Treat Monthly - Maren Altman by treatdao

IN THIS TOTM 1

EDITORIAL Are we living in a Metaverse?

SHOWCASING THE SUBSCRIBER STORE AND NEW TREAT FEATURES NIPPLES OUT! Wait, we can explain

CREATOR FOCUS MARVELOUS MAREN OUR APRIL TOTM Maren Altman

THE COST OF A CRISIS

Kremlin pulled the plug

WALL OF FAME Treats to collect!

TREAT SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS Find us!

L A I R O T I ED Are we living in a Metaverse? Where is the Metaverse, and how do you get there? The Metaverse describes a functional, digital world that is an intimate extension of our own physical realities- let’s dive in! Silicon Valley is buzzing about it. Satya Nadella at Microsoft can’t stop talking about it. Mark Zuckerberg has changed the corporate brand to Meta and is already building “it”. Elon Musk wants to incorporate it into a chip and implant it in our heads! So what exactly is this epoch-deﬁning “it” that has the biggest brains of big tech scrambling? It is the Metaverse. Deﬁning the Metaverse (beyond just a mainstream-friendly buzzword) is proving to be a problem, as multiple industries are colliding in a novel way that challenges participants to agree upon just what the metaverse is. To some commentators, the Metaverse is the future of communications in Cyberspace (the less trendy and too 20th-Century term for “it”). To others, the metaverse is best described as “The Oasis” from Ready Player One: a digital reality that runs parallel to, and interoperates with, our physical reality. To some, any Metaverse would just be akin to social media apps with more functionality.

Despite the arguing around the “best” definition, it’s a good idea to keep in mind two metaverses, where the first is of the closed metaverse, such as Disney World in the real world. For this first example, a good way to think about it is with the upcoming Yuga Labs ecosystem with their acquired IP, as they look to create their own, online version of Disney World. The second Metaverse is the abstract, overall, all-encompassing metaverse that includes all the other metaverses. The best way to understand this second Metaverse, in today’s terms, is as the entire internet infrastructure, with individual domains or online ecosystems as distinctly individualistic metaverses.

‘‘

Web3 and the Metaverse is the future of human communication, collaboration, commerce, and culture …and so much more

So what is driving this very 21st Century gold rush to become masters of the Metaverse? As with nearly all things, staying competitive and giving their stock vertical momentum. Facebook, now Meta, has had a torrid year and wants to sell us more virtual things and in turn market and sell our virtual decisions to advertisers who want to sell us more of their own virtual things. The videogames industry has been trying this with their own mini-Metaverses for years with the infamous “loot boxes” and “in-game purchases of avatars and skins” -explaining why some of the tech-savvy are very cynical about corporate thinking around the concept of the Metaverse. Metaverses as virtual worlds have existed for well over a decade now, but in different practical forms, for different utility, and on different hardware systems (hence the ambiguity around the term), including consoles and mobile phones. A dreary example of the corporate metaverse would be Microsoft’s monopoly over ofﬁce software: a world in which one person controls the access and capability of each user.

You can already exist in a persistent digital simulation that continues even when you log out with the “World of Warcraft” MMO. In “Fortnite”, players meet up and compete, socialize, sing, and dance in the virtual world. They do this with other people from across the globe and digital voyeurs peer into this reality via streams on Twitch and YouTube. If you believe the current media hype, you would be forgiven for thinking that a Metaverse with utility is the hottest 2020s innovation. In fact, you’ve been able to interact with virtual peers, buy, sell in the marketplace of the online world of “Second Life” since 2003!

This leads neatly to another meaning of Metaverse: the decentralized digital economy where the virtual ‘you’ can set up shop to trade in virtual goods, services, creations, and collectibles with others for a currency, such as redeemable tokens, or cryptocurrencies. The recent boom in the popularity and proﬁtability of NFTs (non-fungible tokens, see prior magazine edition for an NFT deep-dive!) that exist in this type of cross-platform access-anywhere economy, is seen as a major driver behind the corporate interest in the space. We can see NFTs as the DNA of the emergent Metaverse. NFTs are going to be the building blocks for access to many industries, from big fashion to legal contracts, real estate, to gaming communities. Unexpectedly, in 2021 NFTs have become a form of digital identity, and the best way to create, trade, and sell digital art. They might even become the biggest new ﬁnancial instrument of 2022 and beyond.

