This consolidation of power is a dream come true for the Big Tech platforms, but it’s a nightmare for users. While the megacorporations get more traffic and a whole lot more user data (read: profit), users are left with far fewer community options and a bland, corporate surveillance machine instead of a vibrant public sphere. The internet we all fell in love with is a diverse and colorful place, full of innovation, connection, and unique opportunities for self-expression. That internet—our internet—is worth defending.
Amazes me how the UK Labour Party and Starmer managed to absolutely squander their one opportunity after gaining power for the first time in many years.
i find it interesting that some of the most debased, vile, disgusting perverts to ever live are passing laws to force regular, everyday people to dox themselves just so they can see a tig ol gilf bitty.
Depends on the platform surely, couldn’t a lemmy instance just ignore the UK? Not block, ignore.
I am sure I saw that smaller platforms are seeing a surge in popularity because they are not doing it while pornhub saw a large drop. How many switched to a VPN and how many use another site?
Even safer might be that image that’s been circulating. It states that if you’re in the UK, the hosting site is required to verify your age, but they’re not required to verify your location. Now, please click on of these buttons indicating whether or not you’re in the UK to determine whether age verification must be performed.
(Presumably “I am in the UK” leads to an innocuous website)
I’d prefer: “I’m in the UK and want to be age verified” and “I’m not in the UK and don’t want to be age verified.”
Could you elaborate on why?
It gives more info as to the consequences of clicking that button. If they just ask if you’re in the UK, people could reasonably assume they’re going to serve UK-relevant content. If they say it’s for ave verification purposes directly, people will know they can click the other button to avoid the spyware.
Most of the smaller sites are doing just that. But mainstream sites do have identification in place.
I still think it’s a clearly designed plan by VPN providers to make themselves relevant.
Absolutely never using any service that requires this. I dont even have any account on those platforms and I never will.
What if the platform you use with your relatives suddenly requires this?
I will stop using it of course. There is a price to pay for not being affected by this. Its not going to be free.
I personally don’t use Instagram already, no need to wait for age verification.
WhatsApp is the one I can’t skip yet, but it they force this shit I’m out.
Yeah, that’s the one I am fearing, the enshitification of Whatsapp, I think it already happened in some countries.
I’ve never used WhatsApp and never will. My friends and family can contact me through a number of other ways, and I’m introverted enough that it won’t bother me too much if they don’t.
Unfortunately sometimes it’s too late. Any platform can lock your account and keep your data until you unlock it and GDPR and similar do not protect against it. That’s what Twitter and LinkedIn started to do - require verification and no way to delete your account if you decline.
Thanks to GDPR you can email them to have your data deleted though. In fact, it’s what I’d suggest. Give them extra work.
How do you verify it’s you? Just email address seems weird.
Should be enough given it’s the same address the account was registered with.
I’ve tried emailing LinkedIn with no response. Apparently this is not covered by gdpr because you still need to confirm identity
Then I will just update my profile to a link my own cv page.
You can’t do anything with a locked account. Just a screen to do a web cam verification.
Ah you meant like that…
Yeah, the power these companies have over our lives is very disturbing. They have positioned themselves as something most academic people really need, at least linkedin has.
Hard to avoid using services that do it when it’s your own government that forces the sites & services you use to do this
‘Forces’ should not even be used in this context. These companies are all too happy to be able to get even more PII from everyone.
Some of them. Yes, many others not so much. Are you not realizing the thread you’re commenting on here?
That smaller site services and companies who really don’t want to collect this data are going to be forced to at an expense that may be too high for their entry point into the market they’re trying to work in?
Or even worse websites or services that are hosted for free may have to incur costs they cannot afford for data they don’t want to collect.
I completely agree. The minute a platform asks me to do age verification is the moment I leave that platform.
I will take my traffic to platforms that won’t do shit like that.
If I have to verify myself I simply won’t use it, I really don’t care, there’s nothing so important online that I need to prove my identity to see it. (Banking and shit like that aside of course). Social media? Give me a break I’m already over it before all this ID shit. I hope it all burns to the ground.
Yup, the furthest I’d go is entering a birthdate. Depending on the service, I’m anywhere from 21 to 105 years old.
this. I refuse to make more accounts, and verify personal info. Ive been prepping for the big disconnect from the internet as a result. there will come a time when it just won’t be usable
Tor and i2p say hello. The internet itself will be totally usable. The clear net is what will become unusable.
