Bullshit this is for protecting children, what hogwash, this is abkut authoritarian control.
Wherever the users have any freedom, “age verification” as they imagine it is impossible. On the fediverse, because if you try it they’ll just go to another instance that doesn’t have it. On the Internet, because if you try it they’ll just route their packets through another country using a VPN or other methods that will arise to replace them if you manage to ban VPNs.
Get a clue, politicians: Nobody wants this shit. Nobody except for a few technology vendors imagines it will benefit them — they’ve only been persuaded to accept the delusion that it will be good for other people who can’t be trusted to think for themselves. Unfortunately those tech vendors are very capable of hiring lobbyists, because that’s the only way they’ll ever create a market for their ridiculous products.
I mean if you want to make rules for your kids — No social media, no TV, no skateboarding, finish your homework before you can play minetest, no ice cream after 8 pm — go ahead, but it’s not the business of the state to be enforcing those rules for you at the cost of requiring everyone in the world to have their faces or ID scanned by untrustable strangers using technology they don’t understand.
Just so that everybody is perfectly clear on this - THIS is what children ACTUALLY need protection from.
I have to wonder… which part of the other 24% can be classified as “internet”?
