If you don’t want to lose your privacy or right to access information, you should oppose these proposed laws.
Remember: it’s not age verification. It’s mass surveillance.
We really didn’t learn anything from Snowden.
The prototype age verification app is designed to preserve privacy https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verification-solution
I think it is a bit naive to expect this being done right, because they aren’t interested in doing this properly, they aren’t interested in you being above the supposed age.
The interest is surveillance, identification and tracking. Having a strong tracking point tied to a real ID .
It being done right is the only way it would get through parliament.
Most EU politicians don’t want a police state. They aren’t actively pushing for draconian laws. Some rotten apples try to get this through so they can be paid by surveillance corproations and fascist groups. But that doesn’t mean they will win anything.
Just look at how much they had to skew things just to give Chat Control any traction.
The EPP are the main party that are pushing these mass surveillance laws in the EU.
Find out which parties in your country allign with them and you should know who not to vote for in the next election. They are by far the biggest party in the EU, and have almost every country’s biggest party with them. They seem to be barking down the orders, and the national parties obey the orders. Von der Leyen and Metsola are both in parties under the EPP (I suggest a search using any search engine, with either of their names followed by allegations and controversies).
All of us are aware of corruption, power-mongering and all sorts of other undemocratic, underhanded tactics that politicians use, but the EPP are already acting on another level, and seem to be guided by US Big-Tech, if this is what to expect from them under the EU umbrella then we really should be fighting harder for our fundamental rights and freedoms that the EU alleges to value so much.
The sensible way would be to sell little $5 USB dongles only to 18+ people that allow you to tap in a short simplified ID code to identify yourself as an adult. It would be good enough for age verification, hell make it illegal to pass it to minors, like it is with hard liquor or cigarettes. Would be anonymous without requiring a phone number (and ID indirectly), and could store encryption keys. And it would solve the problem of porn and age verification. It would solve so many problems.
When signing up to an account you need one of those and if you get banned you need to buy another one. That prevents abuse and trolling too. They would be cheap, but people would still not spam them. And they don’t require two factor bullshit or phone numbers, because they are a secure device already. The same dongle could be used for online banking in addition to your passcode.
This is trivial to solve. What they want is mass surveillance. Which makes them traitors.
You’re totally right. But also not. As protecting kids can’t surely be the main reason for this. At best it’s a welcome side-effect.
So your trivial solution would be great but defeating the purpose 😑
The whole idea of age verification is missing the point that these platforms are harmful to adults, too.
Are you suggesting they be banned outright from all? Here you have to weigh the freedom of citizens against the need to protect them from harm. It’s easier to argue that underage children are unable to choose for themselves, but what would be the basis for limiting the freedom of adults?
Banning no, but regulating yes. You used to need (or still technically need) a broadcast license or something to broadcast news or public a news paper. So historically this would have been the default, that if a newspaper publishes hate speech or derogatory lies about a person, that they can be legally stopped from doing this. All that went mostly out the window for social media, who have taken over news “reporting” and political commentary, replacing it with algorithms that act purely for profit and deliberately create divisions and polarization. The government absolutely has a duty to protect adults from that. Addictive substances have also been outlawed / regulated.
It’s just that when all this started it was small and harmless and most computer nerds were very much against any kind of regulation. We were warned but I was an idiot back then too. Now we have an overwhelming concentration of global political power in the hands of e.g. Zuckerberg and others controlling social media, for profit, for neoliberal political goals, for the suppression and diversion of political expression, or promoting fascist political ideology. It’s really only since ~2010 with Trumps rise and backlash to Obama that things quickly became this bad.
We are supposed to be a democracy, but today unchecked foreign political power not just influences the opinions of people, but sets the agenda.
I would absolutely be in favor of banning all unregulated (e.g. US) social media and creating an EU wide public utility social media network. Just make reddit, facebook, insta and all that stuff inaccessible in the EU unless they comply with very stringent regulation and moderation and a “non-profit” approach. China and Russia have their own media not just to suppress dissent, but to protect themselves from US influence. But I do think we now know enough to create a better alternative than either.
We can ban the parts that are harmful such as personally targeted reccomendations
Yeah if they’d regulate this unchecked media power our world wouldn’t be this bad. Like mandating proportional human moderators to keep garbage, hate speech, grifters and criminals out.
European politicians supporting age verification deserve an earful of criticism.
SLAM!
Reminder that this is all a desire of big techers to increase surveillance
I feel like this doesn’t get said enough
Surveillance? They just want to sell you shit. But they need to know exactly who you are to very do that.
Just send a list of your fears to Facebook.
Such platforms gathering data for marketing purposes can be easily co-opted for surveillance by governments.
Removed by mod
Europe is truly speedruning the mass surveillance thing.
In the last year they have been pushing , chat control, social media age verification and porn age verification.
