The Cat and Mouse Game of Age Verification Online

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Rugnetta (00:10):
Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast for and about theInternet. I'm your host, Mike
Rugnetta. This intro was writtenon Tuesday, 08/26/2025 at
08:57AM eastern, and we have anonstop show for you this week.
First, I talked with DavidHuerta, senior digital security

(00:31):
trainer at Freedom of the PressFoundation about Blue Sky being
blocked in Mississippi and theusefulness of VPNs. Then hot on
the heels of our member drivestream week, an edit of our what
is going on here stream recordedlive in front of a Twitch chat

(00:51):
audience and also the ganggames.
But right now, we're gonna takea quick break. You're gonna
listen to some ads unless you'rein the member feed. And when we
return, we'll talk about a fewof the things that have happened
since the last time you heardfrom us. It's something
unpredictable, but in the end,that's four stories for you this
week. AOL is suspending dial upservice, something you maybe

(01:17):
thought it did twenty years ago.
The ISP will cease the max 56 kb p s connection on September
30. In 2021, when AOL sold toprivate equity firm Apollo
Global Management, CNBC reportedthat quote, the number of dial
up users is now in the lowthousands. Kickstarter United,

(01:50):
the union of Kickstarter workersorganized under o p e I u local
one fifty three, is currentlycollecting signatures on a
petition asking management toinclude in their contract
guarantees to maintain theirpreexisting standard of a four
day work week. Since April 2022,the union writes, Kickstarter

(02:12):
employees have worked under afour day, thirty two hour work
week. It began as a commitmentto building a healthier, more
sustainable workplace.
During this time, Kickstarterexperienced the most successful
period in its sixteen yearhistory, hosting some of the
biggest, most groundbreakingprojects ever launched on the
platform, end quote. They latercontinue, as we entered contract

(02:36):
negotiations with management, weasked them to make the four day
thirty two hour work weekpermanent, not as a pilot or a
promise, but as policy. Theyhave refused and are determined
to retain the ability to make uswork 25% more hours for no
additional compensation. They'reasking for support in the form

(02:57):
of petition signatures, so we'veincluded a link to that in the
show notes if you'd like tosign. YouTube has been using AI
to upscale already uploadedvideos without uploader
permission.
On August 14, music YouTuber,Rhett Schull, uploaded a video
titled YouTube is using AI toalter content and not telling

(03:19):
us. Made after his friend andcolleague Rick Beeto, another
music YouTuber, noticed helooked sort of like an AI
deepfake of himself in certainYouTube shorts. The BBC reports
that complaints of AI upscalingby YouTube go back to June on
social media, quote, with usersposting close ups of odd looking
body parts and questioningYouTube's intentions. Now, they

(03:43):
continue, after months of rumorsin comment sections, the company
has finally confirmed it isaltering a limited number of
videos on YouTube shorts, theapp's short form video feature.
We're running an experiment onselect YouTube shorts, a company
representative says, that usestraditional machine learning
technology to unblur, denoise,and improve clarity in videos

(04:06):
during processing, similar towhat a modern smartphone does
when you record a video, endquote.
Improving clarity by makingeveryone look like cake. Yum.
It's your birthday. And finally,research out of MIT shows that
95% of generative AI pilots atcompanies are failing. Fortune

(04:28):
reports that, quote, the vastmajority stall delivering little
to no measurable impact onprofits and losses, end quote.
Study authors tell Fortune thatwhile executives may push for
more AI use and blame regulationor model performance for lack of
uptake, the problem actuallylies in a misunderstanding of
what these tools are suited for.Extremely narrow, often rote,

(04:50):
data oriented tasks, whatFortune calls back office
automation. Companies alsosuffer when they attempt to
design and implement their ownAI solutions with findings
showing that nearly 70% ofinternal tools fail to have any
business impact. In show newsthis week, folks, friends,

(05:16):
listeners, the member drivestream week is over, but it
lives on in our hearts, and themember drive itself continues.
More on that in a moment.
First, let's do some numbers.Over the last week, we streamed
thirty six hours and one minute.You all watched us for a

(05:36):
combined total of eighty eightthousand eight hundred and
twenty seven minutes. We had anaverage viewer count over those
thirty six hours of forty onewith a max concurrent viewer
count of a 138. We reached11,322 unique people and there
were 156 of you in the chat.
That all adds up to 16,294 liveviews and 17,006 v o d views.

(06:04):
And a bunch of those are stillup if you wanna go watch.
They're gonna expire soon, Ithink. 65% of our audience was
in The US and 35% elsewhere.Switzerland, looking at you.
And we were rated once by theinvestigators pod while we were
all quietly watching Virtuosity.We now have 218 Twitch followers

(06:25):
and 31 subscribers, five ofwhich were gifted. We have
reached affiliate status. I onlykind of know what that means,
except that we'll probably keepstreaming at least a little
every once in a while. So if youwanna catch us when we go live,
make sure to follow us attwitch.tv/theneverpost.

