Mastodawn

official_verified

When you read about Bans of Social Media for Teens and Age Verification, you must remember what it truly means:

• Official identification of every adult using social media.

• Deanonymization of every account, endangering groups that often rely on pseudonymity for safety, such as victims of domestic violence, victims of stalkers, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people.

• Putting every adult at great danger of exploitation, fraud, and identity theft by forcing them to share their official ID with a for-profit third-party company with no incentive to protect it. Breaches have already happened.

• Constructing a system of mass surveillance to attach every comment on social media to a legal identity. Effectively allowing authoritarian governments to silence their critics and opposition.

• Potential for dystopian censorship and cutting off means of organization for groups of resistance to oppressive regime and organizations.

• Endangering children online by putting a clear identification beacon over every child or family with children online.

• Endangering the data of children who will inevitably try to pass as adults, and have their information collected by the third-party for-profit company.

• Diminishing the value of official identification due to the inevitable data breaches, eventually pushing the system to require even more intrusive identification techniques, such as iris scans and fingerprints.

• Installing a system of mass surveillance capable of attaching even more information to everyone's legal identity. With a potential to built list of people in certain groups, and scale-up state censorship and discrimination in unprecedented ways.

• The list goes on and on.

This isn't about protecting the children.
It never was.

Do not be duped by this excuse used to convince you to let go of your human rights. They are only trying to manipulate people lacking information.

Stay informed on the issues related to Age Verification, and push back for your rights to privacy and democracy.

The future depends on us.

#AgeVerification #Privacy #HumanRights #MassSurveillance #Authoritarianism

@Em0nM4stodon It is not a bug, It is a feature.

Anton ⁂ 1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon if they cared about the well-being of children and developmental problems with being exposed to the the internet they'd be talking about different thing.

You'd want to make the internet less addictive and dangerous, by limiting ad-tracking and algorithmic systems the incentivize mass data harvesting. Force public-facing spaces to effectively moderate to keep from being dangerous to children.

You'd want to make the material environment more hospitable to doing anything other than sitting inside on a computer all day. Limiting cars so it's safe to be outside, promoting public parks, social programs and child-friendly public events.

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@anton @Em0nM4stodon ok but what about our complicity here? Everyone wants “free” services that they don’t have to pay for. What is the actual price for that?

Violet Madder 1d ago

@codinghorror @anton @Em0nM4stodon

What about it? The moral injury of getting roped into being "complicit" in our own oppression is just one more way they damage us and try to convince us we somehow brought this bullshit on ourselves.

Imagine, for a moment, a world where people could easily get their basic needs met. If disposable income was an actual thing, people would not be in nearly such a hurry to jump for the dangerously predatory "free" shit on offer from the people who helped make sure we're poor in the first place.

💥meta physical deflationist💥1d ago

@violetmadder @codinghorror @anton @Em0nM4stodon and frankly "people only want free stuff" was never true.

people were always willing to pay a reasonable price for media or software. its just always been priced as a luxury to maximize profits for middlemen. also the shift to free wasnt consumer or creator driven but seller driven as the growth over profits practice is how we got here.

Violet Madder 1d ago

@glassresistor @codinghorror @anton @Em0nM4stodon

You got it.

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@violetmadder @glassresistor @anton @Em0nM4stodon I don’t agree. People, statistically speaking, have an insane bloodlust for “free”. I have met the enemy and it is me.

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@violetmadder @glassresistor @anton @Em0nM4stodon I don’t know how to change human nature but I do know it is folly to work against it rather than acknowledging our collective weaknesses and work alongside them, with them, redirecting and guiding. It is a very difficult path, and the easy way out is constantly, incessantly beckoning to us every damn step of the way.

💥meta physical deflationist💥1d ago

@codinghorror @violetmadder @anton @Em0nM4stodon human nature is something race scientists made up at the turn of the last century. stop projecting your own shortcomings on to the world and actually study history

Anton ⁂ 1d ago

@glassresistor @codinghorror @violetmadder like.... yes you can have an understanding of "human nature" as a concept and the political motives of social scientists of the 1900s to make this position reasonable in a vaccum

but that is not a reasonable statement to make in this context. having studied history does not make people automatically agree with you nor automatically have the correct opinions

Violet Madder 1d ago

@anton @codinghorror @glassresistor

Observing humans under capitalism and saying it is in their nature to be greedy, is like observing humans underwater and saying it's in our nature to drown.

