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Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

citizens-initiative.europa.eu

121–130 of 313 posts

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#121
post #20

I think it's a missed opportunity to not have called it "Stop spying on every EU citizen online". It would make for great headlines and might finally wake people up when they see that the EU has rejected a proposal called that. "Stop killing the internet" unfortunately means nothing at all to the layman, they will still be using it pretty much exactly as they were before, and governments will just claim "See, interne…

Agreed. I think it's time that "please let 1800 analytics firms monitor your every browsing habit in exchange for this content" was seen in the same light as "please let 1800 private foreign espionage and propaganda agencies spy on you".

Yes, absolutely...people drastically underestimate how much political propaganda on social media is from targeted foreign operations. Getting children and those propaganda operations off "adult"/anonymous social media would be so beneficial to all of society. The EU is actively doing something else though...I doubt the propaganda operations would even be slowed down by the EU's efforts.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#122

I want the right to not be identified. I also want the right to SELF identify . I think the toxic culture of the internet has happened in part because anonymity leads to lack of accountability. I want to self identify and interact with other people who also self identify. The cost of running LLM botnets is going down. I cannot imagine how the next cycle of elections is going to be like on all countries. I understand…

>I want to self identify and interact with other people who also self identify.

You can do that already, Facebook is pretty close to exactly what you're talking about. They do a lot of work to identify real people and de-prioritize spam/bots. You can configure your account to only be able to interact with real people if you want. Many people like anonymity though, it's important for speaking truth to power and discussing topics which are outside the Overton window.

There's a good reason that many of the United States' founding fathers used pseudonyms when writing. Anonymity and real freedom of speech are foundational to democracy. If you can put someone in jail for saying something that the government doesn't like, then the government will be able to steer discourse towards outcomes it deems acceptable, even if those outcomes subvert the will of the people.

There's no real need to have the government force all websites to always authenticate all humans. The only real argument for such a system is to move us toward dystopian authoritarianism.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#123
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet of the future is an IQ test. Are you smart enough to get in, do your work in a focused manner, and get out so that you live your life? Many, many people will fail this test.

Counterpoint: meatspace is awful unless you're a normie. Christ, the day I got out of my small town and into a major city university dorm room with fast Internet was the day my life opened up. I found people with my interests. Etc. "The Internet sucks. Get offline," is the battle cry of someone who likes Marvel movies and the book that Target has at the checkout line, or lives in one of about five cities in the USA.

Oof. You're missing out if you think meatspace is limited to target and big American cities. I agree that the web makes it easy(er) to connect with others in niche interests, but in-person experiences can be so diverse, vibrant, stimulating that I understand the simmering tug some have toward wanting the internet to become unusable. I agree with sibling that a "healed" internet, while very optimistic, is the ideal case.

Sincerely, your fellow terminally online HN commenter.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#124
>The legislation should require anonymous or pseudonymous proof-of-age

NO. It really shouldn't. I will not comply. Porn sites can require this shit, but not the rest of the internet. Social media, dating websites, that's up to the users. If kids are on there, that's on the parents. Do your job, be the parent. I'm not going to let lazy good for nothing parents ruin the internet for everyone else.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#125
This initiative has the ID "ECI(2026)000011". If I understand this correctly, that means there have only been eleven citizen initiatives this year? Is that system working as designed, because that's a shockingly low number.

Edit: the initiatives themselves also have shockingly low numbers of signatures. A few thousand. A million are required for the EC to take notice. This system seems a bit shitty. But maybe I'm misunderstanding it.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#127

The Internet is already dead. I'm reasonably confident that in the relatively near future, the Internet will be so overrun with bots and other worthless "content" that people will flock to platforms that confirm IRL identity.

Yeah I've been wanting ID for years. Because i neighbor Russia and their propaganda game is top notch. One person one account.

Think what that would mean for your average person in a country that didn't like their government...for instance in Russia. You clearly haven't thought through the consequences of your suggestion.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#128

The Internet is already dead. I'm reasonably confident that in the relatively near future, the Internet will be so overrun with bots and other worthless "content" that people will flock to platforms that confirm IRL identity.

You don't need IRL identity. You just need invite-only. Discord is great for this. I've run so many fandom events over Discord, and we never have a problem with bots, and it's very fun creating fanfiction, fanart, calendars, zines, and talking about the other aspects of our lives every day.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#129
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually the delivery person asks for ID when delivering the wine?

They absolutely don't. They ask for your date of birth to fill it on their app and that's it.

In most US states, they require the delivery driver to recheck the ID in person. Depends on the state though.

Re: Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification

#130
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: meatspace is awful unless you're a normie. Christ, the day I got out of my small town and into a major city university dorm room with fast Internet was the day my life opened up. I found people with my interests. Etc. "The Internet sucks. Get offline," is the battle cry of someone who likes Marvel movies and the book that Target has at the checkout line, or lives in one of about five cities in the USA.

Oof. You're missing out if you think meatspace is limited to target and big American cities. I agree that the web makes it easy(er) to connect with others in niche interests, but in-person experiences can be so diverse, vibrant, stimulating that I understand the simmering tug some have toward wanting the internet to become unusable. I agree with sibling that a "healed" internet, while very optimistic, is the ideal ca…

> You're missing out if you think meatspace is limited to target and big American cities.

The joke about middle-of-nowhere towns is that the only thing for teens to do in meatspace is to go to the Walmart. Because there's nothing else to do.

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