I’ve been thinking. Every mainstream social media is age verificated now. But sites such as SomethingAwful, 4chan and the Fediverse weren’t. So why are we trying to populate it if the Fedi’ was popular too, we would ALSO be verificated and spywared (made up this word for this post’s sake)?
A lot of the laws aren’t limited by the size of the site, or whether or not it’s non-commercial, so instances with users in some places with age verification laws already do; Australia, Mississippi, and the UK (with the Online Safety Act) are three example. I haven’t heard of any examples of instances getting warnings about this yet – although a couple instances with content that might be considered unsuitable for minors have geoblocked the UK to avoid triggering the Online Safety Act – but it’s only a matter of time.
So we will all eventually have to be age-verified, Fedi or not, one time or another?
Not necessarily – I didn’t mean to sound defeatist! VPNs are a thing (although they’re talking about restricting them in the UK), and there will always be networks run by admins who risk breaking the laws, and at least in Australia teens seem to be quite good at getting around the age verification for their social media bans so we adults can probably figure out ways around it too. I just meant that fedi’s relatively-small size isn’t a protection, and some point some governments will start to go after fedi instances.
In general though I think we in fedi need to take a much more active role in fighting back against age verification bills and other attempts to surveil and censor the internet, rather than just hoping we can continue to fly below the radar. https://piefed.social/c/fediverse@piefed.social/p/2230542/how-can-fedi-help-fight-bad-internet-bills has some more thoughts on that.
Many sites are already using age verification as an excuse to block firewalls. Presumably the fediverse wouldn’t but ……
I use Apple’s “Private Relay” so websites see a regional location rather than my actual ip and location. However oven been seeing more and more sites that block it as “firewalls are not allowed”
Edited for autocorrect
Great point!