack of algorithmic transparency that turns artificial intelligence and other tech into impenetrable black boxes, the rent-seeking behavior that seeks to monopolize and mega-monetize an existing market instead of creating new products or markets, and much more. Tech journalist and critic Kara Swisher joined Cindy and Jason to discuss regulation that can keep people safe online without stifling innovation, creating an internet that’s transparent and beneficial for all, not just a collection of fiefdoms run by a handful of homogenous oligarchs.
- “Separating AI Hope from AI Hype” – If you believe the hype, artificial intelligence will soon take all our jobs, or solve all our problems, or destroy all boundaries between reality and lies, or help us live forever, or take over the world and exterminate humanity. That’s a pretty wide spectrum, and leaves a lot of people very confused about what exactly AI can and can’t do. Princeton Professor and “AI Snake Oil” publisher Arvind Narayanan joined Cindy and Jason to discuss how we get to a world in which AI can improve aspects of our lives from education to transportation—if we make some system improvements first—and how AI will likely work in ways that we barely notice but that help us grow and thrive.
- “Protecting Privacy in Your Brain” – Rapidly advancing "neurotechnology" could offer new ways for people with brain trauma or degenerative diseases to communicate, as the New York Times reported this month, but it also could open the door to abusing the privacy of the most personal data of all: our thoughts. Worse yet, it could allow manipulating how people perceive and process reality, as well as their responses to it—a Pandora’s box of epic proportions. Neuroscientist Rafael Yuste and human rights lawyer Jared Genser, co-founders of The Neurorights Foundation, joined Cindy and Jason to discuss how technology is advancing our understanding of what it means to be human, and the solid legal guardrails they're building to protect the privacy of the mind.
- “Building and Preserving the Library of Everything” – Access to knowledge not only creates an informed populace that democracy requires but also gives people the tools they need to thrive. And the internet has radically expanded access to knowledge in ways that earlier generations could only have dreamed of—so long as that knowledge is allowed to flow freely. Internet Archive founder and digital librarian Brewster Kahle joined Cindy and Jason to discuss how the free flow of knowledge makes all of us more free.
This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.
Politicians Rushed Through An Online Speech “Solution.” Victims Deserve Better.
Dec. 24th, 2025 04:44 pmeff_feedEarlier this year, both chambers of Congress passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act. This bill, while well-intentioned, gives powerful people a new legal tool to force online platforms to remove lawful speech that they simply don't like.
The bill, sponsored by Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL), sought to speed up the removal of troubling online content: non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII). The spread of NCII is a serious problem, as is digitally altered NCII, sometimes called “deepfakes.” That’s why 48 states have specific laws criminalizing the distribution of NCII, in addition to the long-existing defamation, harassment, and extortion statutes—all of which can be brought to bear against those who abuse NCII. Congress can and should protect victims of NCII by enforcing and improving these laws.
Unfortunately, TAKE IT DOWN takes another approach: it creates an unneeded notice-and-takedown system that threatens free expression, user privacy, and due process, without meaningfully addressing the problem it seeks to solve.
While Congress was still debating the bill, EFF, along with the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), Authors Guild, Demand Progress Action, Fight for the Future, Freedom of the Press Foundation, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge, Restore The Fourth, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, TechFreedom, and Woodhull Freedom Foundation, sent a letter to the Senate outlining our concerns with the proposal.
First, TAKE IT DOWN’s removal provision applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content—than the narrower NCII definitions found elsewhere in the law. We worry that bad-faith actors will use the law’s expansive definition to remove lawful speech that is not NCII and may not even contain sexual content.
Worse, the law contains no protections against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests. Lawful content—including satire, journalism, and political speech—could be wrongly censored. The law requires that apps and websites remove content within 48 hours or face significant legal risks. That ultra-tight deadline means that small apps or websites will have to comply so quickly to avoid legal risk, that they won’t be able to investigate or verify claims.
Finally, there are no legal protections for providers when they believe a takedown request was sent in bad faith to target lawful speech. TAKE IT DOWN is a one-way censorship ratchet, and its fast timeline discourages providers from standing up for their users’ free speech rights.
This new law could lead to the use of automated filters that tend to flag legal content, from commentary to news reporting. Communications providers that offer users end-to-end encrypted messaging, meanwhile, may be served with notices they simply cannot comply with, given the fact that these providers can’t view the contents of messages on their platforms. Platforms could respond by abandoning encryption entirely in order to be able to monitor content, turning private conversations into surveilled spaces.
We asked for several changes to protect legitimate speech that is not NCII, and to include common-sense safeguards for encryption. Thousands of EFF members joined us by writing similar messages to their Senators and Representatives. That resulted in several attempts to offer common-sense amendments during the Committee process.
However, Congress passed the bill without those needed changes, and it was signed into law in May 2025. The main takedown provisions of the bill will take effect in 2026. We’ll be pushing online platforms to be transparent about the content they take down because of this law, and will be on the watch for takedowns that overreach and censor lawful speech.
This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.