Same. I know there are easy ways around it but I’m not going to use them, and I wish more people could take this attitude - if everyone cut down their Internet usage in response to this ID stuff things would quickly start to turn around
It would be a big struggle for me but I still agree with you.
The fact that you recognise it would be a struggle should honestly spur you on even more to do it. People got by for a long time without the Internet and even though now the same infrastructure they’d have used is at best a shell of its former self if not gone entirely it would still be possible. We don’t have to stop entirely but if a bunch of sites suddenly find their traffic is way down they’d start to put pressure on about getting rid of ID checks and we might finally see some movement
Oh, I know. No preaching required. I’m from pre-internet days. That’s why I agree with you. Being this dependent on the internet is not good for me or anyone else.
Same. I hardly use youtube and will pirate anything I want to see.
I am planning on open sourcing phones and computers too.
Silicon valley parasites can do their age verification without me, that is the last straw, I hardly use now anyway.
But what if they put porn behind a id wall.
torrents
I don’t think porn sites in other countries care about our laws.
I plain feel sorry for the service that attempts to get between people and their porn.
🤝
People just go to the porn sites that aren’t hosted in a jurisdiction that requires ID verification and the ID verifying platforms lose traffic or people use VPNs.
More people gonna get their porn from darknet. And discover its wider selection of genres…
Gay-torrents is still around. Though they really need to set up an i2p instance too.
There’s no shortage of other ways to get it for an enterprising person, maybe a few extra clicks once you know where to go. That’s likely one of the goals though, whitewashing the internet. It’s such a massive business though, but maybe very fractured and independent.
Facebook is kinda unavoidable here.
I have young kids, and marketplace has saved me thousands of dollars. Kids need a lot of different stuff at different ages and it’s nice to be able to flip the stuff you dont need anymore and get the stuff they do need second hand.
Also messenger, what’s app. My apartment building has a what’s app group thats invaluable. I talk to customers on messenger.
This is just an excuse, not a justification. There’s always garage sales and such. Also, Facebook Marketplace is not the only game in town.
It’s completely avoidable
No, it’s not.
It is totally avoidable, you will find new ways to handle your business. You have to stop using their service, they are a cancer on our society and they are actively engaging in propaganda for genocide amongst many other shitty things.
The sooner you pull the trigger the better off you will be. It is past time to move on.
Not really. I engage in my business to make money, not to fly the privacy & freedom flag.
That is work devices though rather than personal ones
Not really. I use my tech for both.
How does that matter?
Logging in to fb marketplace in a containered tab isn’t a big deal.
Then you dont ever get to complain. You have other options, but its too hard for you, so youd rather just contribute to pissing away freedoms and privacy. Its because of people like you, who wont put up with even a little discomfort, that we are where we are. They keep pushing, and people like just keep on saying “OK”.
If we are ever to stop this increasingly vile push to have us be endlessly profiled, its unfortunately going to have to be people like you that finally grow a fucking back bone. So yeah, we’re fucked…
Oh my sweet summer child. One day the light of idealism will fade from your eyes just as it does for everyone who is not 15.
I’m not contributing to pissing away freedoms and privacy, but I’m not going to inconvenience myself on ideological grounds.
Its got nothing to do with some frivolous ideology, and everything to do with not letting someone else manipulate me through convenience. People like you always have excuses, but the reality is that youre just lazy. You want your hand held by some tech daddy, you need your hand held by some tech daddy. Because other wise you might have to think for yourself. And that, well, thats just too much effort. No, better to bend over, spread cheeks, and present your arse to the gods of convenience. Well, that and all your data…
LOL. Settle down mate.
You can call me names if it makes you feel better.
I couldn’t care less if fb knows I’m selling toddler clothes.
I, and everyone else who is not 15, will continue selling my junk on facebook.
Wao, you actually think that’s all they know and therefore that’s the only data they would share and profit from?
OK, then I totally understand why you are so complacent about it. It all makes sense now.
I’m so excited for you to tell me how you think the Web works.
Eh, youre the only one doing the name calling and character assassination, cunty chops… Im just calling it like I see it, and youre feeling personally attacked…
Does your mother know you’re using the c-word?
Yes, instead of buying secondhand, he should buy new items at Walmart, Target, and Amazon. 🙄
Yes, facebook marketplace is the only way to buy things second hand… Could you be more perpetually online???
So you insult this dude and tell him “you have other options”, but refuse to elaborate on those other options. Got it.