(06:48):
We also announced that the neverpost subreddit is the place to
hang out with other listeners aswell as the staff of the show,
and we have got 62 new membersover there, including at least
one that is site wide shadowband. That's me, Mike Rugnetta.
I will accept any tips on how toremedy that situation. Anyways,

(07:08):
r forward slash never post. Comehang out on Ramit.
But okay. The big number, theimportant one, how many new
members did we get? Our goal forAugust is to add 200 new members
and we got a 154. Holy cow. Canwe close that gap of 46 in,

(07:30):
looks at calendar, five days?
That is up to you all listening.We did about that many in the
first two days of the memberdrive. Maybe we can do it again
to close it out. If you aren'talready a member and have been
thinking about becoming one for$4 a month, there's no better
time than right now, I promise.Okay.
Two more things. Wow. Lots ofshow news this week. We've been

(07:53):
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in a spot where you can partwith $4 a month, we have a
limited number of giftmemberships still available from
the stream week.
Your fellow listeners havedonated a year of membership.
That is how much they like beingmembers, and we're gonna give
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details. And finally, if you'vealways wanted merch, now's the
time.
That's right. Never post has tshirts. You can head to
neverpost.bigcartel.com to takea look at the two designs

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other by the inimitable SpenceNelson. These are shirt
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Once preorders are closed onSeptember 12, shirts will be
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what you can expect as far astiming and shipping and all
that. Neverpost.bigcartel.com.
Okay. That is the news I havefor you this week. First, blue
sky is blocked in Mississippi.Then, what is going on here? But

(09:25):
right now, at certain pointsthroughout the stream week,
myself, Jason, and Georgiaplayed video games.
Maybe you've heard them. In ourinterstitials this week, clips
from Never Post Plays.

Jason Oberholtzer (09:37):
Alright. Well, well. Alright. Chat,

Georgia Hampton (09:40):
you have decided this is the person that
I look like. I don't superremember what Bobby Pin looks
like.

This is about to be great.

So you're gonna find out. Well, don't look it up
because then you'll see what shelooks like.

Oh, let's find out together. Wow. Yep.
Okay. Like a family.
Georgia, I'm excited for you.Before you Oh. Feel an
overwhelming air of cool of

An overwhelming air of cool?

Leather and metal and the best hair and
eyebrows you've ever seen. Bowis impartially cool. Are

you kidding me?

Oh.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

This is the hugest compliment I've ever
gotten in my life. Well, theysay that in a lot of queer
relationships, people look liketwins. So let's go. Problem
punk? Oh my god.
Should we be sassy? Our threeoptions are what?

You would know. This is like you're
fighting the mirror right now.I'm fighting

the mirror right now. Yeah. Yeah. I think
it's a. Okay.
She said, you got a problem,punk? No. But it sounds like you
do.

What? Me? Nah.

I'm just messing with you. Me coded also.

My name's Bobby.

Bobby Pin.

Oh my god. I love you. We are the same.

Mississippi house bill one one two six, known
otherwise as the WalkerMontgomery protecting children
online act, was passed on04/20/2024 and signed by
Mississippi governor Tate Reeveson April 30. The bill was
established quote to protectminors from harmful content. How

(12:36):
does it do this? Well, I'll letthe bill speak for itself. It
reads, one, digital serviceprovider may not enter into an
agreement with a person tocreate an account with a digital
service unless the person hasregistered the person's age with
the digital service provider.
And then later, a digitalservice provider shall not
permit an account holder who isa known minor to be an account

(12:59):
holder unless the known minorhas expressed consent from a
parent or guardian. It thenlists ways in which consent can
be given. A form which can beemailed or faxed, a toll free
phone line that can be called, avideo chat, an ID scan which
then must be deleted it says, orany other quote commercially

(13:19):
reasonable method. Once consentis given, the DSP then needs to
make sure that it abides byfurther rules concerning what a
minor can and cannot be shown.The bill reads, one, in relation
to a known minor's use of adigital service, a digital
service provider shall makecommercially reasonable efforts

(13:41):
to develop and implement astrategy to prevent or mitigate
the known minors exposure toharmful material and other
content that promotes orfacilitates the following harms
to minors.
A, consistent with evidenceinformed medical information,
the following, self harm, eatingdisorders, substance use
disorders, and suicidalbehaviors. B, patterns of use

(14:03):
that indicate or encouragesubstance abuse or use of
illegal drugs. C, stalking,physical violence, online
bullying, or harassment. D,grooming, trafficking, child
pornography, or other sexualexploitation or abuse. E,
incitement of violence or f, anyother illegal activity.

(14:24):
Not only does this mean the DSPneeds to keep track of who is
and who is not a minor, some ofthese guidelines are also very
broad. In today's politicalclimate, labels like any other
illegal activity are definitelymoving targets. Net Choice, a
trade association whichrepresents tech clients like
Meta, Airbnb, Amazon, Reddit,Snap, and thirty some others

(14:47):
sued Mississippi over h b oneone two six saying it likely
violates free speech guaranteedby the first amendment and equal
protection rights guaranteed bythe fourteenth. Netchoice asked
for an injunction, a pause onenforcement of the law while a
court determines if those rightswere being violated. The United
States District Court for theSouthern District of Mississippi

(15:08):
granted that injunction sayingNetchoice was probably right and
that furthermore, they likelyhad standing to bring suit.
Mississippi's AG, Lynn Fitch,appealed saying that the
district court didn't provideanalysis as required by legal
precedent. The United StatesCourt of Appeals for the fifth
circuit agreed and vacated theinjunction, which meant that h b

(15:31):
one one two six could go intoeffect over a year after it was
originally signed. This back andforth made it to the Supreme
Court who concurred with theFifth Circuit. Earlier in
August, writing for the courtwith no dissents included,
justice Kavanaugh says,Netchoice has, in my view,
demonstrated that it is likelyto succeed on the merits.

