They could've just bloody made social media safe for everyone, instead of making us jump through all these hoops.
Of course with porn it's a bit more complicated, being exposed to it at too young of an age has proven negative effects.
this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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Literally every type of age verification ever put into place has been circumvented by children. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
When I was little, my mom used to send me to the store with a note that said to sell me cigarettes, and that they were for her. When I started smoking, I used to reuse the notes to get my own smokes. I got my first fake ID at 13 so I could buy beer.
When I was 13 I could just buy beer, the trick was to make it look like you are helping your parents with groceries. So also pickup stuff like a carton of eggs, potatoes and milk. I never had any issue, but it was a different time and in Europe
Yeah, that last bit is key.
In German I think we were drinking in the clubs at that age. No “helping the parents with the eggs and milk” lol
My mum did the same thing she stopped when I used the £20 note to buy sweets, that was a lot of sweets back then.
I guess its a good thing that the point if this is just to tie a real human to their online presence and protecting kids never actually mattered.
You know, for a given value of "good" being "actually very very bad".
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Age verification bypass tool soon to be made illegal:
Yeah, because it isn't about that. They don't give a fuck about kids seeing porn. Even when there are age checks, there will be plenty of free porn.
It's all about being able to connect an online post with the author.
Extremely stupid idea for a law but I don't think the people who are for this did it to sneak in surveillance. I think they are simply too stupid to understand digital tech and internet and how these laws won't work to fix the problems they are trying to solve - namely that a lot of young do too much of the bad internet. The surveillance thing is just a bonus
I can second this. It seems to me pretty clearly that these policies are being passed based on genuine concern for the children. They're poorly designed but they come from a good place.
it's not just the author, but the author's address, friends, family, employer, coworkers, shopping list, where they go and what they do in their spare time, what kind of health issues they have, who they're having affairs with--pretty much everything, wrapped up in a bow by AI, ready to be spreadsheeted/cross-referenced across all those data points.
what fascists do
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They're doing this age verification on purpose just to spy on adults lol
Don't forget that they are also doing this to desensitize and normalize this for children...
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Yeah, and get ready for those big platforms selectively leaking user data, sometimes with falsified stuff. Get ready for union leaders suddenly being outed for being into weird shit (often literally), all while they're clueless and disgusted, as part of online smear campaigns. Always said that "cancel culture"/purity testing is a dangerous weapon that can be astroturfed by the enemy, and there's already some precedent for that (most recently the whole Hasan dog thing). Even some leftists are trying really hard to cancel some "annoying" people among them.
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I can’t wait to email this to my MP
Canada Bill S209 needs to die. It’s bad legislation.
Fuck, didn’t realize this cancer had reached Canada
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I'm in my mid thirties and I'd still buy a mask or something to trick these systems if and when this becomes a thing in my country.
Guy Fawkes uses a lot of online services.
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As someone who spent my formative days figuring out how to bypass early digital locks my school was putting in place to "protect us" ... The system loses this game. Every time. You are taking kids with nothing but time, no apparent drawbacks, and everything to gain... And placing them against "good enough" implemented by people who could give two shits about it.
This will continue to lose until they twist the knobs too tight and hit false positive central... And oops now the populace hates it. Control for thee is fine until its for me.
Tale as old as technology itself.
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How about instead of trying every complicated stupid way to regulate users and especially children ..... you regulate and control companies and corporations instead.
It’s not about the kids. It’s about knowing who is organizing protests, unions, and calling out wage theft, polluters, and whistleblowing illegal activities performed by the government and Epstein class.
It’s about preventing access to online spaces, monetary transactions, and basically letting them erase you from society if you don’t offer them full-throated gratuity and allegiance.
You know, just like ChInAs sOcIaL cReDiT sYsTeM.
As usual here in the West, every accusation is a confession (or at least an idea for later)
It’s been that way for ages around the world. The 2000s were full of news stories from places like Russia, with protests about the actions of their government and the treatment of political opposition. Those stories have largely died down, not because Russia changed, but because they clamped down on dissent. The US is just catching up. It wasn’t just Russia either. We’ve seen this globally with most major political activities over the last decade or more. Where once we were getting video of events in real time, now they’ve learned to shut down the internet, censor the digital forums, 'flood the zone'. Where once you could be critical of this government or that, it has become an internet of heavily commercialized influencers. It sucks, man.
Like...Russia, China, India, Iran, Isreal, UK, and a handful of others that I can't remember.
It's happening everywhere and all in slightly different ways but it's not JUST the US. I just tend to remember Russia the best because they are the closest to what seems to be happening in the US at a visual level. The old videos of arrests and protests in Russia almost mirror the modern ICE videos. I suspect it will only get worse.
Or, ya know, make parents take responsibility for their own children and monitor what they are doing online. If you don't want your kids seeing or participating in things online then don't give them unfettered access to smart phones and computers!
I kind fo agree and kind of don't. I agree in that parents should take accountability for their children. That said, social media has been shown to be addictive and kids are frequently ahead of their parents technologically. One thing that could help is an education campaign that teaches parents how to effectively monitor their kid's online activity. Parents need some help figuring out what tools to use and how to use them I think.
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People act as if it was a bug and not a feature. This was intended. After people sufficiently make fun of the current solution that everyone knows how easily it is broken, the next step is requiring both ID and face scan and comparing photo on ID with face scan. Congrats, privacy is removed completely. Every poster is now tied with real life identity.
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We should get all of our advice from little kids. They have not yet been bound by knowing what is or isn't possible. The meek shall inherit the earth.
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Good, good -- teach the children that authority is bullshit. This kind of thing is more effective than book learnin'.
Today in: "Just let the parents parent."
It's good to see a reminder that depending on the majority of parents to act in absence of real, tangible regulation is doomed to be a failure.
I couldn't stop laughing when one of my kids showed me a picture of his 10 year old friend's effort with the texta. We are talking comical magician curly moustache. Roblox verified that account as 18 though and now that account can't talk to his school friends.
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Is it legal to “verify” my age to be a minor? Would less of my information be collected?
…not that any of it is accurate anyway.
Blame to all who made such stupid software and then called it "age check"
I guess now we must ban pens and markers because children might draw fake mustaches and bypass age verification.
So long humble pen. We will miss you.
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