The question is prompted by the age verification app that the EU has just presented.
Some EU countries want to ban social media for young people. If that were to happen, what then?
This is precisely the point of literally all the recent new laws regulating online platforms, including this.
To kill smaller ones that can’t comply with those laws, so that only large ones remain (if at all) and it is easier to censor and surveil the users there.
I just hope that at some point, people will figure out how wrong politicians of the 2020s were to do all of this, and a new free and open Internet will rise from the ashes as long as any remain.
Unfortunately, the general public has no idea whatsoever of the Fediverse and doesn’t care about the monopoly of information, mega platforms abusing your data, privacy, and so on and so forth. I’m old enough to finally have come to the conclusion that progress is not made by the masses but by smart, motivated and usually underappreciated individuals. Sadly.
I was already posting on web forums (also wikis) before Facebook or Twitter became popular, when the Internet was not yet very established and posting things on it oneself was something only few people thought of doing.
I was outright excited when I saw “social media” becoming more mainstream. I thought at the time, at least more people are using the Internet, even if it’s “just” Facebook or Twitter (which I didn’t and still don’t see much value in), at least it’s the Internet, that’s a good thing because the Internet is a great and exciting thing for society and a wonderful source of entertainment!
Now we live in a world where the general public mostly only knows how to operate social media apps, otherwise has no tech proficiency at all, doesn’t even know what else is out there on the Internet, and doesn’t know or care how the social media apps they’re using are designed to manipulate them. And politicians are busy working to make it harder for good idealistic people to solve those problems. :(
Small platforms are excluded but don’t let that get in the way of your hysteria
From some things maybe. Plenty of recent “online safety” style laws around the world have no exceptions based on platform size.
We are talking about a specific thing: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-vlops
You are talking about the DSA.
There is no reason to believe that future social media bans will have such exceptions. VDL said explicitly that the app means that there are “no more excuses”.
The DSA excludes small platforms from some rules, so as not to overwhelm start-ups with bureaucracy. Clearly, such considerations are to be neutralized in the future.
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I would only ever sign up for an instance that is not subject to it, or does not comply, or at least maliciously complies. And by malicious compliance I mean something where it’s implemented in such a “buggy” way that it’s easy to bypass.
But really I’d just go for instances hosted outside the EU.
It should not. Fuck the police.
Move servers to a country without stupid laws and ignoring the notices/threats. Sure, they might block you in that country, but people will find a way.
Pretty sure 4chan still hasn’t paid fines to UK and doesn’t plan to as UK can’t really enforce such things abroad, they can just block you in their own country if you refuse.
First of all we should submerge the EU parliament with protests, as we did for the chat-control question. Then protest marches, strikes, and so on. Then simple non-compliance. Whatever is undemocratic has automatically null morally legal validity.
I think we can still use the https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ platform for this. Just need to change the text and protest against age verification.
I’d sign and send an email for sure.
“Fuck you, make me”
The DSA isn’t a one size fits all. It uses a tiered system where the most intense rules—like mandatory age verification—are aimed at the Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs). The law was clearly designed with Big Tech monoliths in mind, so it doesn’t really fit the decentralized nature of the Fediverse. Small instances largely gets a free pass; the focus is on targeting the platforms that actually have the scale to cause systemic risk. I think the limit is drawn at 45 million users. No instance in the EU will (hopefully) become that big!
I hadn’t considered if existing legislation might already require implementing an age verification when l posed the question. Now that you bring it up, I fear it does.
The DSA has exceptions for small companies. But I would caution that there is no case law that supports your interpretation that users should be counted on a per-instance basis. Courts are often not very receptive to attempts to avoid rules through such formalities. Bear in mind that the DSA is supposed to protect the “fundamental rights” of Europeans, which may not include running an instance.
Other laws do not have such exceptions. This app seems poised to become the required age verification mechanism, wherever age should be known. Either use the app or show you have something better.
In January, a Berlin court ruled that TikTok was in violation of the GDPR for not doing enough age checking. It’s being appealed. It remains to be seen how much of that case will be applicable to the Fediverse. But there is a good chance, that even without new laws, age-gating will become mandatory through case law.
Is it implemented the same way beer company websites ask for your age?
Not at all.
Protest any age verification laws by not regarding them.
Will every website out there start doing age verification? Doubtful
Just the ones we will quit.
You tell anyone asking that they can suck your dick. Being that they must be an adult to have that job and ask that question, you must be an adult to be able to give consent to them.
Age = verified.
I wonder if a checkbox is enough
[ ] 18 or more?
It’s not up to me to hunt down unlawful people? And if it is so, how on earth can that fly legally?
Law in some (many?) European countries already requires more intrusive age checks. The EU also has some explicit requirements. There is also push to ban social media for people under a certain age (maybe 16).
The EU has just presented an age verification app. That app would become a required standard through new laws. or even through case law from court judgments.
They can try to force me adding that for my single user instance, but I don’t think they can:
- Force the developers of GoToSocial to add this feature
- And force me to add that to my instance (I don’t live in the EU no US)
Do do this, they need to enforce cryptographically verifiable age verification everywhere. It would require forcing big instances to only cooperate with small instances that poof they do age verification and if you’re selfhosting then the hoster needed to verify you? Not really possible.
Of course big applications and servers could choose to add age-verification freely to avoid scrutiny. Won’t be cheered on in the Fedi I’m sure.
I’m more worried about the proposed OS-level verification, which will be harder to circumvent if you’re not using a FOSS OS. Especially since I can imagine a global effort on this by US, EU, China.
Edit: hypotecially, if we ask how could it be added, a zero-knowledge proof that you’re >18, without revealing anything else, would be the way to go.
Misunderstood the question. Deleted response.