(15:54):
Namely, that enforcement of theMississippi law would likely
violate its members firstamendment rights under this
court's precedence.
However, he continued, becausenet choice has not sufficiently
demonstrated that the balance ofharms and equities favors it at
this time, I concur in thecourt's denial of the
application for interim relief.Basically, while the law is

(16:16):
likely unconstitutional, netchoice didn't convincingly show
that the courts need to step inas soon as possible. So h b one
one two six stands. The supremecourt's decision made on August
14 further cemented the factthat perhaps eventually this law
could be overturned, but in theinterim Mississippi could

(16:36):
continue to enforce it aswritten.

David Huerta (16:40):
And many websites started creating these sort of
like, not exactly pay walls, butage walls for verification.

This is David Huerta.

I'm David Huerta. I'm one of the senior digital
security trainers over atFreedom of the Press Foundation.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation helps
journalists safely do their workonline. This means, among other
things, knowing how to protecttheir identities in certain
scenarios, something that thisruling has now made more
complicated for many websitesaccessible within Mississippi.

This, of course, carries a certain amount of
security and privacy concerns.Of course, there's the fact that
you're trusting a third partywebsite with something as
sensitive as your ID, forexample. There is also the
concerns around, for example,securing that data once it
arrives, that image of yourdriver's license once it arrives
on their end, and how much trustdo you have on these systems to

(17:38):
actually protect your data. Ifeel like we've all had GDPR
database notifications reach ourinbox. These are not infrequent.
And sometimes the stakes arerelatively low. It's like, oh, I
guess I gotta change mypassword. But if we're gonna
make the age verification thenorm and we're gonna have our,
you know, our driver's licensesor passports all over the place,

(17:59):
it's a lot harder to change yourdriver's license number than it
is to change a password on thewebsite.

I wanted to talk with David to better understand
how companies are responding tothese risky new age wall
requirements and also to betterunderstand some of the
technologies that people aresuggesting for circumventing
them. I started by asking abouta blog post from Friday, August
22 that was written by the BlueSky team entitled our response

(18:26):
to Mississippi's age assurancelaw. It read, starting today, if
you access Blue Sky from aMississippi IP address, you'll
see a message explaining why theapp isn't available. This block
will remain in place while thecourts decide whether the law
will stand. And this means thatat the time of recording, while

(18:47):
we're recording this, Blue Skyis no longer reachable in the
state of Mississippi.
Yep. If I'm understandingcorrectly, it is not that
Mississippi has blocked BlueSky. It is that Blue Sky has
made itself unavailable topeople who are logging in or
trying to access the websitefrom a Mississippi IP address.

That is correct. In this case, Blue Sky is
basically trying to figure outwhere exactly it fits into this
law, how exactly is its contentbeing interpreted, and how much
does that actually affect them.So unfortunately, this creates a
sort of, like, chilling effectwhere they maybe don't wanna
take on that risk of gettingsued or getting in trouble with
the law. So rather than dealingwith that and the interpretation

(19:33):
of, like, where they fit intothat law, they've decided, in
this case, it seems to pull outentirely until that's figured
out.

In their blog post, they write, we think this
law creates challenges that gobeyond its child safety goals
and creates significant barriersthat limit free speech and
disproportionately harms smallerplatforms and emerging
technologies. Do have a sense ofwhat it is that they mean in
that case? Like, what is itabout this that they feel is

(20:02):
disproportionately harming themas a small team or a new piece
of technology?

Yeah. I feel like there's, you know, a lot of
things that go into featuresbeing requested as part of this
law that other companies haveeither already implemented or
have the staffing, theresources, the money to
basically implement it and havea lot of experience with that,

(20:29):
including with things likecontent moderation as kind of an
an addenda in addition to that.When it comes to Blue Sky and
also other smaller platformslike Mastodon, which in in their
cases, for example, are, like,small mini Blue Skies almost
that may have, like, one or twopeople total running the show
for their for their particularcommunities. Having to spin up

(20:51):
all these new features and worryabout the sort of, like, legal
repercussions of what happens ifthey make a mistake is something
that is much much moreconsequential to them than it
would be for, like, a vastlywealthy company like Meta, for
example.

Or, like, Facebook's got the
infrastructure maybe preexistingor is able to get it up quickly
to store and process scans ofIDs, even if that is sort of, in
a larger sense, something weshould all be suspicious of, it
is something that they can buildquickly.

Yeah. They have the infrastructure. They have
the security engineers. Theyhave the lawyers. They have the
resources, basically, to helpthem navigate that a lot more
smoothly than, you know, a teamthat is made up of, like, you
know, a dozen or or maybe insome types of less people when
it comes to things likeMastodon.

Yeah. Yeah. Your point about Mastodon is
interesting. I hadn't consideredthat. Are you seeing a similar
thing happening in Mastodoninstances?
Are are Mastodon instances alsoblocking access from
Mississippi?

I have not seen that yet. I can't tell whether
Blue Sky is sort of theexception to the rule or whether
they are the canary in the coalmine, and this is just the
beginning of what has to comefor many other social media
platforms, including a lot ofplatforms where a lot of
journalistic work is being done,where a lot of you know, if if
people remember, there was a lotof news that broke on Twitter.

(22:17):
There was a lot of news thatbroke on social media. These
platforms are basically a sourceof journalistic work and news
for many people, and having themsuddenly not be accessible is is
an issue because now peopledon't have the same access or at
least the same variety of placesto get their news from.

One thing I've seen online in response to all
of this is time to get a VPN.Yeah. Could you describe, just
in broad terms, what a VPN is?