THE METAVERSE IS NO LONGER IN THE REALM OF DYSTOPIAN SCIENCE FICTION; WE ARE PLAYING WITH THE BUILDING

So we have the answer now?

We are already living in a kind of Metaverse, right? Yes and no! Just as Google is a major aspect of our daily lives on the Internet, it is just one component, providing valuable services and layers of data to our overall experience online. So the same can be said for Epic Games and Microsoft and Meta and Apple, each is building on existing technologies to provide easier access and more utility to an expanding and evolving complex digital ecosystem. This overall digital ecosystem, now combined with the value layer of Web 3, is the Metaverse.

OF THE STATE METAVERS METAVERS THE IN 2022 IN 2022

he Metaverse is no longer in the realm of dystopian science ﬁction; we are playing with the building blocks of this new virtual landscape -right now. Societal change is inevitable when we are all connected via a persistent globalized Metaverse. One that could impact all our lives from commerce, to how we work, our interactive and shared entertainment, to a richer social life, and how we learn and educate others. If we are responsible for our choices today and enshrine policies and laws that protect our Metaverse rights tomorrow, this existential reality has the power to transform all our lives and our economies for the better. It does so in an ironically more “human” and tangible sense when we can use VR and AR to see, hear, and ‘touch’ this living data via our devices.

We aren’t quite living in this parallel reality yet as the public perception of clunky headsets, cornea-burning low resolutions, and expensive gear is a barrier to mainstream adoption of virtual reality. And yet, the tech industry is betting the farm on the Metaverse with market analysts expecting it will be worth some $800 billion by 2024 and be in common use by over a billion people by 2030. Our TreatDAO developers are excited to be building out our own corner of the technology and introducing the future tokenomics of the space, and we can’t wait to see our adult creators bring the heat and turn our

META VERSE PINK

SHO SH SUB SU SER SE LAT LA FEA FE

Be the ﬁrst to beneﬁt from the lowdown on our latest TreatDAO features

WCASING OWCASING OUR OUR BSCRIBER CRIBER RVICES ICES AND AND TEST ST TREAT TREAT ATURES URES O

ctober 2021, just as everyone was gearing up for Halloween, we announced a treat, (with no tricks), for our creators and collectors: the new subscription service. We are committed to being a creator-centric platform and we are proud that we are the ﬁrst and only platform offering our creators a subscription service. The subscription service on Treat went live in October of 2021. The feature creates a space where all content is unblurred for subscribers only. NFTs may still be purchased and resold, but these will still be blurred for those who aren’t subscribed.

Exciting new Treat Features to expect in 2022 Change is on the horizon and our team is working hard to deliver our TreatDAO users, creators, and collectors a rich Web3 experience.

We are also delighted to announce we have partnered with Soku Swap Crypto exchange to provide our community with even more ﬂexibility with their wallets and ﬁnances.

Soku Swap - A Better Way to Invest in Crypto, Learn DeFi, and Join the Web3 Movement

MAREN 12

COMING SOON Our roadmap for 2022 includes a raft of exciting new features that impact the overall user experience, the site interface, ease of buying and selling NFTs and so much more. It is safe to say we are moving away from an ‘NFT-focused’ philosophy, to a platform where the content is king, and the creator has all the tools and features at their fingertips to earn without traditional financial restrictions. Without spoiling too much, this will include comprehensive changes to user profiles and accounts. Ease of use changes for the creator dashboard. Streamlining of adding funds to your wallet makes it simpler to buy, sell, and trade NFTs. We are bringing Web3 engagement and utility to all areas of the platform for our dynamic growing community. This starts with introducing one-on-one messaging. Followed by video messaging, and live video streaming complemented by a host of upgrades to the user interface and site-wide improvements to speed and stability. 13

Join us now. The TreatDAO adventure is just beginning!

