no, they want to pretend this is the issue, so that pervasive monitoring or permission and/or deanonymization is normalized. It is to serve the state apparatus, rather than any actual protection.
Maybe some want more control, but most certainly not everybody.
> so that pervasive monitoring
If you haven't gotten the memo, pervasive monitoring already exists. To sell ads.
> or permission and/or deanonymization is normalized
For age verification, it's possible to do it in a privacy-preserving manner. Now people spend their time complaining about the idea and claiming that all who disagree are extremists, so it doesn't help. But we could instead try to push for privacy-preserving age verification.
Those who want less regulation are not hackers, but rich and powerful assholes.
This topic is just unfavorable with this community... for good reasons.
"Being a hacker" does not mean "being stuck in the 80s", IMO. If TooBigTech cryptographically controls everything, it becomes harder to hack. Are you aware that the biggest restriction against jailbreaking stuff is that it was made super illegal... because it helps corporations?
Ah yes, so that's why Meta et al are the main ones behind pushes for more "think of the children" ID verification/attestation regulations.
Last two times they tried to push other censorship/tracking laws (claiming as always "we have to, EU is making us") there were mass protests in every city and town.
In my own town of 5k people there were several hundred (500 people at least, probably more). And the previous govt backed down.
This topic seems to be coming back everytime certain countries (Denmark etc) hold the rotating EU presidency. Our current PM is certainly in the same EU clique that wants to push this so much, but it's an extremely unpopular position and he is already leading a weak minority coalition govt. It wouldn't take much to topple him, so he will not do anything like that (unless he is convicted people are distracted with some crisis, but that is where normal people come in. To keep watching what is being smuggled in).
I wonder why do voters in those countries that propose these laws tend to allow this to happen again and again.
No matter what you (as population) say it will get implemented. If you don't, then they will put sanctions on Poland, withdraw financial partnerships, etc. Like with migrants, they are going to be sent there, even if Polish people vote against.
No matter if you are in favor or against, raising the topic will just make you socially be isolated or even legally punished in some places.
Sad for democracy and free speech.
EDIT: clarified about migrant policy and the decision of countries to choose or not
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_expulsion_of_Polish_Jews_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_of_Jews_from_Nazi_G...
That, and the lack of real issues to solve.
The rise of authoritarianism? Inequality? Revival of geopolitical "realism"? Decrease in empathy and holistic thinking? Increasing willingness of the general population to engage in political adventurism? Accelerating resource consumption (and decelerating resource stocks).
And if you consider none of those "real" problems, I know some people seem to have forgotten about it, but what about climate change? Given the half-life of CO2 and methane, that's a problem as "real" as they get.
Kids don't have money and hardly ever manage to do crime without getting caught so they're profoundly uninteresting to surveil in this way, but adults are and here the interests of the state and corporations converge so they'll make a push for tyranny.
But how to make people accept it? Tell them they want to expose kids to gruesome tentacle porn, or else they'd support this. Few adults are willing to admit they even look at porn, let alone argue that this is an important activity that needs to be protected, which it is.
There is absolutely no need for new technology to track people, it's there already.
Also I feel like a big reason for age verification is social media. Many countries are trying to prevent kids from accessing social media (because we know it's bad for them), and age verification is the way to do that.
Badly implemented, age verification is bad. But there are ways to implement it in a privacy-preserving manner, which wouldn't make the current state of surveillance capitalism worse.
But the current push from all sides to provide id for everything and remote attestation through Google and apple will make the alternatives very hard to use as it basically cuts such people from the economy altogether.
And corporations are having issues discerning bots from people without making access to their services a fuss or dependent on possibly idealistic and troublesome open source projects, like Anubis.
It's truly, absolutely, not about "age verification". If it were about protecting kids from harm they'd take money from corporations post factum that are offending. Instead they're preparing to spend a lot of money. You could also look at who is heavily lobbying for this, you'll find it is fascist tech oligarchs from the US. They couldn't care less about kids except for obscene or profitable purposes. It would be weird for them to be cosy with epsteinian networks of power and at the same time be mindful about the wellbeing of children.
You vastly underestimate the current state of surveillance capitalism.
> You could also look at who is heavily lobbying for this, you'll find it is fascist tech oligarchs from the US.
Go in the street, and ask a bunch of random people: "If there was a way to prevent kids from accessing stuff that is bad for them, and it had no downsides. Would you want it?". I'm absolutely certain that not only fascists will say they would want it.
Did you grow up with free streaming platforms? Pretty sure many adolescents were accessing porn before those, though it was slightly less accessible.
I personally don't have a definitive opinion about porn (I feel like young kids obviously shouldn't have access to it, but it shouldn't be illegal to adults, but I don't know where the limit should be), but I feel like making it harder for kids to access social media makes sense.
E.g. the problem of social media is not that kid access information. It's more that kids get harassed by other kids.