Post by @zelgaav@mastodon.social
Does anyone have any insights / scoops about the upcoming #EUKidsAct, set to be introduced this Thursday to "age gate" access to social media platforms across the EU? (Thus forcing every citizen to upload their government ID to establish their age)
I'm super worried about the impact on the #OpenSocialWeb and the Fediverse in particular.
🔗 : https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-to-propose-new-legislation-on-minors-protection-on-thursday/
I wish they would share a clear description of the platforms affected by this legislation.
@_elena urgh... Is there any way to do #ageverification privately and securely? It doesn't look like it.
Didn't the EU's solution get hacked on day one?
Valve (Steam) achieved age verification in the UK by requiring a credit card. Because to have a credit card you have to be a certain age
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/292B-3DA3-CFC8-97F6
this doesn't completely answer your question, but it collapses the need for another privacy disclosure. the credit card company knew before, it still knows, but no one else does
but of course, now your credit card is exposed for another potential data breach
@benroyce @patrickleavy @_elena I had a credit card in the 90s. Now, I don't know anyone who has one. Everybody resigned long time ago. Some people use services like "Allegro Pay Later" or "Blik Pay Later", which work similar way, but are not tied to a card. I don't expect people running to banks to get a credit card just to authenticate on Steam. Also, parents are likely to allow child authenticate using their card (if they had one) to let kid play his favorite games. That's dumb method.
@zelgaav @patrickleavy @_elena
i agree on the first point. the scarcity of people with credit cards destroys the entire scheme
but i disagree on second point. it's just a bureaucratic hoop to jump through. yes, it doesn't work in terms of satisfying the requirement in terms of sincere functionality. who cares. we only care about making the government go the fuck away
pol, av
All methods are dumb methods for the same reason. Parents are going to authenticate for their kids so that their kids can get on with things. We're already seeing this in Australia, where social media use among children is now going *up*.
@argv_minus_one @zelgaav @patrickleavy @_elena
i think my last 5 responses to you, across a number of threads, have began with "no argument"
i almost did it again 😂
i'll try to tone that down
yes, it's all a fucking joke
ideally it won't happen. but it might
so we ruminate on compliance. not because anyone loves it but it's just exercising our brains and yapping our gums
elena said someone said in australia only big companies have to do this, not small servers like mastodons
a relief
pol, av, doom
From the sound of the Reuters article https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/eu-is-set-propose-ban-social-media-ai-chatbots-under-15s-2026-09-14/ all “companies” will be required to verify age, verify parental identity, and pay the government a “supervisory fee”.
I don't see how Fedi, or any non-billion-dollar website, could possibly comply with such a regime. I'm straight-up panicking right now, to be honest.
@argv_minus_one @zelgaav @patrickleavy @_elena @gavinkarlmeier
there's no reason to panic. life is full of evil shit. you adopt and move on
maybe everything will be hosted in canada, or little servers proxy through canada. i dunno
again: don't be angry with me. i'm speculating and ruminating strategy. rumination like the credit card scheme idea i put forth that sucks. because it's just speculation
i agree with you 1,000% it should not happen
pol, av, doom
Canada seems to be doing the same thing, as do the US, UK, Brazil…
I'm not angry with you, friend. Just scared. Very, very, very scared.
I feel like hundreds of thousands of websites will start disappearing soon, and historically, such extreme crackdowns on public discourse were shortly followed by millions of *people* disappearing.
I don't want to die, Ben. 😭
@argv_minus_one @zelgaav @patrickleavy @_elena @gavinkarlmeier
i just don't see it as that bleak. because the devil is in the details. maybe we'll just all move to tor. or some country that isn't so beholden to plutocracy and bigotry and host from there. we don't know what the EU will do, there might be carveouts
the desire for social interaction outside of corporate control is not going away
in fact, i think it is growing. i see a bright future for the fediverse, even with shitbag laws