Humans can be shockingly malleable, in terms of what we can be conditioned to accept as normal. Huge amounts of social engineering went into giving us the desperate impulse to grab for whatever we can reach. That's a compulsive behavior, very much like the food hoarding of a person who's experienced starvation. Or the junk-hoarding behavior of people who've had everything taken away from them multiple times-- sweeping the homeless compounds their trauma and makes them that much more likely to cling to anything and everything they can.

Artificial scarcity is DESIGNED to make us act like this. Torture programs research learned helplessness and addiction and more, for this purpose. Blame the victims, convince everybody this is just a dog eat dog world where everybody is a selfish bastard deep down and.. actually, what IS the point of that line of reasoning??

💥meta physical deflationist💥20h ago

@anton @codinghorror @violetmadder its funny how little content this reply had. its almost like instead of a point or counter argument you went for the claasic dodge of "haha just because my opinion is unfounded, ahistorical, and lacks even shallow analysis doesnt mean people shouldnt value my opinion" and "your not always right"

please explain to me your historical context for why freemeium became the norm

Anton ⁂ 19h ago

@glassresistor my point was there wasn't any claim made @codinghorror that warrants so much hostility from you. Yea he was being dismissive and annoying. But whats the core disagreement here? Funding models for media outlets? do we really need to be so dogmatic about it instead of just.... talking about the many, many problems with ad-supported models

💥meta physical deflationist💥18h ago

@anton @codinghorror i mean to he for clear coding horror is a POS for many prior reasons so im not jumping into this contextless

Anton ⁂ 18h ago

@glassresistor not surprised, libertarian reply guys tend to have a recognizable pattern

But obviously I, as someone without said context has no reason to be compelled by it. You're undermining your position against the need for ads by making a bunch of vague and inflamitory non-sequiturs

Technomagik 11h ago

@violetmadder @codinghorror @anton @Em0nM4stodon If anyone wants to come to Iowa and work on growing food with me, the goal is basic needs are provided for you, and if you decide you must participate in the dollar economy you can get paid for getting more users on 99finches.com.
Also looking for software devs for robot tractors.

Akkoma

Violet Madder 8h ago

@Technomagik @Em0nM4stodon @codinghorror @anton

Solutions exist!

Anton ⁂ 1d ago

@codinghorror @Em0nM4stodon The problems of algorithmic tracking and individual micro-targeting are distinct and much more pernicious than the problems of ad-supported media in general

Long term the project of 99finches is to convince local businesses in Iowa to advertise here instead of on platforms that have been proven in open court to have screwed over their business clients on ad purchases. Then use that revenue to pay people in Iowa to do the long-term work needed to make the Fediverse a serious threat to big tech.

Jeff Atwood 1d ago

@anton @Em0nM4stodon I like this plan a lot.

Anton ⁂ 1d ago

@codinghorror @Em0nM4stodon good to hear. If you got ideas on how to convince to local businesses plz share

eestileib (she/hers)20h ago

@codinghorror @anton @Em0nM4stodon

Speak for yourself, I pay (eg) for mastodon.

I don't need Facebook, let it rot.

@anton @Em0nM4stodon every word of this.

emeritrix 1d ago

And it doesn't take much to antagonize the current government in the US:

"The ICE agent wanted more than a month’s worth of electronic data, but offered no information as to what, exactly, caught the agency’s attention. When John Doe’s attorneys later reviewed their Reddit posts, they found nothing to suggest criminal activity or intent.

"There was a thread from early January, after news outlets including The Intercept identified Jonathan Ross as the ICE officer who shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis. Commenting on a Minnesota Star Tribune article, another Reddit user posted that Ross might be welcomed as a hero in Florida or Texas. John Doe responded by sharing that Ross had lived in Chaska, Minnesota; grew up in Indiana; and served in the Indiana National Guard — biographical details that were circulating widely at the time. “Hopefully he moves up to Stillwater State Penitentiary,” they wrote.

"In another post, a Reddit user asked what they should write on an anti-ICE protest sign. John Doe suggested the lyrics to a song: “Urine speaks louder than words.” In a third instance, Doe wrote, “TSA sucks and we all know it.” According to the Reddit user’s attorneys, these were the most aggressive posts they could find."

https://theintercept.com/2026/04/10/reddit-ice-protest-grand-jury/

A Redditor Criticized ICE. Trump Is Trying to Unmask Them by Dragging the Company to a Secret Grand Jury.

An ICE summons to get the user’s identity failed. Advocates worry the move to a grand jury signals an escalation of the war on dissent.

The Intercept

@anarchademic @Em0nM4stodon

This is why I build https://mastodon.social.

It's pretty straight Mastodon but all authenticated traffic it through #Tor and no email addresses are collected.