Get offline and go out. I can’t tell you what your options are in your area. I could give you a whole list of the options in my area, but only you know where everything is in your environment.
There’s salvation army and Savers, and that’s about it. Usually they don’t have great stuff. Unfortunately, Facebook marketplace is where people in this area go to sell shit.
No one asked me for other options… Whatever it is you got, you can keep it. Its clearly making you dumb.
JFC chill out dude
The issues related to facebook marketplace are not unique. Plenty of people have second-hand items to sell without using fb marketplace.
That’s not really true.
I live in a fairly small city. There might be other platforms but they’re not in common use.
I can list a box of toddler clothes and they’ll sell in a week, while other platforms perhaps they won’t sell at all.
Plenty of people have second-hand items to sell without using fb marketplace.
Where? Craigslist has become a pit. eBay is not cost effective for large items that are expensive to ship.
Don’t know where you are, but Kijiji is absolutely thriving in Ontario. My old man has about 40-50 items up at any given time, and has no problems finding buyers to rotate through his stock, and he is nowhere near a major population centre. I just looked at ads for a city centre and there is a lot available. It is definitely possible to work outside of facebook.
Never heard of Kijiji. Looks to be Canada-only?
You know, I could swear you used to be able to pick countries in it. But all I can find now is kijiji.ca.
Might’ve died because of FB marketplace 😢
I’m in this weird middle ground where I hate FB with a passion and it depresses me every time I log in, but I need to create a personal brand for my business (and to get laid, who am I kidding) and honestly I’m thinking about getting one of my friends to run it for me, which seems weird but
I think everyone feels that way. All you can do is just try to stick to the bits you really need.
I would def think about paying someone to manage your business page.
I am disinclined to believe that this is a death-sentence for smaller platforms longterm.
Depends on the nature of the platform. It is not good for small commercial entities that will be required to enact a ID verification system because it will increase the cost of entry to the market.
Increasing the cost of entry will benefit large corporations that will easily absorb the cost. Platforms that don’t require it will likely be unaffected.
It is not good for small commercial entities that will be required to enact a ID verification system because it will increase the cost of entry to the market.
As someone who works in this space, I doubt it’s going to be an issue for smaller entities. We already have SSO for basic login identity from a variety of providers (Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple) — smaller sites already love to use these as it provides easy access to existing users, and saves a ton of coding for having to handle login information, password management, etc.
These same entities can handle the age verification. Now I can see arguments as to why centralizing logins and age verification like this could be a problem for users, but if I decided to start my own social media app tomorrow I’d likely rely on the big platforms to handle all of this (as we already see everywhere — heck, app for ordering pizza support Facebook, Google, and Apple logins), and save myself the cost and hassle of implementing this myself (never mind the potential embarrassment and liability should someone hack my site). Then it’s on those platforms to worry about age verification.
All of these services are currently free, and save you from a ton of coding around user accounts and authentication, so using them is usually cheaper then having to DIY it.
Yes, but I will never log in to any site with those. If those are my only options I am not using your website.
And that’s just fine. Considering how many people do login with those services, I doubt any that use the SSO services will particularly miss you and the small subset of users who don’t want to let a third-party service confirm your login.
That’s not meant as snark — every app and website out there has some subset of users who will decry “I won’t use that because it does X”. And that’s fine. It’s a personal decision. But it likely won’t significantly affect development decisions, as it’s going to happen with some group for some reason anyway.
currently free
And that’s always worked out in the past, hasn’t it?
Imagine putting your entire business in a position where one of Google’s half-assed AIs could decide tomorrow at zero notice to cut you off from your entire user base.
This is why most apps that do use such services use more than one. Lots of modern sites have buttons for “Login with Google”, “Login with Facebook”, “Login with Apple”. None of them want to lose access to the user data and analytics they get from these services — so I doubt one is going to jump into cutting you off or requiring payment while the others are still free.
It would take all of these services to (illegally) coordinate to suddenly start charging — and of all of them I don’t see that being in the interest at all for Apple. Apple’s login service uses Touch and Face ID on their devices, and is part of the selling point for those devices (extremely easy logins with no password). They’re not making their money off Single Sign-On (SSO) login services — they make their money off selling devices, and they make the case for selling these devices in large part by selling “simplicity”.
So if you’re worried today about a login service yanking the rug out from under you, you just implement many/all of them. It’s not significantly more work — all of them are based off OAuth — so long as your website or app can authenticate via OAuth you just need to use the APIs each company provides to implement the authentication, and you’re done.
