I think that was the point. Not only decentralized services, but a lot of small and/or individual services too. The way age verification is done is both stupid, and expensive. Only the big names will remain.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
811 points (99.9% liked)
Technology
74673 readers
2732 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
And of course, even if they did, tech savvy kids can just self-host an instance on their own computer.
Comply or be defederated !
If a government wants this in place, they should also facilitate the means.
We NEED to Protect The Children which is WHY we're SO LUCKY to have a President who is SO KEEN to PROTECT Child Rapists like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell!
Protect Jeffrey Epstein? Last I checked, he doesn't need anymore "protecting".
Trump only cares about himself. If he accidentally "protected" anyone but himself, it's purely a coincidence.
This is exactly the kind of government overreach people like me have been screaming about since, in my case, the 1990s.
"I told you so" just doesn't feel so good when what's happening is nothing less than the entirety of human freedom and liberty is being eroded before our very eyes, and those who disagree with it get labeled as kooks, and accused of hating whatever "oppressed group" of the day is in vogue.
I’m so so very tired of being right.
load more comments
(62 replies)
If you know anyone who support age verifications laws remind them that the same governments that care so much about kids is backing and arming israel to murder and starve kids to death.
load more comments
(20 replies)
Government sets up page to verify age. You head to it, no referrer. Age check happens by trusted entity (your government, not some sketchy big tech ass), they create a signed cert with a short lifespan to prevent your kid using the one you created yesterday and without the knowledge which service it is for. It does not contain a reference to your identity. You share that cert with the service you want to use, they verify the signature, your age, save the passing and everyone is happy. Your government doesn't know that you're into ladies with big booties, the big booty service doesn't know your identity and you wank along in private.
But oh no, that wouldn't work because think of the... I have no clue.
Funnily enough that is roughly the implementation the EU seems to be working on.
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-age-verification
On a side-note. I do not consider the government to be a trusted party. Whatever solution gets implemented needs to not provide the government any information that they can use for mass surveillance.
The two main requirements in my view are:
- The website that needs your age shouldn't get to know your identity. They only get to verify your age.
- The government age verification shouldn't get to know what service you are requesting access for. They only provide age verification.
Edit: You mention the certificate being short-lived, but one of the concerns mentioned in the proposed implementation for the EU age verification states that if that window is too short it can be used to determine identity.
I think I have to specify what I mean by trusted. I do not trust them with my browser history, but I do trust them handling my government-issued identity. I do however not trust a company with that identity because I know they will definitely use it for their own good. What I want is the complete and absolute separation of information. Everyone knows exactly what they need to know, not a byte more. I'm still not convinced we desperately need the possibility to identify us for every fucking service though. Keeping kids from accessing porn should be the task of the parent. Keeping kids out of porn, yes indeed, we all need to tackle that problem.
So basically, yes, I think we have the same solution in mind, but with different wording.
load more comments
(70 replies)
view more: next ›