Over at Techdirt, a post I wrote on this blog several months ago has inspired a post of its own:

Would The Next George Floyd Video Survive Meta’s New Teen Safety Rules?

I’m a very very very longtime reader of Techdirt and even went on the podcast several years ago in that regrettable formal professional capacity I worked in at the time. That of course was a long time ago. So with this new Techdirt post, normally I’d roll my eyes and giggle, but I’m going to go out of my usual character and say that this is a very nice thing, for this reason:

as followers on my socials will be aware, last week my advocacy for data protection and privacy backfired on me, not for the first time, when someone who had … issues … with a particular … case that I’ve blogged about (not the one above) showed up at my house.

As in, this person made the effort to find out where I live, and show up at my front door, to be very aggressive about that particular issue.

A deeply stressful few days of dealing with the police and … upgrading my personal security measures followed.

I’m still not entirely back to the usual self that I should be, and was, pottering around in what should have been the safety of my own home until the moment that guy knocked on my door.

It has not been a nice couple of weeks for me. It has not been a nice couple of years for me, truth be told. This most recent incident has had me reflecting deeply on what on earth I’m doing this all for, and why, and not in a positive way.

So this Techdirt post arriving in the settling dust of all of that mess is a reminder that whatever comes next, at least not all of it was in vain.