Sure. So VPN, in this case, is a virtual private
network, a way for you to usesomeone else's Internet
connection to connect to thewebsite that you actually wanna
access. And it is one of thosethings where, largely speaking,
VPNs are still relativelyeffective at getting around a
lot of blockage that exists,especially simple sort of like

(23:12):
IP based blocks like this whereif, you know, there's a sort of
IP address that is associatedwith a specific jurisdiction
like Mississippi, you canbasically simply appear from an
IP address that is not one ofthose.

IP address kinda acting like almost like an area
code on your phone. Right? Youcan sort of tell roughly where
someone is from based upon thismarker and how they're
communicating with you. And sothat's how Blue Sky is able to
say, no. Thank you to folks whotry to sign on from Mississippi
and how a VPN can say, like, oh,no.

(23:47):
No. Like, actually, I'm from NewYork or I'm from Vermont. And
so, you know, sort of likechanging your area code or
something.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You could appear to the
websites you're visiting as ifyou're in another place, like
another state.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think VPN saturation is
about to just, like, skyrocket,or or do you think this is a
sort of limited trend?

I feel like I don't know what the outcome of
this of this blue sky block isgoing to be. So it's interesting
to see, like, whether the courtswill interpret things in a way
that makes it less of anecessity. Yeah. But if we do
kinda start setting thisprecedence of just like, well,
we have these kind of, like,broadly defined laws that make
it incredibly difficult for asmaller website to operate, The

(24:34):
only way to really access thisis through a VPN. Then we may,
in fact, reach this point wherethat does become sort of a
normal thing people have.

Can you just tell us a little bit about the other
states around the world whereVPN use is really common?

Yeah. There is a lot of VPN usage in places like
China where there is sort of,like, government facilitated
infrastructure that blocks manyforeign websites. There's sort
of, like, mix of how it's used.In many cases, it's, you know,
sometimes something that isdeeply frowned upon. In other
cases, it's sort of, like,allowing it just enough because

(25:14):
it's sort of the cost of doingbusiness with the outside world.
In other places like Russia, forexample, there is some blockage
of some VPNs, but it's notalways easy for a government
system to sort of, like, keeptrack of all that, and it
varies. Sometimes governmentswill have, like, a very

(25:35):
centralized way to control,like, access to the Internet.
Other times, they'll have a mixof, like, well, we have this
government censorship firewallfor your home ISP and your
office ISP, but the mobileproviders are not haven't built
it for them yet. So a VPN iskind of a workaround that can

(25:58):
exist for any combination ofthese situations where if you're
seeing blockage, you can use aVPN to use this. And maybe in
places where a VPN is blocked,there may be other ways to
connect and then use a VPN toaccess things.
It's kind of all over the place,honestly. But in regimes where
there is a lot of, like, verysort of, like, explicit
government blockage of onlinecontent, VPNs are pretty common.

Yeah. There's I I have seen some chatter recently
too about The UK becoming maybethe next place where VPNs get
heavily restricted or blockedbecause use of them skyrocketed
after the implementation of theOnline Safety Act.

Yeah. I could definitely see that being the
sort of, like, the new norm forThe UK, unfortunately. And I do
think that that's probably goingto follow suit in many US states
as well if similar laws to theseget passed and if the courts
basically interpret sort ofbasic social networks and other
kind of platforms as fallingwithin this category.

Yeah. I'm curious if you can talk a little bit
about any of the technicaldetails of how a country or a
state enforces a VPN ban.

Yeah. It's very much a cat and mouse game, and
unfortunately, the VPNs are themice.

So Of course.

Sometimes the mice are still clever. Like, you
know, New York City is full ofrats, and we humans, apex
predators that have thetechnology of the of gods,
basically, compared to ratsstill have not gotten rid of
them. So it is sort of a, like,I guess, weirdly optimistic way
to say that there are ways thatcensorship regimes will try to

(27:42):
block VPNs, either throughblocking the IP addresses
associated with those VPNconnections or by trying to look
at sort of like Internettraffic, like your Internet
connection to a VPN and seeinglike, that looks like a VPN
connection, and then blockingthose types of connections,
which is significantly moresophisticated. And some of the

(28:05):
more sophisticated regimes outthere do have that kind of
blockage. It's a little bit,unfortunately, a little bit
smarter.
That being said, though, thereare ways that Tor, that VPN
companies have both sort offound to mask that web traffic
to make it look like just verynormal web traffic and not like
VPN or Tor traffic, for example.

In your estimation, aren't VPN companies
ever targeted by the states whoare trying to circumvent their
technology?

Sometimes. Yeah. There are some countries which
have laws specifically regardingVPNs and their usage. And in
some places, it may be, like,completely illegal. In other
countries, there's also aregistration process.
Pakistan, for example,technically kind of can allow
you to use a VPN, but you haveto tell them exactly what that

(29:01):
connection is

Uh-huh.

Which is, of course, a little bit invasive.
Yeah. Let's just be real. Soit's it's not an ideal
situation, but you do see sortof the sort of targeting of VPN
access and the sort of, youknow, the understanding that,
like, this is the way people areworking around it, and this is
what we're trying to do, eitherblock it or regulate it or, you

(29:24):
know, ban it.

Yeah. As a consumer, how do you go about
choosing a VPN?

