this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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New U.S laws designed to protect minors are pulling millions of adult Americans into mandatory age-verification gates to access online content, leading to backlash from users and criticism from privacy advocates that a free and open internet is at stake. Roughly half of U.S. states have enacted or are advancing laws requiring platforms — including adult content sites, online gaming services, and social media apps — to block underage users, forcing companies to screen everyone who approaches these digital gates.

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[–] Kraiden@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, yes, it's the same process. It's just moving the convenience store to your phone, and instead of being issued a physical ID by the dmv or whoever, you're given a digital one. To be clear, that ID, and therefore your information is stored locally on your device, not in a server somewhere.

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

stored locally on your device

While I would trust that for a FOSS app, it would be too easy for a proprietary app to just “backup” your data.

With the physical method, everyone can be sure they are anonymous through common sense.

[–] Kraiden@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

Sure, but I have 2 counterpoints:

  1. There's no reason the 3rd party app needs to be proprietary. This is starting to get technical, but my understanding is that you get a cert from the requester, and it's the combination of that with the state issued magic cert that's used for validation. The 3rd party app is essentially just a calculator. It doesn't need any certs of its own

  2. That's an implementation detail. My argument is that it's the implementation that's the real cause for concern here, not the idea