I haven’t seen much discussion on what the general consensus is if and when age verification passes globally with regards to the aftermath. More specifically what are everyone’s plans to deal with technology going forward? I’ve heard many say they’d quit the internet all together or stop using platforms that conform, however as well as that may worth for some, it isn’t realistic for others.
I’m thinking in terms of the worst case scenario, OS’ require online verification via an API, using things that don’t are outlawed, devices are blocked at the ISP level, maybe even hardware level verification (although unrealistic now, with how absurd these proposed laws are, I could see it happening).
What would be our options to navigate this landscape legally? I’ve been looking into I2P and Tor, and it got me thinking if those areas of the internet are the last resort for privacy conscious people like us, and are they resistant? How would places like this forum be affected?
Do the law makers really understand the scope of the legislation they want to pass? Nearly every single Internet connected device runs some version of an operating system. Even if it’s literally just a check box for verifying the user’s age, conformity sets a precedent for the future. What they pass now could set the foundations for even more damage to digital privacy.
I know you’re asking for speculation here, but it’s important to know that there are not global age verification laws up for approval. There are 195 countries in the world, and places like South Sudan or Nigeria or Myanmar or Cuba aren’t going to be passing any internet ID laws any time soon.
It also depends on what the laws actually include. Is this just the UK version with ID checks to be on social media or forums? Or full on no more encryption laws “for the children!”? Huge difference.
Even if there’s some huge push for the EU, US, and a few other places to pass internet ID laws, there will be a period of years where plenty of countries don’t have those laws. That could lead to a lot of janky “Ivan’s A-OK Number 1 Data Center” type places to pop up in places that normally wouldn’t be seen as centers of freedom of speech, just to turn a blind eye, quietly scrape data for sale to anyone looking for it, and host sites that are of questionable repute to begin with, possibly leveling up to forums that simply would rather pay extra to ignore every lawsuit if they stay on some AWS server. This has already played out in a way between 2021 and 2024 when a lot of very conservative social media and media sites (Gab, rumble, etc.) looked around for non-US/EU sites to host them.
This would also lead to 95% of people in those places playing nice and ignoring the problems, and then 5% of people doing things like maintaining accounts and VPNs outside of those places and paying with crypto. Assuming that’s also not illegal.
A lot of smaller sites/forums might also follow some very cursory malicious compliance, where you send them a fuzzy picture of “I’m old and my name is Bob” written in cursive on a piece of paper” and accept it as your ID. I might expect Fediverse instances to go this route as well.
My speculative TL;DR: A hodgepodge of messiness on the internet that does very little other than increase friction to escape it for a smaller slice of people willing to put in the effort.
You’re right. My question is 100% speculative, ik that there are countries where these laws may not have an impact or won’t even be passed for now, hence why I said ‘if’ and not just when.
I was just brainstorming and thinking ahead to understand what resources exist in case this age verification push gets out of hand. And how some sensitive groups will need to adapt, like whistleblowers, activists, etc.
I feel that the path to censorship and control will lead to innovation. People who want to find a way around these limitations will always find one. In my mind I kinda grouped chat control, age verification, etc. as an attack on open source, encryption, and privacy on the internet. Maybe it won’t be as bad as we see in some other countries.
I’m honestly just finding ways to be optimistic in a reverse way, expecting the worst, so I won’t be disappointed with what reality brings.
I highly doubt age-gating will go world wide but I do like to be prepared.
Before any such law passed in my country, Canada, I’ll buy a domain from a company called Njalla with crypto and make my own instance on the Fediverse.
MullvadVPN has Bridges to hide VPN usage from ISPs. If VPNs became KYC and/or banned the Tor network will be the next step.
Next is TailsOS, I have that setup on two thumb drives and continue to keep it updated. Currently, I have little need to use Tails but did use it enough to become familiar with it.