Shouldn't surprise absolutely nobody, once you become the gatekeeper of the Internet, you're going to gatekeep.
Now it's torrent sites and next it's going to be other things the party in charge doesn't like.
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Now it's torrent sites and next it's going to be other things the party in charge doesn't like.
Nowadays... I actually think it might be a lesser evil. Picture such an ID, if there were a standard for it, enrolled into your computer.
If it were properly built, your computer could provide proof of age, identity, or other verified attributes on approval. The ID could also have micro-transaction support, for allowing convenient pay-as-you-go 10 cents per article instead of paywalls, advertising, and subscriptions everywhere. Websites could just block all non-human traffic; awfully convenient in this era of growing spam, malware, AI slop, revenge porn, etc. Website operators, such as those of small forums, would have far less moderation and abuse prevention overhead.
Theoretically, it would also massively improve cybersecurity, if websites didn't actually need your credit card number and unique identity anymore. Theoretically, if it was tied to your ID, it's like Privacy.com but for every website; much lower transaction friction but much higher security.
I think that's the future at this rate. The only question is who decides how it is implemented.
no, fuck this idea so hard. if this is inevitable, our duty is to build technology that defeats it
Second, if a porn website, social media, video game or whatever other thing regulators want to discourage people visiting kicks you off into an age verification takes requires you to some system/site, even an independent one, that requires you upload your ID, a fair number of people will simply refuse simply due to lack of understanding in how it works and trust that it actually is anonymous.
Third, every implementation I've seen doesn't work for some/all non-citizens/tourists.
And finally and more importantly, the ease at bypassing those systems means it's unlikely to stop anyone underage and ultimately is no better than existing parental control software, so all one is doing is restricting speech for adults.