S E L P P I N

! T U O

How big tech hypocrisy is unfairly limiting opportunity, and marginalizing adult communities and creators -with special guest contributor PolyAnnie

Image courtesy of the Free the Nipple Movement

NSFW content demonetization, shadowbanning, and blocked advertising opportunities demonstrate that there isn’t a level playing ﬁeld between big brands and individuals. So how do adult content creators compete and prosper in an often hostile climate?

Getting tumble

lashback to November 2018 and in response to reports of the discovery of pornographic imagery, Tumblr App is removed from the Apple Store. While it is legitimate for Tumblr to take action as a business to conform with Apple standards and protect the public from harmful content, their response was to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In short order, Tumblr issued a new set of terms and conditions that banned all NSFW and sexual content. All meaning everything from a baby breastfeeding, to a lingering kiss, to two girls hugging, to any semblance of nudity. These new Tumblr rules proudly highlight the outright banning of ‘female-presenting nipples’ (as these are clearly much more offensive than male nipples!) and have been singled out as especially offensive, and a danger to the public wellbeing. A precedent that has sadly informed many of the big tech and social media giants' responses to adult content ever since.

R OO

These are are highly highlyregressive regressive

steps back to the shaming

and shunning misogynistic

laws of the puritans which shouldn’t have had a place in the 18th century, let alone the 21st century.

D D E E RR

ules like these reverse the limited gains made over the last decade by minorities activists, adult work lobbyists, and body positivity inﬂuencers. These targetted forms of censorship discriminate against women and (ironically) only act to hyper-sexualize female nipples, body art, tattoos, and any imagery or video content created by adult women for other adult women. These are highly regressive steps back to the shaming and shunning misogynistic rules of the puritans which shouldn’t have had a place in the 18th century, let alone the 21st century.

But wait, Tumblr doesn't draw the line at nipples; it bans anything and everything perceived to be sexual content, even by implication. This of course includes anything related to the LGBTQ+ community. Lesbians need to go (plus they also have nipples, a double crime)! Only straight vanilla ‘family acceptable’ imagery, bordering on overt discrimination is tolerated. Sex work blogs are expunged and deleted along with breastfeeding, nudism, art blogs, and anything else that can, and will, be labeled as NSFW. Further marginalizing these communities and undoing so much good work to empower minorities and cultivate body, race, and gender positivity. 18

C P

Commercial mmercial Privilege vilege Pays Pays Facebook (now known as Meta) has long been seen as controversial for policies regarding users' rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and the wholesale mining of their intimate and personal data to sell to corporations, to beneﬁt the dark political arts and foreign intelligence services. Like Tumblr, it has also taken a blanket ban approach to nudity and has an army of moderators and algorithms scanning millions of posts and messages for potentially too many “pink pixels”. Facebook bans accounts for days, weeks, or forever, for violating their terms on nudity and sexuality. Facebook even censored the historically iconic Associated Press photograph of a nine-year-old Kim Phúc ﬂeeing the napalm bombing of her village in Vietnam. Reporters Without Borders issued a statement calling on Facebook to “add respect for the journalistic values of photos to these rules.”

However, it isn’t only journalists that are impacted by the censoring and banning of these types of content of public interest. The chilling effect it has on its ordinary users is no less repressive and damaging to the principles of free expression. It has stiﬂed Aboriginal rights climate campaigners, feminist activists protesting authoritarian regimes, classical artists, ﬁne art photographers, and even Danish parliamentarians, who enjoy sharing images of mermaid statues. A posture that delights political extremists, dictators, theocrats, and repressive governments who use the same legal pretexts to exert control over the population, and restrict their freedoms and human rights.

eta’s Community Standards state that the display of nudity is restricted “because some audiences within our global community may be sensitive to this type of content - particularly because of their cultural background or age.” Meta’s concerns for this demographic ring hollow, the real motive behind the policy is more likely the company's attempts to appease (and avoid being blocked by) autocratic conservative regimes. Yet, there is a glaring contradiction to these rules in dealing with celebrities, major brands, and corporations that pay for Facebook, Google, or YouTube marketing services. The online versions of Playboy and FHM have set up easily indexed sites, groups, and fan pages dedicated to their publishing of sexualized, mainly female nudity without suffering bans and public censorship. Big labels have no difﬁculty in marketing their latest RNB stars singing and dancing in strip clubs with naked extras, dollars bills ﬂying, same-sex making out, with explicit videos and lyrics. We welcome this acceptance of artist license with adult themes, as long as it can apply to all of us equally, and not just those that pay for the privilege. This commercial privilege carries over to YouTube where NSFW videos, such as Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” have been available for 9 years and attracted nearly 800 million views. 21

