Beth McKinley
mhoyeOnce you realize it’s not “age verification”, but actually “identity verification”, then it’s easy to understand that the real goal is “papers, please” for the entire internet.
wendythedruid@mhoye classically yes that’s exactly what it is
bigjigsaw
txtx 🇪🇺@mhoye Unpopular opinion:
Identity verification isn't so unattractive in 2026 — social media is destroying democracies via anonymous armies of bot people steered by aggressive foreign actors like Putin and Musk.
The libertarian model that the Internet was built on is failing societies.
Cassandrich@txtx @mhoye Rightfully unpopular. This is not a libertarian position but an anarchist and antifascist one. It's not Ayn Rand bros who are harmed by needing to show ID to participate in public life. It's queer youth, undocumented folks, unhoused folks, dissidents, ppl living under regimes that don't want them having international contacts, etc. who this shit harms.
Diogo ConstantinoI don't agree with the premise that there is no possibility for a solution that takes various factors into consideration.
@DiogoConstantino So? What's wrong with trying harder? Is laziness an excuse?
I want more fellow tech people to step away from the libertarian ideals of the current Internet, and start coming up with ways to help save democracy from aggressive states and their disinformation campaigns.
@DiogoConstantino Why do you turn to a personal accusation against me? C'mon, we can do better than that. I've been in this field for over a quarter century thanks.
@txtx it's critic of your argument. You are implying others are lazy, and implying others have not tried to solve the problems, and implying there's not other ways to solve these problems. And you're ignoring that there's already laws to address this (DSA), they only mostly not been meaningfully enforced.
People have been thinking about online content moderation since the 1990s, it's insulting that people who have not thought about this for figuratively 5 minutes think they have the solution.
@DiogoConstantino Right and I've been there since the 90s. Have we solved the problems? They've only gotten worse and worse.
The only Internet we've had, outside of a few niches, is a highly libertarian, highly corporate one. I'm just saying, I think it's time to try new ideas.
Violet Madder@txtx @DiogoConstantino @dalias @mhoye
Stepping away from the libertarian ideals of the internet is just an indirect way of saying you want the internet to step towards authoritarian ideals.
And you can take that evil shit and shove it. Have you not noticed what authoritarians do with power yet??
Are you aware that all of our social security information and most of our medical records have already been compromised? You REALLY want to fork over more personal information to some cloud where hackers and data brokers and fascist regimes can just play around with it? Once that data is getting hacked and spoofed, they'll just keep demanding more invasive data to prove ID-- right down to our retinal scans and fucking DNA.
None of this shit is about protecting kids, no matter what pretty claims they put on the tin. NONE OF IT.
@violetmadder @txtx @DiogoConstantino @dalias
You might want to read this: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/C.R.C.,_c._1038/FullText.html
@violetmadder @txtx @DiogoConstantino @dalias
That's the list of regulations you need to adhere to, as motor vehicle manufacturer, to make sure that the thing you build is safe for people to drive, at what speeds and under what conditions.
By carefully restricting vehicle manufacture to prevent specific kinds of harm under specific sets of conditions, the people _in_ those vehicles are free _from_ all sorts of risks, and more free _to_ travel in them safely.
330 pages of oppression!
@mhoye @txtx @DiogoConstantino @dalias
Enacted by a hard-fought effort from folks like Ralph Nader, yes. In the 60s and 70s.
That's an example everybody loves citing, because it worked. And the stuff that fixed the hole in the ozone. Thing is, nothing anywhere near as comprehensive or effective has been acheived in other industries since, because the corporations vowed to never let it happen like that again.
So. In a world where the regulating mechanisms have already been CAPTURED by immense money, how exactly do you expect regulation to be achieved now?
Tons of awful things are already thoroughly against all kinds of laws, but continue happening anyway. The "international rules-based order" is proving to be a hollow fantasy. Genocides continue unabated, no justice in sight.
Laws are the pieces of paper that formalize power structures with official documentation-- but they're just paper. Labels. Where exactly is the power going to come from, to make billionaires pay taxes or make genocidal war profiteers stop killing people?
How do you regulate the internet without simply lining up to put your own leash into the hands of these technofascist monsters whose corporate feudalism is turning the whole idea of national sovereignty into an obsolete joke?
How does that actually work??
"How do you regulate the internet
[...] How does that actually work??
These are excellent questions, exactly the kind we should be asking IMO. Some ideas: ban oligarch social platforms completely. Ban foreign platforms when they go over a certain market share. Ban platforms that don't adhere to local law.
I thought this was a niche idea but it turns out that, according to recent polls, some of these are very popular positions here in Europe — including age restrictions.
