If you donโt want to lose your privacy or right to access information, you should oppose these proposed laws.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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Reminder that this is all a desire of big techers to increase surveillance
I feel like this doesn't get said enough
Surveillance? They just want to sell you shit. But they need to know exactly who you are to very do that.
Just send a list of your fears to Facebook.
Such platforms gathering data for marketing purposes can be easily co-opted for surveillance by governments.
Remember: it's not age verification. It's mass surveillance.
We really didn't learn anything from Snowden.
The prototype age verification app is designed to preserve privacy https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/faqs/eu-age-verification-solution
I think it is a bit naive to expect this being done right, because they aren't interested in doing this properly, they aren't interested in you being above the supposed age.
The interest is surveillance, identification and tracking. Having a strong tracking point tied to a real ID .
It being done right is the only way it would get through parliament.
Most EU politicians don't want a police state. They aren't actively pushing for draconian laws. Some rotten apples try to get this through so they can be paid by surveillance corproations and fascist groups. But that doesn't mean they will win anything.
Just look at how much they had to skew things just to give Chat Control any traction.
Suppose I won't be on the net much longer, nice knowing y'all friends
Yeah I think itโs a good time to hang out at the pub instead
What plans do you have for your netirement?
Burning down data centres
The EPP are the main party that are pushing these mass surveillance laws in the EU.
Find out which parties in your country allign with them and you should know who not to vote for in the next election. They are by far the biggest party in the EU, and have almost every country's biggest party with them. They seem to be barking down the orders, and the national parties obey the orders. Von der Leyen and Metsola are both in parties under the EPP (I suggest a search using any search engine, with either of their names followed by allegations and controversies).
All of us are aware of corruption, power-mongering and all sorts of other undemocratic, underhanded tactics that politicians use, but the EPP are already acting on another level, and seem to be guided by US Big-Tech, if this is what to expect from them under the EU umbrella then we really should be fighting harder for our fundamental rights and freedoms that the EU alleges to value so much.
Europe is truly speedruning the mass surveillance thing.
In the last year they have been pushing , chat control, social media age verification and porn age verification.
A wonderful time to be european who doesn't want to be spy on every single thing you do.
Posting videos from RT now can get you prison time. But that's ok because they are only coming for the Russian sympathizers /s
The sensible way would be to sell little $5 USB dongles only to 18+ people that allow you to tap in a short simplified ID code to identify yourself as an adult. It would be good enough for age verification, hell make it illegal to pass it to minors, like it is with hard liquor or cigarettes. Would be anonymous without requiring a phone number (and ID indirectly), and could store encryption keys. And it would solve the problem of porn and age verification. It would solve so many problems.
When signing up to an account you need one of those and if you get banned you need to buy another one. That prevents abuse and trolling too. They would be cheap, but people would still not spam them. And they don't require two factor bullshit or phone numbers, because they are a secure device already. The same dongle could be used for online banking in addition to your passcode.
This is trivial to solve. What they want is mass surveillance. Which makes them traitors.
The whole idea of age verification is missing the point that these platforms are harmful to adults, too.
Are you suggesting they be banned outright from all? Here you have to weigh the freedom of citizens against the need to protect them from harm. Itโs easier to argue that underage children are unable to choose for themselves, but what would be the basis for limiting the freedom of adults?
We can ban the parts that are harmful such as personally targeted reccomendations
Banning no, but regulating yes. You used to need (or still technically need) a broadcast license or something to broadcast news or public a news paper. So historically this would have been the default, that if a newspaper publishes hate speech or derogatory lies about a person, that they can be legally stopped from doing this. All that went mostly out the window for social media, who have taken over news "reporting" and political commentary, replacing it with algorithms that act purely for profit and deliberately create divisions and polarization. The government absolutely has a duty to protect adults from that. Addictive substances have also been outlawed / regulated.
It's just that when all this started it was small and harmless and most computer nerds were very much against any kind of regulation. We were warned but I was an idiot back then too. Now we have an overwhelming concentration of global political power in the hands of e.g. Zuckerberg and others controlling social media, for profit, for neoliberal political goals, for the suppression and diversion of political expression, or promoting fascist political ideology. It's really only since ~2010 with Trumps rise and backlash to Obama that things quickly became this bad.
We are supposed to be a democracy, but today unchecked foreign political power not just influences the opinions of people, but sets the agenda.
I would absolutely be in favor of banning all unregulated (e.g. US) social media and creating an EU wide public utility social media network. Just make reddit, facebook, insta and all that stuff inaccessible in the EU unless they comply with very stringent regulation and moderation and a "non-profit" approach. China and Russia have their own media not just to suppress dissent, but to protect themselves from US influence. But I do think we now know enough to create a better alternative than either.
Yeah if they'd regulate this unchecked media power our world wouldn't be this bad. Like mandating proportional human moderators to keep garbage, hate speech, grifters and criminals out.
European politicians supporting age verification deserve an earful of criticism.
SLAM!
You're totally right. But also not. As protecting kids can't surely be the main reason for this. At best it's a welcome side-effect.
So your trivial solution would be great but defeating the purpose ๐
this is a great opportunity quit social media
A union at last. /s
What's this about Svalbard? They don't even have you take off your balaclava at the bank.
Age verification for Jan Mayen! Oh the horror!
I hear the Norwegian army employs a lot of impressionable children nowadays.
What does that have to do with this conversation?
Those are the people who you're likely to find on Jan Mayen
Who drew this fucking map?
The purple colouring suggests its a proton map to me, but I've not verified that.
Edit: the source link is proton. So probably their AI; Lumo.
from what I've heard Estonia and Belgium oppose social media bans for under 16s