Yeah. So I get this question a lot. We have a
guide at freedom.press thatkinda goes through all the
things that we like to talkabout when shopping for a VPN,
considerations around makingsure that it's actually a paid
VPN, because many times, freeVPNs are fake. They're actually
just, like, logging thatinformation, selling it to third
parties, and making their moneythat way. It's also important to

(29:54):
look at things like modernsecurity protocols.
Behind the scenes, kindaunderneath the hood of, what
runs a VPN, there's things likea WireGuard, pretty good
protocol to use for manysituations that you may need a
VPN for. There's also a need fortransparency with these tools
just because you are entrustingthem with your web traffic. So

(30:15):
things like security auditreports, for example, detailed
technical documentation of whatexactly they're doing behind the
scenes to guarantee yoursecurity. Because anybody can
say, like, use our VPN. It'ssecure.
Here's a little sticker. Here'sa little graphic says secure.
Here's a little seal.

I've seen that circle with the check mark
inside of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The check mark means nothing. In
this case, having a third partyaudit, like, security firm audit
a VPN's infrastructure to makesure that it's actually doing
what it's supposed to be doingand doing so in a way that's
secure is a massive sort of,like, green flag when it comes
to transparency when choosing aVPN.

What would make you feel good to, you know, be
able to give the thumbs up to IDscanning age verification
online?

There's a lot that would have to be done there,
starting with a national privacylaw that I feel like lawmakers
could maybe spend time onworking on so that we can have
some, like, legal guardrails toensure that our data is
protected when we upload an IDsomeplace and making sure that
the right incentives are inplace to help make that happen.

(31:32):
The other thing too is, like,honestly, VPN companies offer a
little blueprint of what thatcould look like in terms of
things like having Yeah. Auditsof what their infrastructure
looks like. Are they justputting your ID photos on, like,
an unprotected AWS s threebucket someplace? Because I have
seen that hacked so many times.

(31:53):
It's it's been ten years since Ifirst saw that. Like, the same
mistakes keep getting repeatedover and over again and it's
it's very Wild West. But I wouldwant to see sort of, like, more
transparency from thesecompanies, more legal
protections, more guarantees,and at the national level, a
privacy law that would sort ofcreate that blood brain barrier

(32:16):
between, like, access to thatdata and other parts of the
state. For example, DHS and ICE,perhaps.

Which gets back to what you talked about earlier
of, like, it's not it's notnecessarily that this is always
a no go. It's that it's a lot ofinfrastructure to build. That,
like, if you're gonna do it, ithas to be done it has to be done
right, and that can be hard forespecially smaller websites to
deal with.

Yeah. Exactly.

David, thank you so much, for joining us to chat
with us about Blue Sky andMississippi and VPNs. We really
appreciate you taking some timeout of your schedule.

No problem. Thanks for having me.

If people wanna see your work online, where
should they go?

Freedom.press. You can search for VPNs and see all
kinds of stuff that we'vewritten about that as well as
other sort of online safety andsecurity topics.

This is just dessert Tetris in a way.

Yeah. It's just dessert Tetris, but with
luchadors.

With the Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So we're at an impasse here.

Okay.

Yeah. You are. We could we could give the porquito
to the dog and then the porquitoporquito is gone.

Yeah. I don't like

We could. So if you don't fulfill an order
within a certain number ofturns, the order changes.

Okay.

So we could do that but we are close to the top
of the bag.

Yeah. This is a pivotal moment. I give the dog
the treat.

I don't know what this game is.

Good. This this puppy baro. Yeah.

Herriot has posted is very convincing.

This is such a cute little game.

I think doggies do deserve treats.

But that's

You already have a little what I'm assuming
is what you're talking about,the Porkito.

Oh, he did it. Oh, and it didn't He's gone.
It didn't collapse.

Yeah. That's a whoops.

Yeah. I think you gotta nudge that. Oh, boy.
Shit. He did not solve ourproblem.
Oh, no. Oh, no. This is gonnathis is gonna be okay. We're
gonna get there. Yep.
Oh. Uh-huh. What? Poor boy. Wewon't.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, baby. That wasso satisfying. Wow.

It's wildly Probably problem game.

It's a new dawn. Friends, hello and welcome to
what is going on here? A segmentwherein members of the Never

(35:06):
Post staff bring posts to thegroup about which they would
like to know what is going onhere. Could they have done some
googling? Could they have gonefurther down thread?
Could they have cracked a bookor gone to YouTube? Probably.
But where is the fun in that? Inthe following segment, we share

(35:28):
things that we found online thatmade us want to know more and
about which we thought theprocess of finding out more
would be more fun to dotogether. Joining us for this
round of what is going on herein order of how well I assume
they can whistle Oh.
Ascending Oh. Are

You're wrong.

Never post to producer Hans Buto?

Hans Buetow (36:07):
I'm quite good at whistling.

I believe best.

We're gonna have to have a whistle off, aren't
we? Yeah. Never post executiveproducer Jason Oberholzer.

So I can do two different kinds of regular
whistling. Wow. I can do thethrough the lips and the tongue
to the roof of the mouth. Woah.Okay.

I take it all back. You were right, Mike.

You did it. You Mike nailed it. Mike nailed it.

The bar is pretty high to have reached the
top of the mountain here.

Wow.

I didn't even know that with what do you
what's happening in there?

That's is that out of the side of the mouth?
Because I got I have a gap in myfront teeth, so I can do the

Oh, wow. Yeah. No. It's Bitch. Just the
tongue compressing against theroof of the mouth.

Oh, no. I can't do that. Yeah.

What interesting audio this is going
to be. Just

just all

the while you guys tuned in.

