A lot of unanswered practical implementation questions surrounding this. Questions like how and why about a lot of things.

A question I have is why all the separate age brackets would be necessary. If the purpose is keeping kids from accessing porn or other “adult” material, why do they need any other categories aside from under 18 and 18+? Those age brackets read more like the kind of demographic categories advertisers, data brokers, etc are interested in than a simple age verification check.

No, I don’t have to trust the data brokers because of encryption.

Encryption alone actually isn’t preventing as much data collection as you indicate. I would suggest looking that up.

You’re also pretty confident in the specifics of your own situation, like not using gmail, etc. While I would caution you that you may not be as secure as you appear to believe, I’d say that you do demonstrate that you have some awareness that there is a problem with the nature of how data can be handled in such contexts. That’s definitely a good start. But I also think it would be good to consider that even if what you’re personally doing is as effective as you believe, not everyone is going to take the measures you’re taking. Even if it makes you more secure, what about everyone else? How do they fit in?

100% disagree.

You seem to be shutting out a lot of the info you’re being given. That’s understandable, strong opinions are often difficult to see past. But I’m noticing that we’re not meeting on some central facts, we’re kind of having two different conversations.

There is a lot to talk about here, a lot to address in what you’ve said. Productive discussion often requires being able to meet on facts, however.

We’re not talking about removing e2e encryption, https, VPNs and making selfhosting illegal.

While it might not be happening in your neck of the woods, there are efforts to crack down on encryption as well, in France for instance. The EU is not immune to encroachment and abuse of the individual’s rights, no place is.

It’s baffling that people confuse anonymity with privacy. My Signal account is tied to my phone number yet my conversation are private.

While you’re correct that anonymity is not the same as privacy, encryption alone is not a viable answer. As “Signalgate” in the US demonstrated, encryption is merely an attempt to secure a channel of communication. It isn’t sufficient on its own to protect anything, it isn’t even guaranteed to be secure a surprising amount of the time.

Overall, you seem to have a strong sense of faith that your country and the EU as a whole will be this unshakable pillar in the face of all of everything happening all around. Even if you trust your government or the EU, you would also have to trust the numerous platforms, service providers, data brokers, and digital security apparatus to all work honestly and in conjunction toward your (and everyone else’s) best interests. That’s quite a lot of trust and faith to spread around.

As far as all the various fascists and other bad actors you’re (rightly) concerned about, that is a good point to talk about. One thing to emphasize is that the major platforms hosting them have historically had a legal obligation to moderate their content, which they have been grossly negligent at. There is a whole discussion there, but the point is that there is a reasonable expectation that platforms do their utmost to handle these situations responsibly. Due to things like engagement metrics, this obligation often contradicts with the bottom line of the business (as brought out in the “Facebook Papers” leak) since controversial content typically elicits high engagement.

I (and others) don’t believe the answer lies in individuals forfeiting rights simply because the platforms won’t do what they are rightly obligated to do. Shifting the responsibility away from the platforms themselves not only makes it less likely they will improve their practices, but it makes any measures any individual or government may take to sanitize that caustic digital environment that much harder and less effective.

I actually think it can be commendable to speak out in a situation you view as hostile. I also don’t condone the personal attacks some people might throw at those who voice opinions they don’t agree with.

I would also have to say that I would assume that you get that it’s not guaranteed people are going to be entirely civil when you essentially tell them that you think that the rights they believe in should be done away with.

the very toxicity of online discussions is direct result of online anonymity

And you kind of just did exactly what you said you didn’t, using these interactions as a validation of your claims against those of the people you disagree with.

Having said that, it’s often better to take the high road when we can. It’s possible that not everyone who disagrees with you (or me) is an asshole.

I don’t profess to have “the answer”, and you’re right that it’s complicated. You’re also right that the state of things is bad and getting worse.

I hear anti-privacy arguments as pivoting the call for transparency away from the companies providing the harmful, toxic, and exploitative services onto end-users. This effectively bypasses the discussion about corporate accountability, in effect enabling corporate abusers to largely reframe the problems they enable or facilitate as problems of the public at large. This means discussion and efforts become focused on how to apply regulation to the public rather than corporate providers.

It’s a win-win for Big Tech, since they avoid serious talks about culpability for the harms they create, while simultaneously benefitting from the greater degree of data extraction made possible by the increased surveillance directed at consumers.

One recent article at It’s Foss is about age verification and similar measures, and touched on a lot of this. Here are a couple quotes I found relevant:

Safety becomes the moral language through which a more identity‑locked, surveilled, and centralized internet is made to feel inevitable.

The saddest thing about this moment is how narrow the mainstream imagination of alternatives remains. The policy menu is filled with bans, curfews, and ID checks for the same extractive platforms. There is little serious talk of changing the infrastructure.

This is pretty much exactly my sentiment. If we’re honestly looking for “answers” to these problems, we need to be willing to see them for what they are and where they actually lie. I’d say that goes for basically all kinds of problem solving, and I think that kind of common sense troubleshooting mindset is as necessary in this situation as any other. Just doing something to fix a problem rather than what’s actually appropriate is often a recipe for more problems.

Those are two different things. Being identifiable online is not the same as giving some company your personal information.

I 100% oppose forcing people to share personal data with private companies. This is not what we’re talking about here.

This is, in fact, exactly what we’re talking about here. The assumption that de-anonymization has some foolproof implementation that only does a single identifying thing (like a limited signal that only says someone is “old enough”) is missing a lot of context. Even Von der Leyen’s “privacy respecting” age verification app has been shown to have major flaws in that regard. The assumption that it will simply end there also contradicts the evidence.

Privacy is a right of fundamental importance to virtually all notions of liberty. Like it or not, data rights are human rights. A society without privacy becomes a society without freedom. The discussions around abolishing privacy are actually always discussions about other problems which are better served by addressing them directly and honestly rather than promoting the idea that the answer is sacrificing essential rights. Our best approach is to address these ills with an honest assessment of their actual, specific causes (like social media algorithms, lack of accountability, and the many reckless, harmful and exploitative practices which have become industry standards, etc) and act from there.

People are understandably heated over this subject. That often results in heated reactions. It doesn’t invalidate their points, however, and to claim that it instead proves your point that surveillance is necessary could evidence a bias on your part when it comes to engaging with this very divisive topic.

This argument is one degree of separation away from a “nothing to hide” fallacy. And as you accurately pointed out, it’s founded on a very unrealistic assurance of an entirely virtuous power.

Free speech is important. This fact can not be overstated. Surveillance backed by the threat of persecution chills not just “bad speech”, but any speech deemed undesirable by groups or individuals in power. This is a fundamental concept to understand when forming theories and opinions that also directly relate to subjects like democracy and authoritarianism. To miss this crucial fact is to formulate a skewed premise that favors the primary mechanism by which free speech, and by extension the many rights and liberties which require free speech, are historically suppressed.

The notion that democratic systems and values are compatible with a surveillance state is flawed. The two systems operate in directly contradictory ways. Surveillance states historically always tend toward forms of authoritarianism. 1984 was a work of fiction, but it was a warning driven and informed by very real demonstrated dangers inherent in the enabling and acceptance of a surveillance state. The validity of its message is shown clearly and repeatedly in real world examples of population surveillance in practice.

Trading liberties, including and especially privacy, for some concept of order, is a dangerous approach which ignores and contradicts historical evidence. To ignore this is to embark on the path to Oceania.

[Edit: meant to post this reply to your comment below]