Nothing them stops you as you get bigger form implementing your own login/authentication service — and if you ever get big enough, you too can offer it as a service for other websites.
“Don’t worry, it’ll only affect the 70% of your users that choose that one” isn’t the safeguard you seem to think it is.
I could see it being an issue for more privacy-oriented sites. I imagine some Lemmy and Mastodon users might be less inclined to have to login to Apple, Google or Microsoft to be able to interact with others even if the vast majority of users are fine with it. Would be nice for somebody to come up with an open-source service that handles some more basic age verification so other services can just self-host it instead of each platform implementing their own logins. By basic age verification I mean things like matching user behaviour to users with a known age and maybe some face scanning. Nowhere near perfect and it’s a constant cat and mouse game, but maybe enough to be compliant with the law.
If age verification wasn’t being made mandatory in Australia for social media sites I think it could be a great idea for some services especially if the verification is done by the government with the same level as photo ID. Think dating apps, finance and marketplace sites where having a higher level of confidence that the person you are talking to is who they say they really matters, especially if law enforcement need to be involved down the line. Even if you the user can’t verify the identity of the other person, law enforcement could, and the site might be able to block alt accounts. The credential theft problem still exists of course so it’s no silver bullet, but it’s a lot better than what we have now.
Breathtaking complacency & a load of mental gymnastics to justify an entirely unnecessary and intrusive policy
I will take your word for it then. Thanks for letting me know.
Hopefully, in the EU at least, the verification will be provided by the government. Like a 2FA, meaning Big Tech would only get a verified token and nothing else.
The government already got passports with our face, and have had it for many years. They could use that information.
That would mean that any platform could implement this verification, and never get hold on any data.
Best case in a shitty scenario, I know.
No. There’s no “hopefully” anything when it comes to this bullshit. It’s bad for the individual, full stop. This is not a thing to compromise on, because any compromise at all will eventually harm the users (though leaks/hacks, or government overreach, etc.) without any actual benefit or offset to them.
Its bad, but a govt service is the best implementation.
one of the big problems that isn’t solved by this is what gets to be behind verification. who decides what kids aren’t allowed to see. we’ve seen already that most of the world’s governments can’t really be trusted with what is adult content and not.
When I was in highschool my friends parents had child lock bullshit on his computer, poor sod couldn’t even goto wikipedia because there are articles with naughty words.
This shit is real slippery slope shit.
We need to reframe the discussion from “it’s for the children” to “it’s for lazy parents”.
People are keen to scapegoat parents, and here it’s the truth. They don’t want to use existing opt-in controls, or put the damn computer where they can keep an eye on Little Timmy while he uses it. Make the entirery of the legal system do it for you!
Ok, so I also hate the “protect the children” argument, and there are certainly plenty of lazy parents around.
However, if everyone 10 year old at school has a phone and a Facebook account, it’s just so much more difficult for parents who are not lazy to hold the line. Its an extraordinarily difficult situation. You’d make your kid’s a pariah by upholding a basic standard of care.
By prohibiting access for kids you set the basic societal standard. Yes it will be circumvented but you enable parents to uphold appropriate restrictions.
Is it worth it? Probably not. Its not a good thing but as a dad I can see the intention.
You make a good point. Now, I have 2 kids (12 and 10), and they use phones (when one of us allow them to). However, and thank God for that, the school they go to has banned cell phones entirely, which effectively reduces the unsupervised exposure to stuff we don’t want them to be on yet. Additionally, I removed everything ‘big tech’ from those phones, so they use Signal to communicate with their friends and family, get to stream content from my Jellybean instance, and have all types of DAV in my server to keep files, contacts, calendars and whatnot synchronized. Plus, I keep them tracked with my own Traccar instance when they go out, and I audit their devices pretty regularly.
I am all too aware we cannot shield them from everything. Some things will fall through the cracks, but that’s been the case even when we were kids (dad playboy mag left carelessly somewhere easy to grab?). This does not mean that I will allow, or even want, the government of any country deciding how my kids are raised. That’s my wife’s and my job, nobody else’s.
Having said that, I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that lazy parents are the ones that help the obscure intent of governments and large corporations drive this kind of shit to spy and control us.
Unfortunately the largest percentage of parents worldwide are just that lazy and irresponsible, and unless they change that, this will be the life and challenge of actually responsible parents. Sadly, I don’t see those parents suddenly caring for their kids,it just doesn’t happen. Why would they drop such convenience?