Right? I

think of myself as a pretty good whistler.
Whistler. I

think was gonna say, where are you?

Yeah. Where are you in this?

Yeah.

I can whistle. I can do a little

bit of Yeah.

I can't do any of the

The big scary whistle.

No. Mike, how would you rate our audience?

Audience, you tag yourself. Where are you in the
whistle world? Okay. We got wegot some we got some whistlers
in the chat. Chat whistles.
So for the folks listening athome, this segment, this WIGO
segment, is being recorded liveon Twitch as part of the never
post member drive stream week.Not quite a ham horn, but good

(37:44):
but nice, but good. Should wefind out what's going on here?

Yeah. Let's do it.

Okay. Let's find out what's going on here.

Welcome to today's game.

Hans, who should go first?

An audience submission that I'm quite
excited about. I have not lookedI'm not excited because I've
looked. I'm just excited becauseaudience heck yeah. Thank you
for being here. This one is bysomeone named Toby.
Never heard of him. Don't evenknow. Who who could that be?
This is taking a moment becauseI have to log in to Tumblr.

Oh, yes, Toby.

Yes. Here we are.

Kurt Cobain will have his revenge on the
straights.

Yes. Yes.

Had a video call with my brother Chuck the other
day. Things got heavy. Okay. I'mgonna be Kate. Georgia, you be
Chuck.

Okay.

Jason, you be Kurt Cobain. Okay. Was Kurt
Cobain a trans woman? What? KurtCobain, rock musician.
He was in a band called Nirvana.

I'm familiar with him.

Yes. Was he a trans woman? No. Okay. Why not?

I mean, he wasn't. It's like asking why he
wasn't an astronaut.

He wasn't an astronaut because he never went
to space. Why wasn't he a transwoman?

Because he didn't transition. I mean, he
didn't ever say he was a woman,didn't ever say he was trans. So
no. Kurt Cobain wasn't a transwoman.

So someone is trans if they say they're trans.
Self determination.

That's what you've told me. Is that wrong?

No. That's right. We know ourselves better than
anybody else can know us. If wesay we're trans, nobody can say
we aren't.

And Kurt Cobain never said he was trans.

So was I trans in 1994?

I don't know. Were you?

Yes. But if you'd asked me in 1994, I would have
told you no.

So if I tell you I'm trans, I'm trans. Right.
But if I tell you I'm cis, Imight still be trans?

If you tell me you're cis, I believe you.

That's not the same thing as I'm cis.

That's a really good point. This is sort of what
some queer people are getting atwhen they say gender is a
construct.

Come again?

Well, you're cisgender. Right?

As far as I know, yes. You

hedged. As far as I know, isn't the same thing as
yes. As far as I know, opens upthe possibility that you could
be trans and not know it.

It doesn't seem terribly likely.

That's an interesting statement. I feel
like this is a little bit oflike Phoenix. Right? This

is wow.

Early on in transition, one of the biggest
problems I had was dealing withthe sheer unlikelihood of my
being trans. I mean, I knewtrans people existed. I knew
somebody had to be trans. I justcouldn't wrap my head around the
idea that it would be me.

Do you think this is why you're on this whole
Kurt Cobain was a trans womankick?

Hey, now. I'm just asking questions.
You know?
You know? Like JK Rowling isjust asking questions. Oh my.

Kate, you are literally wearing a T shirt that
says Kurt Cobain was a transwoman on it right now.

Am I? Oh, shit. I thought I was wearing my skip
school take hormones kill god Tshirt. To your question though,
yeah, I do think that's part ofit. Honestly, the hardest thing
about growing up trans wasbelieving that nobody in the
world had ever experienced whatI was experiencing.
I didn't have any role models. Ididn't wonder if I was the only
one. I was convinced of it.

So being able to say that this incredibly
gifted songwriter, the voice ofa generation was a trans woman
like you.

I need someone like that. I need to not be the
first of my kind.

Of course, you're not the first trans
woman.

No. But before a couple of years ago, almost
every trans woman would tell youthat they always knew
unquestionably and innately thatthey were women.

So it's not just about him being trans, but
specifically his being a transwoman who didn't know he was a
trans woman.

An egg. Right.

Why Kurt Cobain anyway? What's so special about
him that you're trying to inducthim into the egg hall of fame?

He knew things. Things cis guys don't know.
Things I didn't know until afterI started transition. He
understood women, what we'relike, what we experience.
Penroyalty, rape me, I just havea hard time thinking of a cis
man who could write songs likethat.

It wouldn't be the only way in which he was
exceptional.

True. I don't know. I mean, I know. I can give
you all the reasons, but there'ssomething in his eyes.

Something in his eyes.

All the pictures of him. No matter what he's
doing, if he's grinning or sad,whatever he's doing, you can see
something trapped in there.Trapped and in pain, wanting to
get out, but not quite knowinghow.

You know that what you're doing is pretty much
the textbook definition ofprojection. Right? Maybe.

Chuck, do you think I'm happier?

Since you transitioned? Yeah. Of course.
Absolutely. Night and day.

Everyone says that. And honestly, I see it.
Even in pictures. You know? Isee it.
You've seen some of mytransition timelines. Right?

You do look really different.

It's not just me. Hans, how much longer is this?

Oh, this is we're theoretically quarter the way
through.

No way. Okay. We can.

Okay. So let's let's let's pause it. You look
different and scroll. Oh my god.Okay.

Me.

Yep. What is going on here?

