this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
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Surveillance creep is once again striking in the age verification debate. This is happening at the FCC this time.

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[–] Comet79@lemmy.world 2 points 14 minutes ago

I am in the EU and after 2027 freedom of speech in big websites will be pretty much over. What measures can i take to protect myself from government censorship other than using decentralized websites like Lemmy?

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 points 1 minute ago

Just go right for the cattle prod. Have them scan your mark.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 13 points 14 hours ago

Unmasking itself.

It was never not this.

[–] turdas@suppo.fi 165 points 1 day ago

Damn. Who could possibly have seen this coming?

[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 51 points 1 day ago
[–] grue@lemmy.world 105 points 1 day ago

The author gives the situation benefit of the doubt that it does not deserve. It is not "mutating" or "creeping;" the ABSOLUTELY INTENTIONAL, ORIGINAL PURPOSE is simply now becoming more and more obvious, even to the people who desperately want to pretend it isn't happening.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 day ago

Papers are back! As in, "Where are your papers?".

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh look, another attack on the freedom of speech that anonymity allows. Here's hoping "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore

[–] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 47 minutes ago

Many of us will. I will quit before I submit to this.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 73 points 1 day ago
[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

How unexpected!

[–] alpha1beta@piefed.social 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

pretty soon we'll see an official spec for the header X-Current-User-Social-Security-Number

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 14 points 1 day ago

In plaintext

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

not the part of shadowrun i wanted to become reality

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Where are the elves?

[–] aarch0x40@piefed.social 27 points 1 day ago

Can I preorder my satellite linked shock collar?

[–] MrPnut@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Of course it is

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Who chose the stock image for this? I haven't seen that style of phone since I had an LG Vue back in 2009.

[–] Pappabosley@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That's the phone you'll have to go back to using, to stop them identifying you. Their AI can't understand tech that old

[–] Flower@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

It has a sim card and a mac address. You'll be tracked.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago

I'd rather die than use a membrane touch screen again.

[–] Gullible@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago

Whoa, so can we stop using our social security numbers for everything yet?

[–] lambisio@feddit.cl 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] lambisio@feddit.cl 2 points 1 hour ago

One does have to wonder which of all the psyops are the three downvoters from. "Totally a Slippery Slope"? "US good China bad"? Israhell? Freeze peach? "Just one more surveillance bro, just the one"?

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] InFerNo@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ditch it and use mygov instead. cut out the proprietary middleman who charges everyone out their ass to implement it.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Belgian Mobile ID, een bedrijf dat in het leven geroepen werd door 4 grootbanken (Belfius, BNP Paribas Fortis, ING en KBC) en 3 telecomoperatoren (Proximus, Telenet, Orange) in ons land.

Right, really don't want to support any of those, even if it's free.

[–] meowmeow@quokk.au -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Told ya, you fucking systemd simps. It’s all a really fucking wet slope.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

~~systemd has nothing to do with this lmao, if you see this and immediately think "this wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t let systemd discuss putting an age field 2 months ago!!!!!1!" you are severely, severely misled. to stay nice.~~

nvm i’m pretty sure this is just ragebait

[–] meowmeow@quokk.au -1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Hehe. The people who ignored systemd are the same people who don’t think any of this is a problem. The kind of people who can’t understand that you have to fight this kind of bullshit anytime it pops up or it eventually wins.

It just won.

[–] IHeartBadCode@fedia.io 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm still trying to figure out how systemd has anything to do with this. Any configurable level user database could have implemented this. /etc/passwd has your "Real Name" in it as well. Finger protocol could have been selected to expose this. Literally there's dozens of different places the age thing could have been implemented. The maintainers of systemd decided to be the first. Hell, MidnightBSD just added a daemon to implement it.

Likewise if you're informed enough you also know there's a flag to explicitly block it and ways to patch it out. While I'm typically a Slackware and sysvinit type of person, there's nothing unique about systemd that enabled the shitty law California passed. And fi you really care about privacy, how about less gloat and more information about ways around it, like this fork.

You'll go a lot further educating folks how to get around the things you perceive as bad rather than whatever your original comment was. The entire point is to get people ... on your side.

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.today 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That the developers chose to add it at the same time as all the age verification stuff was starting is too much of a coincidence. It shows that some developers in important roles will go along with age verification. The systemd thing can be argued the way that it has been but it's the beginning of the slippery slope

[–] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Exactly. The point is not the technical details of the implementation. The point is that their act of capitulation endorsed the concept.

As Free Software developers, they had an ethical obligation to resist and they didn't.

[–] The_Decryptor@aussie.zone 5 points 1 day ago

That the developers chose to add it at the same time as all the age verification stuff was starting is too much of a coincidence.

It'd be weird if they added it before the laws were passed, but not that strange to implement it afterwards, but before the deadline.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

i guarantee you the lawmakers who pass this kind of awful law have no idea what systemd even is or what it does

blaming it (or "systemd simps") for this is a colossal waste of time. the surveillance society has been progressively installed in the imperial core ever since 9/11, age verification and what’s it turning into is a consequence of this, and systemd adding an age field is a consequence of that.

blaming systemd for this shit, even in part, is so bafflingly silly, such a ridiculous example of swapping cause and effect that i can’t imagine you’re doing it sincerely but apparently people agree with this???

that’s like blaming the small creek in your garden for the existence of the raging river upstream. idk.

[–] meowmeow@quokk.au 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’m blaming the PEOPLE who say “no biggie, just a number” who can’t seem to get it through their thick, dumb, argumentative skulls that these kind of things ALWAYS AND WITHOUT EXCEPTION lead to loss of privacy and more authoritarian laws.

There’s a big picture. Stop arguing the tiny points with me and SEE IT.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago

Stop arguing the tiny points with me and SEE IT.

i agree, that’s why i think talking about systemd here (and arguing wether they want to implement this or not) is a massive distraction

anyways i’m gonna practice what i preach and stop talking about systemd now, enough bytes of online traffic have been spent on this

[–] MinFapper@startrek.website 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're shooting the messenger. Meta and others are lobbying governments hard for this. They're the ones causing you to lose your privacy. Not the volunteers that maintain systemd.

[–] meowmeow@quokk.au 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Then those volunteers can refuse. But they won’t, because they agree with this direction.

It’s plain as day. You’ll agree with me in a few years.

[–] MinFapper@startrek.website 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

And you can go contact your local/state/federal government representatives (I mean actually call, or go to town halls). But you won't, because hating on systemd is more important to you than your privacy.

It's as plain as day. You'll agree with me in a few years.

[–] meowmeow@quokk.au 1 points 20 minutes ago

Lmfao, you think contacting reps is a thing that works in 2026? You must be over 60, right? With no clue where the world is going… or, you LOVE where the world is going… that’s probably more accurate.

[–] vanillama@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago

Thank you for being a voice of reason

[–] chunes@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago

It was obvious from the start that enabling DRM and surveillance was the point of systemd all along.