So there's nothing beyond the public posts to identify users. What you put in a public post can be much more identifying that you may think but at least with this model full control is with the user the service doesn't need to know anything extra

💥meta physical deflationist💥1d ago

@anarchademic @Em0nM4stodon i find this very ironic

stonedonkey 🕹️🎮👾1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon they day I have to provide ID to use your service is the day I cancel, it's pretty simple.

mirabilos 1d ago

@TheStoneDonkey @Em0nM4stodon start to self-host first, it’s not a service if there are no others serviced

@TheStoneDonkey @Em0nM4stodon

Same here. I'm done with this shit.

Evelyn Octavia 1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon ah yes, i also anonymize myself throughout social media to protect my privacy

Inc Hulk 🧪1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon If it was illegal for social media companies to use and sell personal details, then the lobby (funded secretly by Meta, Google, Apple) for removal of privacy would evaporate.
Children are not protected by revealing full ID info by everyone, that is a lie.

Making corporations pay rent on retained personal data would likely have a similar outcome.

Mage of Void 1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon THE INTERNET IS RAN BY THE GOVERNMENT, DUDE. No ones banning anyone and your legal identity being tied to a public display name that ISN'T a legal identity is absolutely NOT a danger to the public. You're being EXTREMELY counter productive and making it look like YOU use the internet to harbor fugitives who are banned from use of the internet for BEING dangerous to those groups you just mentioned ON THE INTERNET. People get banned from the public domain when they become offenders.

My my. You're an easy block.

@Mage_of_Chaos @Em0nM4stodon

draNgNon 1d ago

Real Names Considered Harmful

0x4d6165 (Julie)1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon this thread is a free bootlicker blocklist

Kevin Karhan 1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon nodds in agreement

"#AgeVerification" is just yet another #FalsePretense for more #Cyberfascism, #SurveillanceState & #PoliceState!

Thus it is our moral obligation to not only #RefuseToComply but teach everyone to circumvent this bs!
- And if that means we gotta "drop off #USB #Flashdrives" with #Tails like Darlene in #MrRobot then so be it!

Mr. Robot: Darlene baits police officer with flash drives

YouTube

𝐽𝑜ℎ𝑎𝑛 1d ago

@kkarhan @Em0nM4stodon

Is Mr. Robot from a TV series?

P.S. Why did he only take one? 🤔

Stewart Tolhurst 1d ago

@Em0nM4stodon The harms of Social Media that they claim to be protecting children from are harmful to *everyone*. Age verification isn’t the answer and just throws petrol on an already huge privacy dumpster fire…

Epic Null 20h ago

@foxbasealpha @Em0nM4stodon What I really want people to echo is "Why are adults not allowed to opt in to these protections?" Just to bring the point home

@Epic_Null I wish I could boost this simple checkmate argument more than once.

@foxbasealpha @Em0nM4stodon

Erik Ableson 19h ago

@foxbasealpha @Em0nM4stodon @lupus_blackfur As long as we're doing age verification, maybe ban certain social media sites for the over 50 crowd?

Neil Moffatt 17h ago

@foxbasealpha @Em0nM4stodon All while adding increasingly large pauses to screen scrolling to stop doomscrolling is achievable with very little coding.

But Corporations like Google will exert gigantic pressure to keep the ad-pumping, mind-damaging status quo.

Ever we seem to fight the effect of power in the hands of almost any human ...

@Em0nM4stodon saving the children while the Epstein Class is still on the loose. Typical: crimizalize the poor for the richman's crimes.

GnosticStreetSweeper 22h ago

@Em0nM4stodon The internet was born in small spaces. Niche networks of interconnected interest groups using simple protocols to communicate. Our biggest weapon against this is to empower people to create those networks with their own compute. Our biggest enemy is the push to turn every device into a cloud provider's thin client. We can always resist as long as, in everyone's hands and homes, there is a general purpose, Von Neumann architecture, computational engine.

@Em0nM4stodon by far my favourite part is how absurd this list gets and yet how it could be reality in, lets say, 10 years

snuffbait schizo 19h ago

@sylvie @Em0nM4stodon bad news friend, it's already reality. the empire is already watching. ICE buys access to collated data from multiple social networks through a subcontractor, palantir is providing age verification and credit checks. cyberpunk is now.

@imbl i meant the part about iris scans and fingerprints, certainly awaiting the part where it somehow becomes my problem to acquite hardware recent enough to make it possible to strip more of my anonymity (then somehow my problem to find a linux distro that doesnt strip the drivers for it)

snuffbait schizo 11h ago

@sylvie you need an id to access a site, and you need to give biometrics to get the id ;p
we're seeing the end of the beginning of the privacy crisis