I have just been tossed off Reddit. No bad behaviour but Reddit suspects I am not old enough. I have been an adult for quite a few years. Note that age verification is not (yet) required under EU law.

The age verification on Reddit runs through a third party which is associated with Palantir. I will not do this, and there’s enough data associated with my account to show I’m an adult.
In general I am extremely sceptical of giving this level of personal information to any third party but especially a company that just cannot be trusted and has proven itself to be a destructive force in the world. I would not recommend anyone to use this, even if it may lose you access to platforms.

On Reddit there have been concerns among the various European subs and its community. I have encouraged various mods to collectively search for a solution. A move to Lemmy seems the obvious one - also just for the sake of supporting European tech and platforms. Alas, none have acted. The best I got was ‘good idea, we’ll look into it’.

My guess is I am far from the only one to lose access, if not already than soon the same will happen to other users. It may destroy the community that exists there, and my guess is that it’s the largest online truly pan-European community.

Anyway, I’ve signed up for Lemmy / europe.pub a while ago and am eager to use it instead of Reddit. I just hope this place becomes a little more lively.

  • lievenOP
    2·
    1 day ago

    I hope to contribute my bit but it’s not just me I hope.

    • tfmMA
      2·
      9 hours ago

      If you see something interesting somewhere just post it in fitting communities. The fediverse is also a lot less restrictive in what you can post in most comms than Reddit.

      If you make this a habit you can become a powerful force in the liveliness of the fediverse. Only a few percent of users actively post.

      Welcome btw

      • lievenOP
        1·
        8 hours ago

        Thanks. I absolutely want to be active but I also am still figuring out a bit how things work here. I’m rather just part of the community than a ‘powerful force’, also feels a bit rude to take that on as a newcomer.

        But I’m around and all the time I used to spend (lose?) on Reddit has to go somewhere…