@txtx @violetmadder "Age restrictions" are absolutely non negotiably wrong. They're a mislabeling for "papers please" which is a fundamentally fascist position. Polls are shit designed to manipulate public opinion and manufacture consensus for what the powerful want.
@dalias If a police officer comes to my home and demands a search, and I respond with "papers please" — is my position fascist?
@txtx @violetmadder No, because that's not what it means and I think you know that.
@dalias I agree! It is different, and that difference is the core of what we're talking about here IMO.
The Internet is infested with government agents propagandists bots and criminals posing as real people. I'm saying no, I don't want them.
@txtx @violetmadder They're not going to stop their own propaganda bots with "age verification"/internet passports. They're going to stop the people fighting them. This should not be hard to understand.
@txtx @violetmadder "Papers please" specifically means the principle that people don't have free movement or participation in society without having to show their identity documents to an authority. It does not have any relationship with its polar opposite, "come back with a warrant".
@txtx @violetmadder One is about authentication of people to authority. The other is about authentication of authority to people.
Morgane deSivA proof of authenticity doesn't need to store an ID.
@violetmadder @txtx @DiogoConstantino @mhoye "Libertarian ideals" aren't the answer here. We absolutely need to regulate the billionaire platforms, either out of existence or at least into behaving half decently. What we must reject is regulating ordinary ppl into surveillance hell as a faux substitute for that.
@dalias @violetmadder @txtx @DiogoConstantino
Libertarian just means you're not the boss of me and selfish now. We've done that experiment and now we have the evidence. The libertarian ethos and its loudest adherents hasn't protected us from totalitarianism at all. It and they have endorsed and supported it.
Regulation isn't oppression. The fact that you don't need to worry what's in the water when you turn the tap doesn't give you less freedom, it gives you far more.
@mhoye @dalias @txtx @DiogoConstantino
I am talking about small l libertarianism here, not American Libertarian party crap.
And I truly don't understand how the hell anyone thinks regulation is going to magically fix the fact that oligarchs have already bought control of the courts.
There are so many really good things in the world that are neither libertarian nor authoritarian.
@dalias It looks like none of that is working. ICE is rounding up anyone they want in the US. Iran is crushing protests. Syria? Egypt? China? Russia? Where has social media helped society in public discourse? It's leading to death everywhere. It's a complete failure in every way possible.
So I can't support the status quo.
undead enby of the apocalypse@txtx "It's not working so let's try more fascism!" is the brainworms of lots of voters. And it's always an utterly horrible idea.
@dalias So calling me a brainwormed fascist, this is what you use anonymity for? Really nice. Great argument.
meta physical deflationist@txtx @dalias ok so try this. age verification is a type of proof of work system. its easier to prove you are yourself than prove your someone else but for some people(nation states) it is easier to prove your someone else than it is for other people(undocumented) to prove they are themselves
so identity verification means less vulnerable people and more mouth pieces of the state
0x4d6165 (Julie or Mae)
bencourtice@bencourtice I think we need a more sophisticated approach. I'll give an example:
Twitter users generally appreciated the blue checkmark that verified official accounts.
I think that, in working democracies, an opt-in verification for citizens could be an answer. This may mean being an ID to a post office, but we can still make it anonymous so that neither the govt nor the server owner knows which ID was used to verify which account.
Then I can safely ignore unverified users.
Paul Lockett@txtx @bencourtice And what would be the point of that? You've constructed a system where an admin process exists to enable a website to state "This account belongs to someone. We don't know who."
@plock @bencourtice I would know that A) it's a real person and B) that person is in the EU. The rest I can ignore or treat with caution, which would be especially easy if X/Facebook/TikTok are banned.
This is a massive improvement over the current situation where every other person is a scam artist botperson.
@txtx @bencourtice So, pointless, with a dose of insularity. Thanks for clarifying.
@txtx I'm not against that kind of verification existing in principle. But the problem with "functioning democracies" is that sometimes they turn into something else.
@bencourtice I agree, this is a problem.
On the other hand, I think we have a somewhat false sense of security with internet anonymity.
What I mean is, when the state decides to go after people, they have the means. In Iran, they shut down the Internet and start mass killings. In the US, people snitch to ICE. And so on.
Maybe social media isn't the place where we should be seeking safety or freedom.
@txtx true. but non-state actors like your employer, neo-nazis, crooked cops, the mafia, your violent ex - all these can be foiled to varying degrees by online anonymity. The state may still have the power to discover who your profile is (unless you use Signal and Tor exclusively) but if they need a warrant to act on that, there is also a degree of protection from their scrutiny.
@txtx and this won't stop at social media. They will try to extend it to everything.