Individual Individual Adult Adult Creators Creato TreatDAO’s very own adult creator PolyAnnie has experienced firsthand how platforms are oppressive and opaque in discriminating against nudity and sexual content. The first hurdle artists face is getting their work seen (and not outright removed) on social media. What Is “Sensitive Content?” By Twitter’s own definition “potentially sensitive content . . . such as violence or nudity.” Again we see violence, criminal acts, even heinous acts like murder, terrorism, and war, being conflated with sexuality, adult content, and yes, even ‘female-presenting nipples’.

By default, Twitter restricts these posts with warnings such as; “This media may contain sensitive material,” “This proﬁle may include potentially sensitive content,” or “The following media includes potentially sensitive content.” These tweets are screened and shadowbanned, preventing other users from searching for posts, or seeing any of the content without changing their settings.

Once we discover

we’ve lost

CONTROL

over our own images, videos, and our data, how can we measure or know what else we’ve already lost? -PolyAnnie

olyAnnie has lost control over her media and accounts, often with no warning or explanation, forcing her to start over with building a following on platforms like Periscope. There is no way to recover the loss in sales or even recover the hosted videos or photos (her copyrighted intellectual property) back from the company, despite repeated email requests. The response when it is offered is a uniform ”this account has been removed”. Thank you, and fuck off. So how can nude content creators like PolyAnnie build an audience and ﬁnd subscribers and collectors despite the aggressive censorship and denial of services such as paid ads?

“First of all, know which platforms would suit your content best. If you are doing nude yoga or AMSR style body painting videos then YouTube

will likely de-monetize your videos, or ban your account. In that case go for OnlyFans for videos and photos, or TreatDAO for NSFW NFTs. The bottom line is you will always be looking for workarounds as a nude artist. Promoting yourself is a challenge -how on earth can you promote something you aren’t being allowed to show? The way the platforms discriminate and marginalize artists, we are forced to put in a lot more effort to find our audience and customers than everyone else. Current censorship and terms of service conflate everything adult or sexual with pornography, which is just wrong. Web3 and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) do allow for multiple perspectives and help level the playing field for adult artists.”

“The Web3 future with better-featured adult platforms providing their own access to social media and NSFW marketing tools is only going to beneﬁt individual artists in a positive way. More opportunities to sell NFTs and more ways to market your art mean a better chance to start a career. More supporters and followers encourage you to learn new things and do better work. More self-awareness and body positivity will help artists with their conﬁdence and mental health and they can break free of social dogma and stigma!”

“The best advice I can give new artists is to be authentic and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You are unique! Think and express yourself truthfully and followers will appreciate you more for your honesty. NFTs allow anybody to express their artistic talents, no matter their gender, color, shape, size, and talents, so just be proud to create your own art. Be resourceful and look for ways to engage with like-minded people and inﬂuencers who can help grow your reputation. Use Telegram, Discord, and Twitter Spaces so you can speak directly to your followers, fans, and collectors. Don’t be a sheep, don’t settle for censorship and bans on your freedoms, but take control of your brand and your media as much as you can, because if you lose that self-control, how can you know what else has been taken from you?” 26

Safe Space So what can big tech do to balance the scales? Short of getting rid of these policies altogether, there are several simple changes the companies could make that would place them more in line with both their own mission to connect people regardless of nationality or religion and adhere to the spirit of free expression.

NSFW

First and foremost, Big Tech should stop conflating human nudity with sexual behavior, sexuality with pornography, and adult content with war, terror, and crime. It can be done simply by making changes to their moderation and reporting systems. Right now when users want to report offensive content, their first option reads: “This is nudity or pornography,” with “sexual arousal,” “sexual acts” and “people soliciting sex” as loaded-worded examples listed. This blurs the distinction between non-sexual nudity (like breastfeeding, which is legal and not controversial in many of the jurisdictions the companies operate in) and content that could genuinely cause offense. Next, they could create a system of traffic light style warnings for content considered to be adult-themed (green), displaying age-appropriate nudity (amber), and sensitive or offensive to some (red). Let adults be adults, and choose what content they want to see? If companies want to avoid being seen like Tumblr, as the world’s arbitrary and puritanical nanny, treating us all like infants, then they need to spend more time listening to the real concerns of their adult users—and articulating without fear of conservatives, or favor to profits— as to why a blanket ban on nudity is so important in the first place?

