Im a bit out of the loop on this one. Does anyone know why so many western governments are pushing for some kind of legislation towards age-id-verification? They say it’s to protect the youth, but I don’t buy our governments suddenly turning into altruistic patrons. So… what’s the real reason? What’s the hidden agenda? Data Acquisition? Survaillance? Chat Control?
There’s a political movement that gained steam in the EU to make social media companies responsible for the content they deliver.
This would have meant they’d have to implement robust age verification on their platforms to comply with EU youth protection laws (including fines per child that could access unsuitable content).
So they lobbied for delegating the age verification to the OS level instead.
That way they can continue to push harmful, addictive slop to children without being legally responsible.
They can just say “we check the age provided by the OS”.
Because the single most important thing to centrist governments is apparently to create controls and legislation that will later enable an easy transition to tyranny under a populist leader.
IP addresses already reveal the identity of most people, especially if they log into facebook or google. What the govrnment can’t do is silence the opposition. So far everybody can buy a cheap phone, go to a cafe with wlan and publish on the internet.
With age verification, every service where people can publish freely is under control of the government. The government can reject the age verification of critical people and they can’t log in anymore and cannot make themselves heard.
I can’t read Gizmodo but if it’s the EUID app, this has been in the works for years.
As for why it’s suddenly accelerating? Age verification = ID verification. The gov wants to know who everyone is. They want unparalleled access to information.
Also companies like Meta are seeing the writing on the wall, and instead of pushing back, they’re pushing forward, but steering it away from them.
Political movement originally pushed for responsibility of social media platforms over content they show, when such content is moderated by them. For example if you subscribe to crackpot theorists rambling about secret vampire society controlling the world that’s on you, but if social media shows you this content without subscription or annotation that this is misinformation as “recommended”, that is on them and they should be penalized by the law.
But of course money wins over people and lobbyists managed to re-scope the idea into “systemic age checks”, pushing responsibility from companies onto consumers and topic from misinformation to protection of minors.
In the end one can either assume it’s a honest advertising agenda to show people more targeted ads (showing twice the amount of toys to kids) or you may form suspicions about why rich and powerful want to know who online is a minor after their precious island got busted.
My piece of cake? it’s not a lose-lose situation for them, but a win-lose situation. They win safety for children at the cost of freedom and privacy of the rest, and they are convinced this doesn’t hurt the good people. How come they believe such a different thing than the rest of us? It could be that they’re evil and want to stay in power at all costs, but i believe there is a also a huge lobby of companies that can earn money: for them it is a win-win, safety for their children and wealth for mommy and daddy. This is why vocal public protest is so important, because it can act as a counter balance to influencial individuals who whisper in the ears of politicians in private.
Im a bit out of the loop on this one. Does anyone know why so many western governments are pushing for some kind of legislation towards age-id-verification? They say it’s to protect the youth, but I don’t buy our governments suddenly turning into altruistic patrons. So… what’s the real reason? What’s the hidden agenda? Data Acquisition? Survaillance? Chat Control?
There’s a political movement that gained steam in the EU to make social media companies responsible for the content they deliver.
This would have meant they’d have to implement robust age verification on their platforms to comply with EU youth protection laws (including fines per child that could access unsuitable content).
So they lobbied for delegating the age verification to the OS level instead.
That way they can continue to push harmful, addictive slop to children without being legally responsible.
They can just say “we check the age provided by the OS”.
deleted by creator
Because the single most important thing to centrist governments is apparently to create controls and legislation that will later enable an easy transition to tyranny under a populist leader.
Censorship.
IP addresses already reveal the identity of most people, especially if they log into facebook or google. What the govrnment can’t do is silence the opposition. So far everybody can buy a cheap phone, go to a cafe with wlan and publish on the internet.
With age verification, every service where people can publish freely is under control of the government. The government can reject the age verification of critical people and they can’t log in anymore and cannot make themselves heard.
I can’t read Gizmodo but if it’s the EUID app, this has been in the works for years.
As for why it’s suddenly accelerating? Age verification = ID verification. The gov wants to know who everyone is. They want unparalleled access to information.
Also companies like Meta are seeing the writing on the wall, and instead of pushing back, they’re pushing forward, but steering it away from them.
Adding to what Pommes_fur_dein_Balg said.
Political movement originally pushed for responsibility of social media platforms over content they show, when such content is moderated by them. For example if you subscribe to crackpot theorists rambling about secret vampire society controlling the world that’s on you, but if social media shows you this content without subscription or annotation that this is misinformation as “recommended”, that is on them and they should be penalized by the law.
But of course money wins over people and lobbyists managed to re-scope the idea into “systemic age checks”, pushing responsibility from companies onto consumers and topic from misinformation to protection of minors.
In the end one can either assume it’s a honest advertising agenda to show people more targeted ads (showing twice the amount of toys to kids) or you may form suspicions about why rich and powerful want to know who online is a minor after their precious island got busted.
My piece of cake? it’s not a lose-lose situation for them, but a win-lose situation. They win safety for children at the cost of freedom and privacy of the rest, and they are convinced this doesn’t hurt the good people. How come they believe such a different thing than the rest of us? It could be that they’re evil and want to stay in power at all costs, but i believe there is a also a huge lobby of companies that can earn money: for them it is a win-win, safety for their children and wealth for mommy and daddy. This is why vocal public protest is so important, because it can act as a counter balance to influencial individuals who whisper in the ears of politicians in private.