this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
1060 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

85873 readers
3879 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
1060
Age checks could turn internet into an ID checkpoint and would kill anonymity, Proton CEO says (proton.me)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by Deep@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world
229 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Online threats to children are real, but the headlong pursuit of age verification that we’re seeing around the world is unacceptable in its approach and far too broad in scope — and we simply can’t afford to get this wrong.

To be clear, parents’ concerns are valid and sincere. Few people would argue that kids should have unfettered access to adult material, to self-harm how-tos, to social media platforms that manipulate them and expose them to abuse.

But it’s the very depth of those worries that is being cynically exploited. Age verification as is currently being proposed in country after country would mean the death of anonymity online.

And we know exactly who stands to gain: The same tech giants who built the privacy nightmare that the internet is today.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TheUniverseandNetworks@lemmy.world -4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Surely it's the death of anonymity for those who want to access stuff which would be age restricted in any other scenario (like a real shop). The rest of the population (most?) don't care to access that stuff & don't want it and can carry on being anonymous.

And yes that gives the likes of Facebook et al a problem because they'll have to categorise their content, but the whole point of this current fad for governments to legislate to restrict stuff is that the big tech companies could have (made efforts to) fix it but chose not to because it's (waves hands and wails) hard.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

kids dont get unrestricted access unless the parent is too lazy and not putting limiations on thier devices. ive seen them give a toddler under 5 a PHONE TO play with.