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Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

mullvad.net

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Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#41
Mullvad VPN is great. Mullvad Browser is a great balance for preventing fingerprinting and also usability vs the Tor Browser. Most browsers I've found, even ones with claimed fingerprinting protections, are easily traced by fingerprint.com and other tests. Mullvad beats it.

There's this cool new feature that they added to the Mullvad browser extension, which is built into the Browser. It gives you a random different proxy for each site, kind of like the Tor Browser.

Mullvad understands that VPNs overpromise and underdeliver, but if you combine a trustworthy VPN, a fingerprint-resistant browser, and uBlock Origin, you get a damn good internet privacy. The browser is not ideal for daily-driving because it's always incognito so you get signed out on close, but I heard they're working on a persistent version.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#42
post #5

So, to post something in 2027: - You have to have an approved browser. - It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account. - You have to have an account on the posting platform. - You have to get past moderation on the posting platform. That's without age verification.

You can't sign up for a Facebook account without giving a live selfie. Any image of your family you post will be scraped by Clearview AI, bypassing the restrictions that make it hard for you to create accounts, to create a worldwide facial recognition system.

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Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#43
This is so lame, it seems like a small number of pedophiles have forced us to deal with all this age verification stuff.

Porn has always been around (national geographic, anyone), and parents can use screen time to limit access for their children if they want.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#45
The problem is kids on social media. This doesn't need to be a problem for anyone except social media companies and social media users. Sloppy policymaking is making it a broader problem, but I don't think this is some nefarious scheme (at least in the U.S., it looks sketchier in Europe). It's just policymakers pulling the first proposal off the shelf to respond to intense demand for a policy from voters.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#46
Age verification is a project 2025 backdoor to ban porn, and also a way for Meta and others to advertise much more aggressively without violating age restrictions, and also a mass surveillance opportunity for the government. It is definitely not for the children or anyone’s safety. It threatens the most basic civil rights we have like free speech. The fact that so many people blindly support it is really depressing and disturbing.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#47

This is so lame, it seems like a small number of pedophiles have forced us to deal with all this age verification stuff. Porn has always been around (national geographic, anyone), and parents can use screen time to limit access for their children if they want.

Current policy is victim-blaming: it excludes from social media potential victims (children) but allows perpetrators (convicted csam users).

But this was always about governments wanting to know who's posting what (and controlling them, through chilling effect); not about saving 'the children'.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#48
post #21

There isn't much left of the free Internet anyway. Search engines no longer work, all discussion forums are ranked/censored by interest groups, mail delivery is between large entities. Maybe we need an alternative set of root servers for a free Internet.

The future is balkanized.

Occasional communities may survive in a walled garden fashion.

Sorry, Tim Berners-Berners-Lee.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#49
post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

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Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#50
post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

Do you believe people should be able to traverse the internet anonymously?

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