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD WHERE NIPPLES AREN'T JUST FREE; BUT GO WILD!

We at TreatDAO are proud to be committed to providing our adult content creators with a safe space platform to create and sell their NSFW NFT art, socialize and express themselves freely in our community, and take control over their career with all the tools and support they need to ﬂourish in Web3.

S R U U O O O T A L L E S E E R V C OCU RV R N N A ARERLE F A ARI

P A R U O OTM T

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Maren Altman born and raised in Houston, Texas, and living in New York for the past ﬁve years. I’m now splitting my time NYC and Dubai after falling in love with Dubai last year. I’m 23 years old! I’m serious, dry, driven, and ambitious. A bit of a Scrooge-like personality in a child-size body. I can be very masculine in my personality and very feminine in my presentation, which can be shocking to some people. I’m extroverted but not necessarily outgoing, and I like to be in a leadership position. I have a short and simple mantra for life: Amor Fati. Love your fate. Accept what is to be without designating it as “good” or “bad”. Just ride out the waves. Longer (but kinda) shorter one: Occam’s Razor. I have it tattooed on my hip, but it’s a larger concept, where the simplest path to reach a solution is the most preferable. It’s a good tool that I use in life very often.

I wouldn’t consider myself a model, to be honest. I’m a girl with things to say that randomly has cute pictures too, haha. I’m usually researching crypto or astrology content, scripting that, then ﬁlming. I also travel quite often and spend a lot of time on planes trying not to freak out during turbulence and get this work done!

There has never been a question that I’d be a creator of some kind. I grew up as an actor always looking forward to my next role to analyze and memorize. I didn’t expect social media to take off, since I had well under 1000 followers total on all platforms before TikTok.

Then when that took off and I had a ton of fun with it, I was thankful that my younger self made a ton of informative videos that could now be seen too. I was surprised by the lengths that people will go to demonize and takedown success, frankly. I’ve never understood it but have encountered it to a shocking degree. I don’t recognize much of what is written about me online. I grew up acting and doing a few commercial modeling shoots. Then in college when I transferred from acting more to philosophy, I started taking pictures on social media. Those didn’t blow me up, but those definitely helped me get noticed when my TikToks did. I’m a vegan yogi who doesn’t drink or stay out late. For me, it’s just the consistency of a routine that will lead you to a certain amount of baseline health. I don’t see the appeal or temptation in breaking this, especially diet and exercise-wise. Weight training over the past few years has worked wonders too. It’s the priority of a lifestyle for its own merits, not taking any shortcuts for a quick fix. Off the top of my head, Grimes. She’s individualistic, articulate yet unique, and doesn’t cower to people who willingly misunderstand her. And she follows me back on TikTok which is something I will flex; to be honest.

It’s difficult for me to reflect upon accomplishments of my own. I never feel like anything is enough. Before any of the notoriety or following, I wrote two psychological thriller novels at university from 2017 to 2020. That’s honestly probably the highlight over any of the following, accurate predictions, money, etc. My writing above, most likely. The books were mostly copied/pasted and shared on Tumblr, which was fine with me, my name (or really just my writing) was getting out there. I also am founding my first crypto project currently, but slowly and steadily, without the need for scammy marketing at all. I’m very passionate about the technical development of that currently. TikTok. I predicted the series of political events surrounding the 2020 US presidential election and the election outcome itself with a really detailed timeline, and that blew me up from 0 to 1 million in 6 months. That then trickled down to other platforms.

