Matthew GreenThe move to add “age verification” to websites at the state level is pretty worrying, and is functionally pretty close to a complete ban on certain sites.
There’s a world where phone manufacturers store your ID and generate fancy zero-knowledge proofs to satisfy age verification requirements, but I’m not convinced putting Apple and Google in charge of more important things is the way our society should go.
I don’t think these bans are going to take porn off the Internet (lol) but I’m worried about what these laws get used for *after* they’re tested and allowed by the courts. I think that’s going to be very unpleasant.
Darnell Clayton 
@matthew_d_green It will be like South Korea 🇰🇷.
👉🏾 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_Korea
Michael Bacon@matthew_d_green I really don't like the long-term implications for the reasons you say.
But in the short term, sex workers organizations have been railing against sites like PornHub for years because of how little money actually gets back to them. It's going to be a boon for subscription sites which (again, I'm following what the workers themselves here say) apparently get much more income to them.
Because in some of these jurisdictions, credit card age verification is sufficient.
Burstaholic@MichaelTBacon @matthew_d_green the new wave of laws requires actual identity, not just "any credit card."
The North Carolina law only requires age identification without specifying how. Other jurisdictions are far more prescriptive. In the past, credit cards have passed legal tests for reasonable precaution. Most legal observers in NC say it's unclear if that will be sufficient.
Michael Gemar@matthew_d_green Next comes banning VPNs.
mcc@matthew_d_green It seems to me linking every single website access (or internet-connected-app usage, inevitably) to a legal identity in a way that is transparent to governments is not just the inevitable end result, but the long-term goal to begin with.
Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️⚧️@matthew_d_green It will be like China, where every company data leak contains user's legal name and ID number (similar to SSN in the US)
Viss@matthew_d_green i predicted a long time ago that stuff like this and other "dumb bullshit imposed by people with zero technical chops" is going to end up forcing "most of the internet" underground, and i figured a tor-like system would exist for "any internet accessible stuff that isnt giant social media or corporate entities" and it would act like a grey market. opaque and nearly impossible to 'do enforcement on'.
then our dystopian future will be complete.
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️@matthew_d_green
Are bans that only apply to users without VPNs not discriminatory ?
Are bans that only apply to users without VPNs not discriminatory ?
Jeffrey Yasskin@matthew_d_green The folks working on browser age verification live at https://github.com/WICG/identity-credential and https://github.com/w3cping/credential-considerations and would love help getting it closer to right.
CubeThoughts@matthew_d_green They did - surprisingly - come up with a pretty secure and privacy protecting solution for corona exposure tracking. It is possible, it's just not in their interest and the interest of these legislators isn't solving any problem but culture wars. And culture wars are better left unsolved.
VessOnSecurity@matthew_d_green Maybe that was the goal all along.
Koos Pol 🇺🇦@matthew_d_green I'm not worried by silly, retarded online regulations. But I'm worried as hell that a 300-pound gorilla (USA) implements those regs and how it will influence the rest of us (non-USA) through political discourse.
Caleb Maclennan@matthew_d_green Skip the ID checks, some things should just be completely banned.
Sandy Johnson@matthew_d_green Agreed. It's a not so subtle attempt to silence speech the politicians don't like. Of course it's all done to keep children safe.