So it begins
(midwest.social)
PrivacyReddit has begun rolling out mandatory age verification for any NSFW content, as well as for some social media functions, if the AI determines you might be under a certain age.
Another good day to be on Lemmy... until the surveillance capitalist tech overlords lobby enough to get their great firewall of the West, anyway.
Further reading:
- https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/50368431806484-European-Union-Digital-Services-Act-DSA
- https://cybernews.com/security/eu-age-verification-app-hack/
- https://piunikaweb.com/2026/02/19/persona-age-verification-surveillance-allegations/
- https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/23595536875796-Digital-Services-Act-DSA-Information-for-EU-users
Something I never see anyone talk about, is how, with all the 'fingerprinting' and data collection/analysis these companies do, they already know whether you're 18 or not. I know this isn't actually about "protecting the children", but I'd still like to hear more discussion from the angle of: they already surveil us enough for this purpose.
Me -> NAL. So I'm only guessing.
One prob might be that fingerprinting IDs a device. There could be a 70 yo and a 7 yo using the same dev in the same house. It prob wouldn't stand up in court when Little Billy, 7, became a victim because Grandpa Wilson, 70, used the same device. Or the old dev fingerprint gets used with a new account. They let the account in b/c they know the fingerprint. But they never knew the dev was sold to a new owner who is 15.
Fingerprinting is way more powerful than most ppl realize. But it does have limits. If the EU, or the US, comes at them, they need something straighforward and easy to explain to a jury. If Little Billy forged a photo ID, that's a solid defense for the co. But if they screw up with hard to explain statistical methods, they have more legal risk.
God fuck this
why are people blaming reddit instead of EU ? (i dont like reddit either )
I live in the EU, this his honestly the first I've seen age verification on any platform.
Oh, I absolutely am blaming the politicians behind this (and the lobby groups behind them). The only strictly wrong thing Reddit does is how it implements that law, i.e., using third-party age verification that happens to also use your data to profile you and that has been shown to be insecure (Further Reading links in my post).
oh yeah i agree , the eu governments can implement a service where they do the age verification themselves but i think they do this on purpose because they work for US and the whole thing is for surveilling and spying on people
It’ll be like Facebook. The inertia and the sense of everyone doing it will keep Reddit alive. Even though it’s estimated that 50-60% is bot activity.
Well at least they're not merging NSFW filters with a broader ban on social media. For those that do so, it is a terrible implementation because if kids only want one or the other, then verifying their age gets them both.
Come to Lemmy. We have kitties and cookies and stuff.
We have kitties and cookies and stuff.
Yah. We do. For now. Mostly b/c it's flying under the radar.
Long run, I think Lemmy cannot escape enshittification. Bots, politicians, lots of drivers.
Not having outrage amplifying algos helps Lemmy. But that's like 1 driver of enshittitification. There are many other sources that will try to shit on the cookies.
I believe Lemmy is more resistant than reddit or w/e. But it won't be enough. Esp if it becomes very popular.
Here I am, not enough hands for all the cookies and kitties. Haven't used Reddit in months and perfectly happy without it. Still sharing my sadness about seeing "the old internet" slip further and further down that slope.
Funny. I always regarded Reddit and the other centralized platforms as the new internet, and lemmy rather as the old internet. I'm from the BBS days, and although that was not federated, to me the fediverse looks more like it than any commercial platform.
Agreed. Lemmy, while being very new, mimics features of ye olden times. Newsgroup era and all... But Reddit kinda started that way and then, as all good things, slowly enshittified. It seemed to resist enshittification longer than most sites. At least that was my impression. But good things can't last. There's no such thing as a free lunch, after all, I guess.
It was probably always the case, that the enshittification was unavoidable already, from the very start, because of the essence of a company: incessant, ever-increasing greed.
Lemmy will likely be affected too: https://hachyderm.io/@ell1e/116844253291555343 At least for the large enough instances or something, I'm not 100% sure about how it works but I read about some micro service exception that may or may not apply to some.
Or, instances can just choose to ignore it. Just host your instance outside the EU. Congrats. You win. Like yeah feddit.org and other imperial core™ instances will likely just shut down but most of lemmy will be absolutely fine.
