The bipartisan push to remove anonymity from the internet is ushering in an era of unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship.
"The problem is that there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are. A platform cannot magically discern that a user is 16 without collecting identifying information, whether through government documents such as a passport, payment information like a credit card, or other identity-disclosing data. Whether that data is stored by the platform itself or outsourced to a vendor, the result is always the same: A user’s offline identity is forever linked with their online behavior.
Stripping anonymity from the internet would constitute one of the most sweeping rollbacks of civil rights in recent history. It would allow for unprecedented levels of mass surveillance and censorship, endangering the most marginalized members of society. Whistleblowers exposing corporate wrongdoing could be tracked and fired, government employees speaking out about illegal behavior or bad policies could face prosecution, and activists organizing protests could be identified and surveilled before ever setting foot on the street."
And this is exactly the kind of thing US lawmakers will decide for US citizens, and it will effect everyone who uses the internet globally. Already any kind of age verification amounts to "hand over your government identification to a private US corporation".
I dont know what solutions might be on a broader scale, but its absurd for one country to have this much power and for their private corporations to be handed this amount of authority from literally world governments demanding "safety for children". This power structure is absurd.
Yall USians have got to shut down all this bullshit, youre the ones who vote these people in and out. Theyre not gonna give a shit what foreigners have to say.
