I have just been tossed off Reddit. No bad behaviour but Reddit suspects I am not old enough. I have been an adult for quite a few years. Note that age verification is not (yet) required under EU law.
The age verification on Reddit runs through a third party which is associated with Palantir. I will not do this, and there's enough data associated with my account to show I'm an adult.
In general I am extremely sceptical of giving this level of personal information to any third party but especially a company that just cannot be trusted and has proven itself to be a destructive force in the world. I would not recommend anyone to use this, even if it may lose you access to platforms.
On Reddit there have been concerns among the various European subs and its community. I have encouraged various mods to collectively search for a solution. A move to Lemmy seems the obvious one - also just for the sake of supporting European tech and platforms. Alas, none have acted. The best I got was 'good idea, we'll look into it'.
My guess is I am far from the only one to lose access, if not already than soon the same will happen to other users. It may destroy the community that exists there, and my guess is that it's the largest online truly pan-European community.
Anyway, I've signed up for Lemmy / europe.pub a while ago and am eager to use it instead of Reddit. I just hope this place becomes a little more lively.
So far I only read some reports of this happening but fortunately have not experienced it yet. Somebody said it happens when you try to access NSFW content. I will never give my ID to Persona. The moment I get a request for that I'm off Reddit for good.
Well, the purge seems to be happening. It was sort of weird because I was verified and then I wasn't and then I was and then I wasn't. But until this afternoon I could at least access the non-NSFW part of Reddit, even this morning without issue. Suddenly I can't even access (or delete) my own profile.
My biggest concern is that community falling apart.
But indeed, in general I am wary of these third party providers but Personal especially. It's not going to happen. As such, the end of Reddit for me. I am a little sad about it but glad I have options of reaching the few people important to me otherwise.
In the end it's probably for the best but I'd like to have made that decision myself.
Be off Reddit now because that's piece of shit Nazi spez is already sharing your entire account contents with palantir. The things they can discern from your comments are scary. Delete them and get off the platform.