Let's read the last Are you okay? Yeah. Let's read
from there. Let's let's having agreat time.

I think that we should finish this after
Wiggo and release this as amember clip of the whole script.

I love this so much.

I can score it in everything.

We gotta know. We gotta know.

Yeah.

So let's let's jump to you jump to the end here just
so Kate, are

you okay? Kate, are you okay?

I'm fine.

Do you wanna hug?

Fuck you, Chuck.

Okay. Well, I'm gonna go to the other room. You
should drink some water. Stayhydrated. Love you, Kate.

Love you too, Chuck. Sorry.

It's okay, Kate. It's okay.

Just dying my work, everybody.

Wow. Wow.

I that's unbelievable. Way to

go. Oh my god.

Way to go, actors. Way to go I was
immersed.

Writer. Wait. Okay. What is this? This is like

it's like a philosophical, like, thought
experiment, I feel.

Hans, can you scroll all the way back up to
the beginning again? Was KurtTrans is the account

Is the account. Okay. So let's take a look at
comments because that's oftenpretty inspiring.

Gonna say, yeah. What is in the comments?

So we're at 11,233 replies, which

is Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm guessing that we just started to
scratch the surface of what thisis actually feel like we

need to dig all the way through.

Yeah. Wait, Hans. Go more slowly through some of
these. I just wanna

read Yeah.

I mean, I guess not not being privy to maybe the
types of conversations that thisconversation is meant to like, I
guess that's a question. Like,is this a parody? Is this like
some Poe's Law kind of thing? Isit ironic? Is it making extreme
a more innocuous type ofconversation that happens in

(45:22):
order to point out, like, theedges of it and what's weird
about it?
I mean, yeah.

I read pretty earnest. I think this is an
honest Socratic dialoguesomebody is having who really
believes this point, perhaps. Idon't know.

Okay. Alright.

I I think it's less about the point and
more about the kind of dialogue,which is

Mhmm.

Being mirrored here.

Yeah. Lisby one one two one says, I was gonna
say this is pretty standardTumblr discourse, but actually,
this is long even for a longform Tumblr. Oh, was Kirk O'Bain
Gin Fizzes says, was Kirk O'Baintrans is like a big debate. He
wore dresses and makeup and wassupportive of LGBTQ stuff. Had
no I had no clue.

This is fantastic. Can you just scroll, like, to
the middle? Like, the middle ofthe section that we didn't read
just to I would just love to geta sense of like We're

getting paragraphs.

We are, like, where does

this Let's do this one.

Yeah. Azerad spent weeks talking to Cobain.
He was Cobain's biographer, butalso his friend, and he had his
own interpretation of thelyrics. For instance, Azerad
talks about all the lyrics aboutguns. And to me, now, I look at
that, and I think of how hedied.
But Azerad, when Kurt was alive,he looked at it another way. He
thought it was about dicks. Toparaphrase doctor Freud, he

(46:34):
says, sometimes a gun is just agun, but not this time. He talks
about come as you are, whereKurt keeps singing, I swear I
don't have a gun. That's not myinterpretation.
That's never been myinterpretation. That's what this
cis man says. More than one cisman. Kurt says, Dave Grohl's
dad, he said the same thing.Yeah.
There are all kinds of ways tointerpret lyrics. Okay. Alright.

(46:56):
So this is like doing queerexegesis on both Nirvana and the
text of Kurt Cobain's life Yeah.Together at the same time.

And then we're going into, like, Ed Wood, Pete
Burns, Prince Nelson, RichardWright, Dave Carter, Quentin
Crisp, like like, talkingthrough the the re parsing the
real details of of identity.

Daniel Jenna Grauss has something really
interesting to say. Adds a greatbit of insight to this. It comes
down to discussing whether weget to claim those who came
before us, but didn't haveaccess to the same theoretical
framework and social support,the trans siblings who fell
through the pavement becausethey didn't have the opportunity
to find themselves in a world inwhich we were less visible and
constrained to being more onedimensional in everyone's

(47:42):
imagination. I mean, I wannaread the whole thing.

Absolutely.

Right? Yeah. I wanna read the whole thing. Then
and then I wanna have aninformed reaction to this. But
woah.

Yeah. This is wild. Yeah. Thank you, Toby.

Toby says, oh, yes. Kurt trans woman lore.
Yeah.

Yes.

Turns out that's what's going on here. Just those
four words.

Yep. Yep. Case closed.

Yeah. Toby, thank you for sending this in.

Alright. So the next one that we have is from
May. This is a submission fromMay, one of our audience
members. Thank you, May. And I'mso sorry to do this, but May is
saying it's May's fault.
May is sending us to Twitter.Well, I hope you all enjoyed
having fun.

Yeah. I'm gonna turn on both of my

VPNs I'll take it from here.

Oh, let's do it. Jarta. Alright.

We got a couple of bathing suited gentlemen What

am I

sharing a delicate kiss in the ocean.

What am I looking at here?

And it said the tweet says, Sabrina Carpenter's
twink and Olivia Rodrigo's twinkdating each other is low key the
most iconic thing in pop culturewith two sobbing faces.

You know what I've always wanted to really
ask? Chad, is this real?

This is real?

Chad, is this real?

So it's got 17,800,000 views for whatever
that means on Twitter. Robotsrobots have

viewed this.

Robots can't.

Georgia. Google. Yes. Does this mean anything to
you?

No. It does not. I was gonna Google Sabrina
Carpenter twink.

Everyone's Make sure you have a safe search on.

