cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53166284
This law affects everyone, especially people in the EU and is an attempt to implement ID verification on: Video-sharing platforms, #AI chatbots, AI companions, games, software app stores and operating systems. https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/117285674482286098
We need to: #STOPEUKIDSACT NOW!
I think it’s important to point out that is yet again the EPP, this one being led by Henna Virkunnen.
As was the undemocratic vote that was pushed through by Roberta Metsola
The most effective way for all of us to stop these relentless attacks on the internet and our privacy, is to stop them getting elected in the first place.
EPP representation in each country.
Use the internet for something useful -
#STOP THE EPP
I knew Feijóo was behind all this!
Of course Forza Italia is with EPP, In Italy we’ll never get rid of them :/
I’m fed up with this shit. My parents educated me on the internet and the potential of seeing things you don’t want to see. They knew there was no change to 100% block or monitor what we did and instead made sure that they were always there if we did see something disturbing.
Now I’m at the frontier age of getting kids and I just know that my kids will be just as smart in circumventing this kind of bs as I was (school monitoring web traffic ain’t working with a vpn) and I will gladly teach them about the internet. Hell, I’ll even take them back to when the internet of old and show what kind of crap we had to deal with.
Solutions like these are like a bandaid. You’re not solving the problems. And even that is a utopian thought, but they ought to focus on the people that make the web unsafe, not the kids
It is never about the kids.
Website wants to open my DRM software? Fuck off.
Fuckers don’t understand the internet
Oh they do. Not in the way we use it. But China&Russia gave them the handbook.
The way it’s imposed on the fediverse is bad, but I like this part:
The Blueprint is open source and uses zero-knowledge proofs: cryptographic methods that prove a statement like “over 15” without revealing the underlying data. Each member state must provide at least one such solution free of charge to its citizens.
How often can I probe it? If I can establish you are over 15 but under 17… I know you are 16 (squeeze theorem or something)
It’s not clear but it seems like the service is restricted to the same age ranges it asks anyone, so it couldn’t do that as effectively. Although it could just use when the user passes from one category from another to get their age, at least if the account was created when the user was >18, but that seems unavoidable.
Maybe we just protect everyone and then we don’t need age verification?
I hate when people validate the core idea of needing to protect children through age verification. Timmy lying about being over 18 to look at some boobs is not a problem that needs to be resolved. It’s like requiring everyone to wear body cameras specifically to prevent store clerks from being rude to you.
You say that about Timmy, but what about Sally who is drawing very detailed furry porn? Or Jack with his questionable anime notepad.
Just some real examples I remember from school. You can’t even outlaw the pen to stop it, the rock layers around us were chalk. Quite often saw kids use it to draw on paths.
tbh, i’m more scared of the pedos that haunt roblox and every other platform for children rather them seeing boobs.
i don’t like age verification either, but that means my kids aren’t allowed to use the internet except in a very restricted fashion. meanwhile every single one of their peers is left to run wild, so they’re socially isolated as a result
don’t pretend internet anonymity is an unalloyed good. fuck, just look at the bot farms for a less rapey problem of enormous magnitude.
Roblox needs to be burned down for the situations they knowingly put kids into to be honest
FFS I’m showing my age here but Webkinz had a strict locked down, easily revocable parental opt-in requirement for anything resembling typed chat, and the default was a drop-down menu of innocuous stuff that meant nobody could exchange information to go onto other platforms. Roblox could do something like that but shoving data vulnerability onto parents and kids is a sleazy cop out.
Platforms that advertise openness to kids should be held to stricter standards, for sure.
… welcome to parenthood, where you have to watch what your kids do… you’re the parent… I don’t even have the words…
As a parent, you should be the one making sure to educate your child about the internet. If necessary, learn how to block websites on your router.
The governments job isn’t to require an ID to access the entire internet for something that a parent should be doing.
i’m already keeping them off the wider internet. that’s not the point. the point is that even if i do that, society as a whole makes it very, very difficult.
i’m not saying anyone should give a website id. one of the major things i repeat is: “never give a website a face or an id”
but the idea that it’s just reactionary “omg my kids can’t see boobs” is flat out wrong. the internet is a dangerous place for everyone, but especially children. pretending it’s not is hiding your head in the sand. at the same time as it is incredibly dangerous, basically all the forces of modern society are trying to force our children on to it.
this is a battle i fight daily, and have been fighting for many years, and i’m tired of people trying to pretend it’s simple when it is anything but.
you are not going to win over people rightly concerned about their kids by telling them it’s actually simple when it isn’t. you’re going to drive them away.
you want to tackle this, you have to acknowledge reality, and that reality is that on the internet, your children are prey.
That is what you signed up for when having a child. The way society in general is not doing the right thing doesn’t matter.
There are better ways to mitigate the dangers of the internet other than the literal worst option, blanket ID for internet access. Which is what we really know is coming, which is why they are fighting so hard to pass it every other week it seems.
