this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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[–] the_armchair_potato@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago

Should be the parents' responsibility to protect their kids, not the tech companies. Also, age verification has nothing to do with "protecting the children" lol.

[–] DarkSpectrum@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago
[–] sturmblast@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago

Linux says fuck your age verification.

[–] BillCheddar@lemmy.world 48 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

That's why they're fuckin doing it.

[–] orbitz@lemmy.ca 17 points 19 hours ago

I hate short replies that don't add much (so added more than agreed!) but I've always enjoyed being anonymous in forums, I'm quite a shy person.

Never was a jerk intentionally or anything just said my bit. But everyone possibly knowing who I was I'd probably say nothing ever. Fuck it I was private before I can be private later. But I'm old and recall before Internet when I had no (or little) interaction.

Like we all haven't seen data breeches over the years....oh it's the government that holds the master authentication? Fuck that shit is all. Nothing, from a person who does programming these days, like that is remotely better.

Some countries may be better but we're all democratic right? Takes a single election till shit stops working as a safeguard, then new ones in make a different law. The whole system was not built for current tech.

[–] Solrac@lemmy.world 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Israelis lobbying agitating for the end of American first amendment rights, what a shocker.
We need to find that guy and.. have a little chat with him.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

There’s a bit of American history involving incredibly affordable concrete footwear that seems relevant here.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 16 points 17 hours ago

Maybe that asshole shouldn't have been supporting the fascists then...?

[–] bagsy@lemmy.world 12 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Meta is pushing this so Zuck doesnt get sued for addicting kids. He can point his finger and say its the parents fault for kids seeing bad or addicting content. We are losing our rights and our privacy because a shithead like zuck doesnt want to get rightfully sued.

[–] unitedwithme@lemmy.today 4 points 11 hours ago

Amen. Been saying this a while. He knew this shit was coming so he's was prepared with this Ace up his sleeve.

Step 1: get people addicted, monetize it to no end

Step 2: cover it up and lie about it being fine, spread misinformation of you have to

Step 3: plan a scapegoat tactic as a backup just in case. Maybe 2.

Step 4: buy out politicians who'll support you when it's time to take action; like "age verification" as a redirect (as if the gov has ever fine anything promptly!)

Step 5: Get the media to sort of drop coverage to get people to forget about it with other stuff, and watch the lawsuits and trials fade away into the background as there's no more media coverage for it.

[–] Iusedtobeanalien@lemmy.world 27 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

I am old enough to remember when the internet was run by hobbyists and enthusiasts, companies were happy to pay "to be online" it wasn't riddled with ads and profits wasn't the default reason to create content.

Thems were heady days

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

You're kidding yourself if you think companies being online was ever about anything other than potential profit. At first it was just a way to reach a wider pool of customers. Like the yellow pages before. Then, once every company had an online presence, they started looking for new ways to monetize the connectivity.

[–] Kommeavsted@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Their statement is compatible with a profit incentive. Companies were happy to pay to be online because it was good marketing.

It's just pining for the time before they figured out how to target marketing and sell data

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 9 points 17 hours ago

They want this to keep track of your children, so they can traffick them more easily. Epstein class at it again.

[–] GMac@feddit.org 30 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (4 children)

What is being pushed for implementation is better described as identity verification, not age verification.

I would have little issue with a solution that purely gated services on age in a secure and privacy respecting manner. This OS level garbage is not that, its creating an oligarchy run identity gate to control access to personal computing.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 10 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Thank you. Now I just wish somebody at the government level would understand this and the implications of what this entails. Like maybe mention that all their weird online fetishes could be tracked back to them. It’s like this one company doing the “verification “ would be rolling in kompromat.

[–] queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

it’s all by design. they don’t want the general public to put it together that these are identify tracking surveillance system, just a carefree age verification to keep kids away from the baddies 🙄

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

It's never about the kids

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[–] Bieren@lemmy.today 93 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s the plan. It’s about control.

[–] 4grams@awful.systems 39 points 1 day ago (13 children)

I’m glad someone else sees it. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills every day lately. People don’t give a single shit, will minimize the danger and do anything they can to give up their rights, time and time again.

