The question is prompted by the age verification app that the EU has just presented.
Some EU countries want to ban social media for young people. If that were to happen, what then?
Does the App allow random platforms to do verification? Or do we need to be some registered business, do contracts, likely pay for the service…? For the App to speak to our instances?
Good questions. I haven’t seen any info about the economics yet. I think that’s up to the member states?
I found some info here: https://ageverification.dev/
But that’s difficult to read, very technical. And mostly written from the user perspective. It looks to me like they’re (for once) trying to come up with a proper solution. Everyone can be an Attestation Provider, Relying Party or repurpose the white-label App. At least in theory. It’s all specified and in the open. And then the European Union contributes some list of trustworthy Attestation Providers (governments, banks, mobile network providers…)
I think due to the project structure, it’ll be more like the Covid-Certificate App, which could be customized by every member state and it’s theoretically possible to use it as one uniform solution.
So unless there’s some certification for “Relying Parties” which I missed while skimming the documentation, I’d say in theory it’d be possible to use it on a technical level. Of course it’s still a preview so the EU has lots of opportunity left to mess it up.
Everyone can be an Attestation Provider,
Maybe everyone can apply to become one, but there will be some certification process. Anything else would defeat the purpose. So you have the question of how much that would cost and who pays for that.
I agree that, on a technical level, it should be possible to implement support for the app.
If they make the fediverse illegal, then it will be illegal. There’s not much that can be done about it. Obviously we cannot do “age verification.”
It would look really bad, politically, so they probably won’t go that far right now — they’ll just slowly push things in that direction until it seems feasible.
There’s not much that can be done about it.
According to many lemmings the elegant solution is to simply ignore the law entirely and pretend that will be ok
How is it they can meaningfully enforce it?
The notion that every single user-to-user service should incorporate invasive age-ID tools in itself is deranged and dystopian.
I’m not arguing it being an insane law. But it would be enforced by fining companies within applicable jurisdictions. Companies like system 76 or anyone else profiting from distributing an operating system, or anything else they can argue it applies to.
Oh we’re talking about OS, not user-to-user services online.
There are so many variants of Linux they could never get on top of it.
I mean yeah you could never get to 100% enforcement, like with every other law. But it wouldn’t be hard to have a huge impact against the big guys. Ignoring the law as one of those is not going to be smart. Unless you move your ops somewhere not impacted. But realistically it would be easier to just follow the law.
I mean I simply don’t think they will bother regarding the many Linux variants.
Same reason they won’t bother the Threadiverse. I doubt they even know what it is.
To consider the possibility is part of accepting that it will happen, making it much easier to actually happen. First, I think, people should pressure so it doesn’t get to pass, as they seem to be against it. If the worst scenario does come, then people can consider what’s the least bad route of actions.
We shouldn’t go down without a fight, out plan A must be to prevent dystopia. And you are right that asking "what if"s can encourage a feeling of defeatism by distracting from plan A, however it’s generally not bad to think about a plan B ahead of time.
I would only ever sign up for an instance that is not subject to it, or does not comply, or at least maliciously complies. And by malicious compliance I mean something where it’s implemented in such a “buggy” way that it’s easy to bypass.
But really I’d just go for instances hosted outside the EU.
“Fuck you, make me”
How on earth would the EU possibly do this given the entire structure is defederated?
They likely don’t even know what Lemmy is.
Good point. European governments keep churning out the digital regulation, but have hardly any qualified people to enforce them. That has protected the Fediverse, so far.
But a straight age-gating requirement would require no particular qualifications to spot. Would you be willing to face a hefty fine just for the privilege of running an instance?
A related question that comes to mind is what jurisdiction’s laws should we all be exploring to avoid age verification completely?
I’m not suggesting we all get legal degrees or dispense legal advice, but as conscientious people who are also literate: Should the Fediverse identify lists of these jurisdictions for its community of small to very large instances, and resources to help decide whether those laws of favourable jursidictions should be adopted and some common pitfalls?
We all see the headlines of countries exploring bans on under 16s for social media in the name of improved ad and online surveillance. Which are the countries who are saying no or will resist this?
It shouldn’t, just host it somewhere else where legislation doesn’t apply.
Will every website out there start doing age verification? Doubtful
Just the ones we will quit.
Implement portable actors and tell them to get bent
It should not. Fuck the police.
First of all we should submerge the EU parliament with protests, as we did for the chat-control question. Then protest marches, strikes, and so on. Then simple non-compliance. Whatever is undemocratic has automatically null morally legal validity.
I think we can still use the https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ platform for this. Just need to change the text and protest against age verification.
I’d sign and send an email for sure.
It’s easy. I would stop going to those servers who want to spy on me. I don’t have time to waste on such bullshit. I would read more books and still have fun.
The DSA isn’t a one size fits all. It uses a tiered system where the most intense rules—like mandatory age verification—are aimed at the Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs). The law was clearly designed with Big Tech monoliths in mind, so it doesn’t really fit the decentralized nature of the Fediverse. Small instances largely gets a free pass; the focus is on targeting the platforms that actually have the scale to cause systemic risk. I think the limit is drawn at 45 million users. No instance in the EU will (hopefully) become that big!
Today
And the winner for first slipper Nipple post is you.
yeah a different law or amended law could be different, it could punish posting by death, let’s stick to the actual law being proposed
I hadn’t considered if existing legislation might already require implementing an age verification when l posed the question. Now that you bring it up, I fear it does.
The DSA has exceptions for small companies. But I would caution that there is no case law that supports your interpretation that users should be counted on a per-instance basis. Courts are often not very receptive to attempts to avoid rules through such formalities. Bear in mind that the DSA is supposed to protect the “fundamental rights” of Europeans, which may not include running an instance.
Other laws do not have such exceptions. This app seems poised to become the required age verification mechanism, wherever age should be known. Either use the app or show you have something better.
In January, a Berlin court ruled that TikTok was in violation of the GDPR for not doing enough age checking. It’s being appealed. It remains to be seen how much of that case will be applicable to the Fediverse. But there is a good chance, that even without new laws, age-gating will become mandatory through case law.
