Technology

Age-checking is just a backdoor to force everyone on the internet to identify themselves. Nobody cares about the kids, they care about purging the internet of political dissent and opposition.

It still doesn't have to be this way.

I am 420 years old.

Man... When I was younger I used to fake my age, I know that some kid's still going to find a way to bypass the system like giving their parent's verification IDs or something..

What is it with Neo-Liberal governments and implementing over-reaching state controls that will eventually grant a tyrant unprecedented levels of control over public life?

I didn't need the Internet anyway thanks though

I mean, schools (k-12) pretty easily blacklist websites you can access, not sure why parents can't just do that if they want as well.

It is not age verification.

It is privacy invading, morality policing, de-anonymizing, state surveillance.

Nothing less.

PS. If you want to download a video from a site that doesn't have a download button, use the Inspect feature (right click on the page, not the video, and click inspect)

*On the Network tab - Sort by size. Reload page. Find the video. Open the video in new tab. It will be just the video. Right click and save as, or click the download button, or click the 3 dot menu button and select download.

On Firefox you can often bypass this entirely by shift + right click. And should see a save video as option. If not, the inspect feature works the same.

For hls/TS videos (m3u8 streams), if you reallllly want, you can copy the link for the stream and use VLC to convert the stream to a file.

This also often lets you download at higher resolution than they offer to download.

Yes, I porn.

*forgot Network tab

And thanks for all the suggestions. I'd rather not install browser plugins if I can do it without. CLI tools are cool though. The less I need to install the better.

I legitimately dont understand who supports this. Who are these parents that can't parent their kids properly? It's so incredibly easy these days.

So instead of handling shitty parenting we restrict adults and with surveillance. Make it make sense.

I want to go back

This isn't about being "age-checked". It's about IDing everyone on the internet and tracking where they go and what they do.

The world we live in is far far worse than anything from 1984.

Since the earliest days of the internet, governments have been scheming to gain control over the dissemination of content - to have authority over what people can and cannot see.

Autocracies like Russia, China and North Korea simply established censorships regimes, but the best that western governments have generally been able to do is ban content that is illegal in and of itself, like child porn. Their goal, all along, has been to establish systems by which to censor content that is not in and of itself illegal.

This is the most success they've had yet.

All the big adult sites will probably just die or at least shrivel in popularity. Most Europeans simply will not use whatever "tell Brussels or London where or what what you are watching" option is. In the place of the big sites there will be a billion shady and likely virus-lottery proxy sites whose only selling point is that they do not do age checking or require registration. Those then get occasionally smacked down by Brussels, just to be replaced with 10 more clones the by the next week. On the side piracy and vpns will thrive. Kids will not be protected nor will people's privacy, quality will be worse.

I would also bet that when the landscape decentralizes there will be a lot more cp, revenge and peep-videos and other illegal shit in the mix that will get through through the cracks since massive established sites had to actually fear shutdown and losing all revenue unless they had robust gatekeeping mechanisms. If Brussels wants your 2 month life-expectancy site dead anyway, because of it's only selling point of having to show id, then why really bother with the quality control of the material. Especially if site holder has no personal qualms about that stuff.

these laws are all about control and tracking what you do online. they make the internet MORE dangerous, because (as with everything the government restricts or bans) there will be a black market, which is always more dangerous and exposes people to more things than they were looking for in the first place. you think dark web providers are gonna make you upload your id to stay compliant? no, they’re gonna continue anonymously operating through TOR and serve up some very questionably sourced content to those teens that are searching “boobs” and can no longer access pornhub

I will not be participating. I'll get around any barriers they put in place.

See, there are a few ways this could go.

1. Age verification is as secure and private as promised, and it's left at that. I like to call this "the miracle", and we all know those don't happen.

2. Age verification is as secure and private as promised, but a government asks for "access to data to prevent crime" - things degenerate from there. This is the "systemic failure" scenario.

3. Age verification is as secure and private as promised, but new scams evolve around it to make it dangerous. This would be the "criminal element" scenario.

4. Age verification is not as secure and private as promised, and a leak occurs destroying lives and careers. This is the "system failure" scenario.

5. Age verification is as secure and private as promised, but a few companies start scraping and selling data, leading to widespread harms. This is the "unethical merchant" scenario, and the most likely outcome.

All in all, there is only one "ok" scenario, and a lot of horrific ones. The math says we're entirely boned ^_^