“protect the children” is such a fucking bullshit excuse. If they gave a fuck about children, they’d stop them being slaughtered in schools every fucking day.
Ah, we dont really have school shootings here.
Yet…
How do you know that won’t change in a week, month or year?
I’m surprised there isn’t more of a crowdsourced solution-- community maintained block/allow lists and pluggable tools.
Part of the reason filters suck right now is that they’re sold to turboprudes and people pushing compliance solutions that will placate litigious turboprudes. So you get blocking all of Wikipedia and .edu/.gov because three pages have an anatomical diagram of a breast. The kids are frustrated, normal parents have to keep unblocking legit stuff, and nobody wins.
If you could pick from easily managed lists sponsored by groups you personally trusted, with responsive appeals systems, people might be more willing to use them.
The ad-blocker ecosystem has a lot of precedent for how to work this stuff.
Don’t worry, soon enough all the SMUT will be eliminated and only the good word of the LORD will be on-line. The solution to all our problems!
(/s if it wasn’t obvious)
Will vpns still work? What would the legal ramifications be if you used one?
They’re planning on making vpns illegal. They haven’t said that yet but they are.
making vpns illegal
PRC anthem intensifies
You can’t always simply VPN around it. I applied for a job via one of the popular job sites. Tried to log back in to the job site a week later only to to find my account had been blocked until I provide proof of ID to a US based third party company …I’m in Europe. Spoiler alert: I did not provide proof of ID & so have no idea whether or not I was a suitable applicant for the job.
Guess i won’t be job hunting through that site again. The whole thing is farcical.
This is the display of how we fight this. And I can only imagine the balls it took for you to take that position and move along. You’re one of those scarce unsung heroes that stands by his values instead of bending over to avoid inconvenience or even potentially detrimental outcomes.
Well done for not backing down, mate. Fuck the private info scrapers.
We should just make an Internet that you have to VPN into. Like sci-fi space travel? We can call it the “hypernet”.
Its called i2p and tor
We have something like that, it’s called darknet.
How do you use it without being caught at a node or getting on a list for downloading associated software though?
- you use any censorship-evading functionality available, such as obfs4 for tor.
- hopefully you get it from another trusted person.
users are left with far fewer community options
Where is the fediverse in this analysis?
Edit: The article references Bluesky fleeing Mississippi due to risk of fines. Do admins running fediverse instances run similar risks?
Bluesky was the first platform to make the announcement. In a public blogpost, Bluesky condemned H.B. 1126’s broad scope, barriers to innovation, and privacy implications, explaining that the law forces platforms to “make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site—or risk massive fines.” As Bluesky noted, “This dynamic entrenches existing big tech platforms while stifling the innovation and competition that benefits users.” Instead, Bluesky made the decision to cut off Mississippians entirely until the courts consider whether to overturn the law.
Just goes to show that blue sky isn’t as decentralized as they would like you to think they are.
there need to be dedicated 3rd party age verification services separate from the site. the people with my identity info don’t need to see what i’m doing on the site, and the site doesn’t need to know my identity any more than a general age group.
No, as soon as you ask the government to send a site a token verifying you, you’ve given up your privacy to the government.
Also, how are smaller sites going to pay for this service? This is the tech bros using the religious nuts to pull the ladder up behind them. Locking in the monopoly. The only answer is the freedom we’ve had for the last 35 years.
Well, as much as I hate it, there’s no privacy when it comes to your government, and this is the case even since the internet was a thing.
Yes, we can keep some stuff obscured from the government, but the fact is that they know everything about us since we are born (probably even before). We need driver’s license, passport, bank accounts, registering homes, cars, even dogs, putting kids in the school system, health services, the list seems infinite.
But that does not mean we have to stop pushing back, because if we do, we’re utterly fucked.
My government doesn’t know everything about me. Look at the news and how long it takes for basic information about a high profile criminal to come out. It takes a lot of investigative effort to put all that info together, even if it’s all largely from various government agencies.
Some stuff is easy to track (e.g. registrations), but a lot isn’t. That means there’s absolutely precedent for privacy from the government on things that don’t matter to it. Why should the welfare department need information about my driving history or whether I have a passport? It doesn’t, so it shouldn’t have access.
I agree, it shouldn’t, but I but they do. Don’t deceive yourself like that. As I said, some stuff you can (still) keep under wraps, that’s how criminals do it, but connecting the dots they almost invariably get caught, sooner or later.
