How broad ranging will this eventually be & how to avoid?

DeletedUser495

You have a right to not enter into contract with an entity that doesn't work in your favour. You want everything? Prepare to pay for it in some ways.

schweizer

DeletedUser495
Your choice is very limited and the price you pay is horrendous. I.e. whatsapp, if you decide not to use it or not to allow your kids to use it they and you are excluded from social life. Participation in school and organisations is only possible with whatsapp.

Freedom will not be killed because it is already dead.

zoe

DeletedUser495 This may work if you do not have a bank account and do communicate with "normal people" over Internet. Otherwise you will needs apps from one of the two monopoly app stores.

DeletedUser495

schweizer how great that we are not all perceiving things in the same way. Of course, this is about informed decision to let go of services that impair your privacy if that is what you're after. Once you have established what impact this is going to have on your ability to interact with others, you shouldn't take it as a fact that something is taken away from you but ability to control and restrict the way you communicate in a manner that suits your goals.

Eirikr70

schweizer I have withdrawn from Whatsapp which is in Europe the standard for communications. I can't access a lot of things but I have chosen so and it's ok for me. Who wants to interact with me can do so either by joining me on xmpp or through sms/mms.
It is a hard decision but I refuse to be the sheep just following the herd.
Freedom is by far not dead. You just have to grab it.

mmmm

DeletedUser495

Eirikr70

Ideally yes. Realistically no.

My kids school mandates Whatsapp. Thats as simple as that. There is no choice, because a choice for something like this - in their eyes, and in fact in most peoples eyes, is simply a ridiculous ask. And I can see their point.

Novalissoide

Eirikr70 through sms/mms.
It is a hard decision but I refuse to be the sheep just following the herd.
Freedom is by far not dead. You just have to grab it.

Grabbing freedom, through thoughtful use of sms... Hmm

DeletedUser495

Since I already use a sim card and can't hide my location from my network, I also use regular Telephony/SMS for sharing non confidential information and the rest of my commuications takes place over Signal (or Molly to be precise) along with explanation why it is more beneficial than using say Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or Telegram. I choose circles I operate in, they don't choose me. There would be no freedom in that.

MineralWater

mmmm

Age verification is still a good and needed thing.

I as an adult can decide if I want to use a service or not, and if I think a service doesn't deserve my ID, I simply don't use it.

I also don't believe people will use the Internet much in the coming years. Everything will be polluted with AI video, text, audio. Why would anyone use that anymore?

Internet will be used for governmental services, banking and maybe messaging like Signal. But all the other stuff? Nah, i am very sure the Internet and it's impact will fade.

And if people will still use it, knowing it's all hallucinations of AI, we as a society have bigger problems than surveillance.

Eirikr70

Novalissoide Freedom from the Big Tech, yes, for sure!

secrec

MineralWater Age verification is needed, specifically for (un-)social media apps and others.

The problem is the nanny state mechanisms used for age verification. You shouldn't have to prove who you are to random scumbags on the internet, like g00gle. They have no legitimate business knowing who you are or what you're doing, nor does anybody else.

How age verification should be implemented is on the user side. Children's internet usage should be controlled by their parents, not by government or websites. To facilitate this, websites/services should be required to publish age restrictions or other details so that end user access limiting software has the data needed in order to pass or block.

Novalissoide

secrec
Well, since age restriction policy can be implemented in a way that's only verifies a users age, not their full identity, that will be, and should be up to the developer/provider to decide.

mmmm

Novalissoide well cookie banners could be implemented with a none obtrusive click to accept or just ignore by default notice at the bottom of the page, but they aren't.

Age verification is a slippery slope, once it is somewhere it will be everywhere. As I said previously signing in is becoming more and more enforced. I can see a situation where you'll need to verify its you to prove you're not creating a fake account to read the news. And considering how polarising and political the news is, and who you should or should support.. The world is heading to a strange place, and monitoring of populations is increasing. This is one more method.

As if it was ever intended to save the kids from porn. What a joke.

secrec

Novalissoide since age restriction policy can be implemented in a way that's only verifies a users age, not their full identity

How exactly do you verify age without verifying full identify?

Answer: LOL.

Novalissoide

mmmm But if we view everything in this field as either on or off, and reject every attempted measure of regulation, the measures goes through anyway but lacking a good, nuanced debate about them before their implementation.

user2025

One of the best article i found online these days:

https://mark37.com/digital-id/

Skyway

Wonder if you create a google account outside of the the us or UK using vpn would get around that ?

Xtreix

Skyway There are no restrictions on creating a Google account in the EU.

mmmm

Novalissoide this measure is like the proposed chat control measure. Its a blanket measure imposed on innocent people. Its framed as protecting kids, or fighting crime or national security, or fighting terrorism. But it won't really solve any of those problems. It will allow monitoring of whole populations with ease though.

DeletedUser495

mmmm nobody says you have to take part in this monitoring. The fact you can't live without Google ecosystem is another story.

mmmm

DeletedUser495 I don't use google, thats a really strange assumption. And I don't take part in it. Except, at some point soon (it's happening already) you will be suspicious for not taking part. As I said in an earlier post, I am obliged to have whatsapp for my kids school to contact us about their welfare whilst at school. There is no option. The uproar I initially created was turning into a firestorm which only now, some 3 years later, I have just started to make inroads into comvininv them that I am not some criminal weirdo. But I need to be able to be contacted by the school, right? So I must comply.

You and people like you sitting there and claiming that not partaking is the solution, have failed utterly to see the web has already been woven.

These id's will be used to ensure one is living a legal life, and hiding from them wont be the solution, more so an admission of guilt.

23Sha-ger

mmmm I am obliged to have whatsapp for my kids school to contact us about their welfare whilst at school. There is no option

Me too. This is why I keep it in a separate profile and open it for 5-10min a day. Just to get updates.
Media and all other shit are "download by demand" - click to view mode.
Since I "trust" my contacts not to 0day RCE me, for most threat models it should work.

nologo

mmmm So what would happen if an accident or something happened to your kid at school and you would not have Whatsapp? Any responsible teacher would try to reach you, by phone, sms, email, or whatever. If they didn't, they would be irresponsible teachers. You would not be guilty of anything. They would be.

There always is a choice. Being 'the one without Whatsapp' can be hard, I know all sbout it (I am that one). But don't let them pull a guilt trip on you. Don't let them take your freedom away.