A wonderful time to be european who doesn’t want to be spy on every single thing you do.
Posting videos from RT now can get you prison time. But that’s ok because they are only coming for the Russian sympathizers /s
this is a great opportunity quit social media
Suppose I won’t be on the net much longer, nice knowing y’all friends
Yeah I think it’s a good time to hang out at the pub instead
What plans do you have for your netirement?
Burning down data centres
Who drew this fucking map?
The purple colouring suggests its a proton map to me, but I’ve not verified that.
Edit: the source link is proton. So probably their AI; Lumo.
If you don’t like it you can use the Wikipedia link.
from what I’ve heard Estonia and Belgium oppose social media bans for under 16s
A union at last. /s
What’s this about Svalbard? They don’t even have you take off your balaclava at the bank.
Age verification for Jan Mayen! Oh the horror!
I hear the Norwegian army employs a lot of impressionable children nowadays.
What does that have to do with this conversation?
Those are the people who you’re likely to find on Jan Mayen
I’m on the fence of whether I am for or against this. It’s strictly against privacy. Bad.
But if this passes, it might give me a good reason to just opt out of social media altogether. Might be good for me. 💁♂️
Edit: this was meant as tongue-in-cheek. Sorry if it was unclear.
You are aware you can opt out of social media without losing your rights, yes?
It’s like saying “It’s good that android is degrading now I can finally quit using smartphones meanwhile the government and corporations makes having one more mandatory.”
I have no smartphone and I am afraid of having one being mandatory.
This is why forced digital ids must be opposed every step of the way.
Yeah, it was meant as tongue-in-cheek.
The problem is if they try and implement this at an operating system level like some US states are doing
Duh.
This would just make it easier.
But I still don’t want this. This was mostly tongue-in-cheek. I guess it was unclear, judging by the votes lol.
It isn’t just against privacy. The rich and powerful are trying to control the narrative, in essence what people know about the world. They want to make it to where only their truth is available to you. It’s very inconvenient to them that a bunch of them got caught diddling kids and they don’t want to get caught again. They’re absolutely not going to stop doing it, but they want to limit who can tell you when they do it and just pay those people off.
My comment was tongue-in-cheek.
But I’m not sure I follow you here: this wave of proposals does mean trouble on many levels, but how does limiting the younger part of the world from accessing social media limit what truth is available to me regarding what the rich and powerful are up to?
I thought it went without saying, but, okay.
Why is religion so successful? It’s because of early indoctrination. Religion wouldn’t be successful without it because adults can see it’s a scam. So you sell it to kids who don’t know any better and they grow up believing it. Then they’re kinda stuck with it.
Likewise, the Trump-Epstein class don’t like how we have all kinds of sources that can report on the bad shit they do. You only let kids access the news through controlled sources, they grow up trusting those sources.
They are also attempting to funnel adults through the approved sources as well, they’re just doing it in other measures. Why do you think they’re jacking up the prices of computers and phones? They don’t want you looking there. They want you looking at the TV and listening to the radio, where they control what you see.
It doesn’t seem that serious now, but it will in 10-15 years if they have their way. It’s a long con.
I thought it went without saying, but, okay.
Okay, this sounds like you’re low-key trying to tell me I’m slow. :-P
Very interesting theory, though. Definitely sounds dangerous in the long-run.
Didn’t mean it as a slight, but I did think the whole setup was kind of obvious.
One of the first things the fascist movement in Germany did 100 years ago was take control of the media. They can’t really do that as completely in this day and age, so they’ve got to try to limit access to alternative sources they can’t control as easily. Then they just gotta take the kids raised on state media and convince them that those of us who know better are the crazy ones.
Didn’t mean it as a slight, but I did think the whole setup was kind of obvious.
Fair enough, but since you then run into someone who doesn’t think that is obvious (me), how do you think you make them feel when you go “well I thought it was obvious buuuuut okay then I guess 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️”? That’s how it comes across to the receiving person that doesn’t find it obvious. FYI for future interactions when you run into someone dumber than you (me and people like me, I guess). 👍
Regarding the rest:
In my country, we are shocked by what is said on the news in some other countries. Everything is extremely biased and loaded with opinion and value, and is not reported from a neutral standpoint, with facts and observations.
A country needs independent news, funded by the people (taxes). My country has several news outlets which are state funded with taxes, which are legally required to be unbiased and factual, and non-discriminatory. They are required to issue statements and corrections when this is violated, and have done so in the past. This is good.
They have also started a new push where they scrutinize viral clips of news or other reporting, which may or may not be fake, and either debunk or confirm their veracity, with evidence. Makes me proud. 🙂↕️
With this in mind, I feel like other countries might be more afraid of the media being controlled. But it’s certainly not impossible even in my country, of course.
I will say that I believe kids don’t belong on social media before a certain age. But age verification is not the way to do this. Parents need to step up here, for one thing.