A few of us see it, sadly too few to matter.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 17 points 1 day ago

People in the privacy communities have known this for a while.

But because it's slightly technical at minimum, and nuanced, and about something not immediately tied directly to people's financial interest, the average person will never ever know, understand, or care about this.

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 13 points 22 hours ago

For once Yen and I see eye to eye.

given it's just because it will hurt his business, but i'm still happy for some W

[–] deadymouse@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The good times are gone, fascism is back.

[–] tristynalxander@mander.xyz 6 points 18 hours ago

The US has always been an electoral oligarchy. It paints itself as a democratic republic to claim that it has consent of the people it governs, but the governed are given no real choices. Would you like to take a right hook or a left hook? Sorry, not getting hit wasn't an option.

We need to start demanding our cities and states use a ranked sortition approach. Put a lottery option on a ranked voting ballot and make politicians beat the lottery if they want to claim they're a legitimate ruling class.

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[–] Guyonthecouc@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

This is an easy fix. We just make our own internet. With the usual, blackjack and hookers.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 10 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

There are other protocols one can use.

https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/

Interesting one.

[–] Crystalbound@lemmy.world 5 points 19 hours ago

But does it have blackjack and hookers?

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So if you don't accept this "age verification patch" to your OS (and you know they won't stop with that), I assume that any attempt to connect to a website that does this check will fail and you won't be able to connect to it, right?

Well, I am just FINE with that. If I can't connect to a website, I will treat it like any other broken website and move on to another one. This is how the Internet routes around damage.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 11 points 23 hours ago

Totally valid idea, you just need to hope that there are enough people with you to give that decision weight or you'll eventually run out of alternatives.

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[–] MJKee9@lemmy.world 10 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I'll stop interacting online outside of a professional context. So this obviously sucks from an online perspective. It's will dampen online organization. But hopefully it increases community level interactions IRL. It'll probably be good for day-to-day mental health.

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[–] MortUS@lemmy.world 0 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

We straight up don't have better solutions to fight LLMs, botnets and weaponized misinformation on an open anonymous internet.

As a society, our laws, rules, and regulations, have all been worn down to the point were at now. We could have had nice things. If everyone got a decent education, we may have been able to weather the AI storm, but we that just didn't happen. Everyone in modern society is neck deep in technology. From entertainment to social interactions to news to audio blips to doomscroll - it is prime for propaganda and misinformation, and has been for some time now. There has to be an answer for that. Short-term and long-term with how fast technology has been moving in the past 200 years.

What are the alternatives?

I don't know - maybe it doesn't matter if we Hadron Collider ourselves into a blackhole.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Bullshit. Rather than a trust by default model, we switch to a distrust by default model. Done. But that’s not something compatible with ads so we are fucked.

[–] MortUS@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

What is bullshit?

You don't believe there are LLMs posing as citizens online? Or, you don't believe that governments are trying to use that to push narratives, propaganda to destabilize citizens trust? Or, you don't believe anyone would be gullible enough to fall for LLM targeted propaganda?

Rather than a trust by default model, we switch to a distrust by default model.

Correct, when anyone with a few thousand to spend can create botnets to mimic and mislead a nations citizens, that's a problem. When Billionaires can create private datacenters to publish and promote their own propaganda anonymously, that's a problem. The world is too connected and too illiterate to handle a free, open, anonymous internet safely IMO. It's being taken advantage of by too many big players with little to no pushback.

Anonymous internet isn't dead, but no country can saddle it, so for the safety of any Nation, the default needs to be gated in some way shape or form. Otherwise, every Nations citizens is at the mercy at how well any enemy Nation can utilize targeted propaganda in a heavily unregulated medium.


As a Nations Citizen, you either:

1). Handle your own shit - in which case there's not much Nations can do to keep someone off anonymous, open internet.

2). Rely on your Government to provide and protect you from other Governments trying to destabilize forementioned Government.

The default needs to be #2 for the large majority.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 4 points 20 hours ago

something something broken clock and proton. lol

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