Worst case scenario host it outside the EU and VPN to a neutral country and you'll be fine.
bingo.
there have always been countries willing to host content outside the prying eyes of the West. There shouldn't really be any expectation of that changing.
Hell, if things get really desperate, we can all pitch in for a boat and host via satellite out of international waters. I think PirateBay did something similar for years.
It might be a short-lived safe haven, regarding the US: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-don-t-force-age-checks-online
Good thing that there are other countries outside the EU than just the US.
There are.
But if you get the US, EU and China all requiring ID verification... plus other authoritarian leaning countries like the Saudis and w/e. The odds that like, IDK... Bahamas or Iceland gonna hold the line on this are... long.
Prob not even Canada has the throw weight to do it in the long run. Love you frozen northerners, I got your back in every way I can in this effed up world, but Canada just doesn't punch in the weight class of the EU, US, and China.
It's so, so important for ID reqs not to pass at the national level in the US. There are strange bedfellows tho. It has bipartisan support AND bipartisan opposition. It could also face major 1A challenges here. Time will tell.
I’m in the US, but still, maybe getting booted off of there was the universe trying to tell me something.
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-don-t-force-age-checks-online Consider acting now if you don't want it to come to other US platforms, too...
They're used to people screaming fuck no and doing it anyway.
I just dropped reddit some time ago... Time consuming + annoying tracking from their side.
A day may come when I upload my ID, and verify my identity online, but it is not this day.
If you're in the EU, it might come sooner than you think: https://leminal.space/post/37117472
I'm in the US. Honestly, if things keep going like this here, in Canada, and in the EU, I might have to move to Norway or Switzerland or something.
Regarding Switzerland: https://www.privately.eu/post/swiss-safetytech-setting-the-standard-in-privacy-first-age-estimation-technology-greatly-reducing-the-need-for-id-checks
I think the only way we're getting out of this is if people start protesting to their representatives way louder and in way greater numbers.
For anybody reading in the EU, consider emailing one of your representatives and demand they undo this age verification surveillance stuff: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/#delegates (Site is unrelated, it just happens to have a list of representatives.)
For anybody in the US, find your representatives here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
I think the only way we’re getting out of this is if people start protesting to their representatives way louder and in way greater numbers.
I agree that is our best hope.
There is not a long term tech solution for a political problem. Best we can do is kick the can down the road. This has to be solved politically.
Will they even listen to us?
Hmm. They will. They'll listen through all of our internet-enabled devices with microphones.
I feel very hopeless about this.
If you haven't contacted a representative yet, I suggest you do it. After that, it's time to continue with the hopelessness 😵💫 relatable for sure...
So “13 year olds, immutable secure setting because you are a child and we cant get as much wealth from you anyway.” But “16-17 year olds, you’re still a child, but if you wanna do some more stuff we’re not gonna stop you.”
everybody needs to be on their best behavior for the next few weeks ok
I wonder how that’ll work with RSS and old Reddit. That’s all I use when reading Reddit
I read somewhere recently that old reddit will require you to be signed in. 🫤
Edit: found it.
Read-only use of old reddit was the only way I use it. There are actualyl some good resources for niche topics. You can search, like how do I disassemble my electric toothbrush to replace the battery the mfg sealed into the unit. Somebody prob posted about it. Or weird game trivia. W/e.
Read only searching was the best remaining use for reddit. Which will now die.
The website includes a quote from a Reddit employee:
Old Reddit’s logged-out experience is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform. It’s also an important interface for many long-time mods and Redditors. To strike the right balance between preserving your access to Old Reddit while preventing abusive scraping and automated traffic, over the next month we will start requiring everyone to log in.
I didn’t realize casually browsing a website is “abusive scraping”. Isn’t that the equivalent of claiming that reading a news article online is “abusive scraping”?
That quote doesn't say that casually browsing is abusive scraping. I really hate that you're making me defend Reddit here, but two things can be true at the same time: you use it for casual browsing, and it is a significant source of abusive scraping for them.
That is true, two things can be true at once. I sometimes fail to realize that.
😏