Yeah. Let me turn on

Just gonna lay on the

ground first. An incognito window real quick.
Hold on, everybody. Oh, ConanGray. One of these people is
Conan Gray.

Say more.

I don't know what that is.

I don't know this person, but they look sort
of familiar. They're 26 yearsold.

Sort of familiar. I'll give them that.

Jin physicist May in saying I'm pretty online and
reasonably plugged into popmusic, and I have no idea what
this post is about.

That is the spirit of the Wiggo. God, you
nailed it. You nailed it.

I have another AA overview. I'm so sorry.

Do it. Do it.

Do it.

Did Olivia Rodrigo date Conan Gray? No.
They are close friends who metthrough their shared producer,
Dan I don't know. Their sharedproducer and bonded over their
love for Taylor Swift. Theirfriendship has been documented
through various social mediaposts, award show appearances,
and shared experiences.

(50:32):
I'm googling Conan Gray kissing.More kisses? There's more
kisses. Just taken up picturesof people kissing. People
kissing.
No. We've been over this before,Jason. I will never keep stop.

It's my news.

I need to see it. I need to know that it's
happening.

Okay. So that is Corey Foglemanis.

Excuse me?

I don't know. I'm just so who's the guy grabbing
Conan? Is one of the replies.Oh. And then the response is
Corey Foglemanis, which I'm sureI'm saying wrong.

Confer, I'm looking at more kissing photos.

Boy. It's kinda

true. Okay.

Do it. Do it. Do it. Yeah.

Are those Corey Fogelmanis and Conan Gray. I
Google image searched them,like, those two names. Lots of
kissing photos.

More important, are those bathing
jorts?

Also, this the waves look beautiful.

They look I was just thinking, Georgia. They
look beautiful.

This has to be fake.

Right? I no. That's what I mean is, like, the
water looks so, like, airbrushedsort of.

Yeah.

One of the replies way down thread is there
are sentences being created thathave never been created before.

Think that's so kissing photos.

George George, we're at work.

They're they're kissing all over the place.

There is as as it will surprise nobody, there is
no information to be gleanedfrom the reply thread on x.com,
the everything website. Yeah.This has this I'm I'm gonna say
my best guess is that this isAI. This is it possible? Hold
on.
I I might I might have ananswer.

There's probably

some guess that this is a frame from a music
video. Really?

Or a show. I think they're on a show
together.

Yeah. Here. I'm not I haven't watched it yet,
but I'm gonna drop it in thechat. Uh-oh.

Always good. Oh, no. They're I see. He's in
jorts.

Baca Cranberry.

Woah. Desire is kissing pants.

This is the song. I have heard of this song.

So here is the link that I found it through.
Pinknews.com. Fans left quotedevastated after Conan Gray
drops part two of his queermusic video romance.

Devastating. Come on.

Has two videos where he kisses a boy in the
water.

Good. There should be

more of them. Stay, dude.

I need at least a dozen. Oh.

That's what's going on here.

Woah. That's what's going on here. Wow. Okay.
So

Gonna close

a bunch of because I still do not know who
these people are.

And you don't get to.

Which one of them so what I am to understand is
that one of them did they datethese other pop stars? One of
them dated Sabrina Carpenter,and one of them dated Olivia
Rodrigo.

And They might no. I think they're both friends
with those respected pop divas.

Pop series. Look like them?

No. Or that they're pals and they're gay?

They're just they're friends and they're gay
and they're twinks and they'rein love.

Okay. Okay.

Tale as old as time.

Tale as old as time.

Well, mate, I we hope that's satisfying because
that's what we know.

And if if you would like hours of tape of
Georgia making typing sounds andsaying, I'm finding more
kissing,

do you need ring tones

because maybe we got them?

Listen. I will risk it all for journalism
always. I will get to the bottomof it Yeah. One way or another.
I will

get in for of the kissing on the end

of kissing.

Georgia will reach the end of it.

I will I will shut it down.

Wow. I feel like I know what's going on here.
Hey, friends. It's Mike here onmy way to the studio letting you
know that if you wanna hear therest of this WIGO, we are gonna
be putting it up for members atneverpoe.st. A bunch of us on

(55:00):
the staff also had WIGOs toshare.
They're very funny, verystrange. One picture that just
looks disconcertingly like athumb. So if you wanna see that,
just head on over to neverpo.st.Become a member, and it will be
waiting for you in the memberfeed soon.

Yes. Yes. This is what I wanted. Yes. This
is everything that I wanted.
Yes. Yes. Never stop. Yes. Yes.
Yes.

Why did we stop doing this? I know you're
supposed to think this aboutthings that were good when you
were a kid, but like This slaps.Yeah. This is so This
objectively slaps. Right?
That is the show we have for youthis week. We're gonna be back

(56:19):
here in the main feed onWednesday, September 10. For $4
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Neverpoast's producers areAudrey Evans, Georgia Hampton,
and the mysterious doctor firstname, last name. Our senior

(57:50):
producer is Hans Buto. Ourexecutive producer is Jason
Oberholzer, and the show's host,that's me, is Mike Rugnetta.
Reader unmoved and readerunshaken, reader unseduced and
unterrified, through the long,loud, and sweet still, I creep
toward you. Towards you, Ithistle and I climb.

(58:13):
I crawl, reader, servile andservine through this blank
season counting. I sleep and Isleep. I sleep reader toward you
loud as a cloud and deaf readerdeaf as a leaf. Excerpt of sweet

(58:35):
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Radiotopia.

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