Go from just 15-second TikToks as my inﬂuence into more of the business development side, which, frankly, I’m often better at, I think. Just do it. You won’t have a way around the cringe stage. Get it over with now. Post the Youtube video. You will regret it one day, but better to get your beginning awkwardness out of the way. I’d like more travel and international speaking or teaching opportunities. I support anyone who wants to create on OnlyFans. I also think the psychological consequences of explicit content aren’t spoken about as much as the importance of being sex-positive. So I see it like any other career with pros and cons and I’m all for anyone who’s comfortable excelling in their ﬁeld, as they are aware of the emotional risks. I’d make the platform decentralized if I was the OF CEO, but that’s me :)

I love seeing what TreatDAO is doing so that (young women in particular) can get compensated for their content. It shows transparency and opportunity in the space and can allow for non-conventional models to earn a living, which is very exciting. My gratitude for those who have stuck with me throughout my crazy journey knows no bounds. I'm serious and dry and sometimes don’t articulate that well. But it’s true, and I value each person (and username I recognize throughout the years) very, very, highly.” Thank you, Maren! Don’t forget you can collect and own Maren’s incredible photography for TreatDAO as a special limited edition NFT collection available exclusively on OpenSea here: https://opensea.io/collection/treatofthemonth

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/marenaltman Website: www.marenaltman.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marenaltman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marenaltman TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marenaltman

THE THE COST CO OFOF A

CRISIS CRISI

How the global outrage against Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has blocked netizens' access to the global community and canceled the careers of thousands of Russian OnlyFans models and social media inﬂuencers

14th of March 2022 - Marina Ovsyannikova appears on Russian State News to protest the invasion of Ukraine

T A

ussian netizens who have been used to living the Capitalist dream by earning by sharing their very Western lifestyles and wares on the popular photo-sharing platform Instagram have taken to social media to vent in desperation after President Vladimir Putin banned the service. He took the action last week condemning parent company Meta and Facebook as sources of “misinformation” about Russia’s prosecution of war against its neighbor Ukraine. One Instagram influencer, triggered by the potential de-platforming, posted in exasperation to her followers stating "...for fucking five years in a row I have given my life to you all, and now what?”. Like many social media influencers, she had been carefully building a brand, posting content day by day, and was now questioning the purpose of life. It felt like her “life was being taken away from her”.t

A Russian inﬂuencer admitted that the loss of access to Instagram made her feel like her life ‘’was being taken away from her..” The bonﬁre of the Russian Instagram dollars sparked controversy on Twitter as netizens from around the world were outraged by the callous reactions to the very real-world consequences of the war. One tweeted that she “...does not care at all about the thousands of dead people, including her compatriots. Obviously, her biggest worry right now is that she won't be able to post pictures of food from restaurants.” 37

While the rest of the world is tangled in diplomatic knots over how best to avoid direct conﬂict with Putin's army, OnlyFans has effectively declared war. The London-based subscriber service has frozen the accounts of thousands of content creators in Russia and Belarus, depriving them of followers and blocking the withdrawal of payments.

The reality is that economic sanctions against Putin make processing international funds transfers to Russian accounts virtually impossible.

Kitty from OnlyFans Russian star creator @kitty, 21 years old, told media outlets of her horror when her payouts dried up and her OnlyFans proﬁle disappeared overnight. “Right now I don’t have any funds to buy food or pay my rent,” she tweeted. “I have taken part in several protests since I moved to Moscow when I was 18. We are not Putin! All my prayers for peace and the Ukraine people.” As any of us who know (and love) OnlyFans could anticipate, the Russian creators, many of whom are openly opposed to the invasion, express their support for Ukraine in a “make love, not war” way, promising boobs and not bombs for all! In TreatDAO’s opinion, this is a great solution to every conﬂict and should be high on the agenda at the next United Nations assembly. 39

We are now several weeks since the invasion of Ukraine, and the Kremlin has already banned access to over 200 websites. More than 300 foreign companies have suspended business with Russia in protest, and international sanctions have caused the shutdown of the market. The fear is that Russia may do something unimaginable for most of us, and pull the plug, disconnecting the country from the global internet altogether. In a clear sign that Russia is prepared to isolate its people from the online world, state media agency Interfax reported that the Russian government blocked access to Google News, citing “unreliable information” about the “special operation” in Ukraine. The Russian government has doubled down on the attack on independent media by making the dissemination of "false information" illegal and punishable by massive ﬁnes, hard labor, or up to 15 years in prison! Not everyone in Russia is kowtowed by this hardline crackdown on the truth. In the early days of the invasion, there were protests on the streets of major cities, and on Monday the 14th of March, a Russian journalist photobombed live TV news with a homemade paper sign with slogans warning the audience of the Russian lies about the war. Marina Ovsyannikova won hearts, made global headlines, and trended across social media for her brave commitment to reporting factual truth

* ** **

FRE E D O M

The Russian Netizens need more VPNs. The Kremlin is blacklisting them.

