So Orwellian.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2026
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Ursula von der Leyen, making the internet progressively worse year by year. Cookie banners, GDPR consent dialogs, and now ID verification. Please just retire and take up a different hobby, like knitting.
Neither Cookie banners nor GDPR consent dialogs need to be bad. They are only bad because companies try to do their shit. It's companies not regulation that make Cookie banners and GDPR consent dialogs bad.
That said, the id-verification stuff is just pure awful for privacy concerns.
My freedom shouldn't be implied cause some parent can't use a parental control which is already mandatory in the eu. Your kids isn't my responsability.
It s unreal that the "free world" want my id simply to go online.
Also same shit as rgpd. Only bigger website and corporation can afford putting million toward implementing thoses policiesbwhile all other won't bother and just cut acces to be in compliance.
I hate how effective the whole "think of the children" rhetoric is. Every person I talked to about this irl is either indifferent or even in support because they want children protected and they "don't do anything they need to hide" anyway so they don't mind presenting an ID.... I agree children should not be on social media, but it's kinda just the parent's responsibility to not let them near it and the tools are out there. Plus let's not pretend kids aren't smart enough to figure out there's alternatives...
Even after explaining what I would have done to them,
with that data, if I had the data, when I worked in advertising... [or even just explaining their basic human dignity of privacy]... the rhetoric remains strong enough to not have the cognitive dissonance be itchy enough to stop fallaciously repeating their mantra "nothing to hide",
... and so that's why they're fine with this dystopian nightmare, this single point of failure, this hijacking of humanity by totalitarian government (or at least just megalomaniacal parasites wanting total dominating control, even in banal mundane petty ways, like just doing their job, serving their client as best they can, maximally manipulating mentalities to maximise wealth extraction)?
It does not make sense.
As for who's on social media... yeah, maybe lets not have a corporate attention snare that learned from the billions invested in Las Vegas casinos for their ability to snare and direct peoples attention, keeping them going back in for more, keeping them addicted, maximally extracting wealth from them. "Social media", such an Orwellian marketing spin term. ... The ambiguity and resulting conflations help camouflage what the crooks are up to. Not all "social media" are alike. As surely we here on the fediverse know.
Children should not be on "social media"? Depends what one means... but typically I'd say children are due the same rights, and are not to be under classed. Y'know? Wanna take away children's access to parts of the world? The parts that can be used for good too? ... I just picture what that different world's like, where Aaron Swartz gets denied access to something even younger... where that precedent goes, how much worse the dystopia can be, compared to what it already is. ... Or... as you allude to... How much more fervently pursued, freedom is, by the young, the tighter they squeeze.
How is your freedom reduced tho, an app produces a yes or no, how is that a reduction of freedom. Search for zero-knowledge proof and the techniques behind it
Sources for ZKP: https://ageverification.dev/av-doc-technical-specification/docs/annexes/annex-B/annex-B-zkp/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_Digital_Signature_Algorithm
Vulnerabilities: https://www.encryptionconsulting.com/education-center/what-is-ecdsa/
[Api2025] Rutchathon Chairattana-Apirom, Franklin Harding, Anna Lysyanskaya, and Stefano Tessaro, “Server-Aided Anonymous Credentials,” available at https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/513, 2025
This is what it's about. My daughter started reaching sites I had explicitly blocked in her phone and our home network (OPNSense + AdGuard Home) using a VPN.
I dis not blame the sites, or the ISP, or even the VPN provider. She has a PC and Phone because we, her parents, allowed it, so that's on her for choosing to circumvent the security implemented, and on US for providing the means.
So, she has no access to any technology until further notice. Why the fuck does everyone have to pay because some of us are not parenting correctly?
I certainly don't want any company or government deciding what my kids can or cannot have access to, that's my role, not theirs.
Eliminating online privacy has always been framed as "protecting children" and it's always been 100% about surveillance
I mean, why are they not using these resources to tackle child poverty, prosecute the epstein list or the panama papers if they want to help children so fucking badly?
Bingo!
This will just push the actual criminals further underground, while everyone else gets spied on. lose-lose.
Yeah, no.
Can they just stop pretending these laws are not about eroding privacy and be honest for ounce.
even taking the pretense at face value, this would just be adults damning kids who are queer, autistic and/or in abusive households/communities (among others) and patting themselves on the back
always scrambling to "protect" kids without ever considering their needs or why they engage in the behavior they do at all
(assuming they're not just seen as defective goods to be either "corrected" or disposed of, of course)
Imperial units detected
If you give these people 25.4 millimetres they'll take 1.6 kilometres.
EU’s new social media ~~child protection~~ state surveillance rules to require all social media accounts to produce state ID
FTFY
How else is Mrs. von der Leyen supposed to sue people that speak badly about EU politicians?
If she wasn't corrupt and incompetent people wouldn't say that about her, so maybe she should improve her bad reputation or step down as incompetent supreme.
You're talking about someone that had her floor in the EU building fortified, only allowing access for a few selected people. Does that look like she intends to improve her reputation to you?
That stuff would 100% get leaked and ruin many lives. Hell it would ruin lives even if only authorized authorities have access to it because some perverted cops or politicians will abuse it to stalk women and children. They‘re already doing it but getting a live feed of someone’s online activity by typing in a single number makes it so much more convenient for bad actors. And it would also get leaked on top of it.
Well if everyone's identity is stolen then I guess your identity will mean nothing.
Ironically, kids might still get around the new restriction by using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, which virtually positions the computer in another country, at the time of signing up.
This is just going to be one long pointless game of whackamole and as effective as Prohibition was in the US.
The US claim they are going after the VPN companies now too. Of course it could be all lies and deflection like most things they say now.
That’s nonsense, VPN is tool needed to run companies. Even if they make VPNs business only, people will just register fake businesses
There is no such thing as "fake business". The point is that the government identifies you when you want to use a VPN, so it's either gonna be through your personal ID or through a business where you also register with the government and then they obviously also know your identity.
By fake I mean business which officially registered but effectively does nothing, files 0 profit tax forms and pays just enough fees to keep it formally open. It doesn’t hide your identity from government but it does allow you to access content via countries where there is no age verification thus companies don’t get your id
It’s not just about business use, but citizen access to content. I looked it up and this is the stage it’s at now https://gizmodo.com/the-first-us-law-targeting-vpn-use-takes-effect-september-3-heres-what-happen-2000805001
The new law is narrow. VPN companies say they can’t do it. Fines for businesses that don’t are real. It’s all a little strange.
Very few people will set up their own business or technical venture, though. That’s enough to have a chilling effect.
EU being shitty as always.
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