Look at what they do for kids already and ask yourself if you truly find them to be doing this in the best interests of the parents or the kids?
This will lead to darker roads for everyone. It’s not my fault, or your fault, that people don’t know how to raise children in the modern era.
How about the government bring back computer classes and make material on what you are saying? That would be the simpler approach, right? Educate everyone on HOW to navigate the web?
But no. Let’s always go with the worst option, because it’s really NOT about the kids.
you need to re-read everything i wrote because you clearly did not understand it when i twice said that i don’t want id verification. you’re not arguing with me, you’re arguing with someone else in your head
you are not going to win over people rightly concerned about their kids by telling them it’s actually simple when it isn’t. you’re going to drive them away.
This is you saying you want this.
There’s one thing I agree with, it’s not about protecting kids from boobs. It’s about completely eliminating anonymity from the Internet, while acquiring a massive database of personal information, easily tied to websites you visit, and easily leakable by hackers.
This is you saying you want this.
yes. does that say “we need age verification”? it says we need to acknowledge legitimate issues if we’re to have any hope at consensus.
age verification is not the answer, it’s just the only one being proffered… you want to make this go away? find a better answer to the problem and espouse that.
here’s a small one: no use of internet connected laptops for school work since that is widespread and directly undermines a parent’s ability to keep tabs on their kids.
the answer is not “you’re just a prude afraid of boobs, loser.” that’s how you drive people to the right wing, because at least those guys are saying “the internet is dangerous for kids.” and that’s how you end up in the funnel.
eta: sorry about the insult if you saw it. it had no place here
Man this is fucking exhausting. The treadmill of these policies.
EU lemmings, who or what groups are promoting these? It feels like every time one gets defeated another crops up and that it’s relentless. Is this an astroturfed or organic campaign?
Its well documented at this point that Meta is funding these campaigns.
Imagine failing so hard to create a metaverse, blowing literal billions of dollars and a large chunk of their entire net worth, and still having a ton of money leftover to push this shitty idea for almost a year at a global scale.
It’s tech giants in general trying to monopolize the Internet through regulatory capture. They’re the only ones who can afford to implement the age verification methods demanded. Laws like this effectively turn the Internet into cable TV.
I would be very surprised to learn there is an organic demand for this shit. Sure there are some lazy parents who might want this without understanding the wider ramifications, but for the most part it is mix of authoritarian politicians and corporate lobbyism doing the work.
Any legitimate political demand would not be made again, and again, and again, and again… Even after it gets voted down repeatedly. There are undemocratic forces at work for sure.
Sure but there have to be organizations behind these policies. Someone is proposing this stuff again and again. This is mirrored by corporate lobbying in the US, where grassroots movements can resist it, but corporate lobbying almost always wins out in the end, because its sustained by industry. So we can resist a policy a few times, but if the same bad ideas keep re-emerging, eventually one gets through.
Oh i agree, it is utterly farcical that they can even do this against the will of the people. A rejected proposal should not be able to be submitted again after some minor cosmetic changes.
There’s broad support for stopping predatory behavior by corporations that are targetting kids (and adults, but mostly kids). This is mostly the same stuff people have been complaining about for a decade or so at this point. Loot boxes, gacha mechanics, ad infested (and therefore stuffed with spyware for “marketing”), complicated multilayered digital currencies, battle passes, daily login rewards, etc. Basically all the well known dark patterns.
However rather than addressing the bad behavior directly, politicians either through malice or incompetence (likely at the behest of corporate lobbyists) keep putting forth these ID laws that just make things worse instead of actually solving the problem people have been complaining about.
These politicians know full well what they’re doing. At least they should and there’s no excuse. But they know.
I’d assume many do, although some are likely just entirely out of their depth and are just listening to what the lobbyists are telling them.
oh there’s broad support for this shit.
It is unclear which servers are covered. The draft adopts the definition of a social network from the Digital Markets Act. Its Recital 11 clarifies that it concerns “information society services,” which EU law defines as services generally provided for remuneration. Whether a private, non-commercial hobby server falls under this depends on the legal classification of the specific offering. The statement that every instance without exception is covered is therefore an overstatement.
Funny when the article itself contradicts the breathless clickbait headline.
That said, perhaps this will apply and cause problems. Or perhaps not.
If it applies to mastodon it also applies to IMAP right? I wonder his exactly they see email protocol being updated to check how old is the recipient and i bet all those spammers will NOT send their unwanted content to my child inbox.
I feel all of this is to prepare for future legal enforcement of approved internet use. AI is destroying the internet we know and value because rich people want more power, as they do with everything they touch.
And lead to state intranets only accessible by thin clients tied to your ID.
Which is the end of the internet and a dissolution back into multiple closed networks, cutting us off from each other.
Hey Europeans, can you make your continent less cringe? Thanks.
Don’t throw stones from glass houses