Since the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, the Kremlin has prosecuted a “misinform or silence” campaign against its own citizens, attempting to sever the people's access to the global internet. Some 400 news websites, 138 ﬁnance sites, 93 antiwar sites, and Facebook, Google News, and Twitter have all been blocked. Unsurprisingly the Russian people are increasingly turning to VPNs (virtual private networks) to get around the ﬁrewalls blocking their access to sites, and so they can get current news and unbiased information from the outside world.

Immediately following the banning of Instagram, major VPN provider Psiphon saw a huge jump in their traffic to well over a million daily active users. Some of the technology firms have voluntarily exited the Russian market as a result of the international sanctions. Others believe that they have a moral duty to inform the public and find workarounds that bypass censorship and bans and have even made their VPN services free for use for Russian netizens.

Though VPNs are not immune to the “great purge of the URLs”; more than 20 providers have already been shut down in the country and more are being added to the blacklist daily. The State Internet Regulator Roskomnadzor is responsible for the blacklisting. It has demanded more than 12,800 requests for Google to remove blacklisted URLs under the country’s 2017 “VPN law” between March 13th and March 25th, 2022. This is according to reports from the Lumen database, an archive that documents legal requests for the removal of online content.

The Web3 response to Putin: Crowdsourcing and Hacking Anonymous, the online hacktivist collective, has targeted Russia with DDoS and hacks against the central bank, military, and state services since declaring "cyberwar" on President Vladimir Putin as reprisal for the war on Ukraine and for blocking ordinary Russians' access to news and foreign internet sites that challenge Kremlin propaganda. A video began circulating across the internet on 26th February shared by Anonymous to millions of followers on social media. "JUST IN: #Russian state TV channels have been hacked by #Anonymous to broadcast the truth about what happens in #Ukraine to the Russian people." It claimed to have taken over Russian TV for a full 12 minutes, broadcasting anti-war and Ukraine news media before Rostelecom could restore regular services. In this era of the Metaverse, states are enlisting hackers, tech gurus, and social media-savvy volunteers to deploy their keyboards and mice in an information war. 40,000 people have recently volunteered to help a crowdsourced Ukrainian government initiative, using cyber-attacks to take down Putin supporting websites, target Russian ﬁnances, and disrupt government and military digital infrastructure. 42

New research shows how Crypto funds are used to equip the Ukrainian army and fund cyberattacks against Russia. Crypto donations to these groups increased by over 900% in 2021 alone.

Crowdsourcing for funds to buy weapons and pay for essential goods has skyrocketed since the start of the invasion, with GoFundMe pages springing up across the platform, and the Ukrainian foundation Come Back Alive appeal raising $4,000,000 in a matter of days. New research shows how Crypto funds are used to equip the Ukrainian army and fund cyberattacks against Russia. Crypto donations to these groups increased by over 900% in 2021 alone.

While the tears of jilted Instagram inﬂuencers or the pouting of OnlyFans stars may not bring an immediate cessation to the war, it is emblematic of how the younger generations of Russian people have grown up online, and are naturally adverse to censorship and state controls. If they can expose the propaganda, and stand up for the truth, it could open hearts and minds. Change traditional thinking and then, just maybe, with time and peaceful pressure, it could be these very same content creators and inﬂuencers who bring about lasting reforms for a more open and inclusive Russian internet and society.

THE

WALL FAME A curated treasure trove of our most loved NFTs on Treat to collect and keep forever

morning one PonyGirll

Kitten Maddie 1/6 MaddieSprings

A Leg Up RobSloane3

unless ctrlaltdevin

Desire

fmphotography

Vegas Morning Devan

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