[throwaw12]

Couple years ago the West was complaining about surveillance and scoring system of citizens in China (or was making fun of it)

Seems like US wants to get ahead on this and be #1

Also Sam Altman will love this idea, because he already tried it with Worldcoin

[onepointsixC]

The US is behind other democracies which have required photo id for social media and other content. And even if I disagree with these laws, surely you jest that showing a proof of age is not the same thing as surveilling and scoring.

[basilgohar]

These things are always a slippery slope. They rarely, if ever, achieve their safety goals but they almost always achieve the goals of the corporate interests to garner further data for advertisers and increase surveillance of the populace by the government through proxies that buy said data and then sell to the government.

[sixothree]

I think the general assumption is that it only aids in surveillance.

[toss1]

It is not merely showing proof of age

It is using the proof of age requirement to require a much larger ask -- full proof of identity

Age verification could be done with any of a variety of mathematical systems showing you have a proven age-valid ID but not revealing your identity. But no one is suggesting they build and use such a system.

[giancarlostoro]

It's a little bold to assume that 15% of the US population means the entire US wants this. We founded this country against unwarranted government interference in our personal lives, it's why the fourth and fifth amendment exist.

[janalsncm]

You could say the same about China, where only 7% of people can vote. In the US, 72% of people can vote.

[fsckboy]

>the West was complaining about surveillance and scoring system of citizens in China

free speech, civil liberties, voting, are in China all well below the standards of the west. The criticism and complaints were completely warranted and are still true today, whereas your comment falsely implies there is some parity.

could your comment be repaired to be reasonable? why bother, just read the rest of this discussion where people are debating these controls without trying to exonerate China.

[toasty228]

The point is that you're all shitting on China 24/7 while not recognising that you're slowly but surely building something very similar at home right now

[Aurornis]

> Couple years ago the West was complaining about surveillance and scoring system of citizens in China (or was making fun of it)

Comparing a private company's service to something run and maintained by an entire government on their population is disingenuous, to say the least.

[chipgap98]

Why is that any different? What’s to stop that company sharing information with the government?

[Aurornis]

> Why is that any different?

Because one is a private company that people can choose to use or avoid. The other is a government that can force things upon people. How are they the same in any way?

You know many companies check ID, right? You submit ID for a lot of activities. This isn't a new concept that Anthropic invented.

[gaze]

with sufficiently many public/private partnerships, what's the difference?

[toasty228]

They still come up with the "china bad" argument on this forum every single day, even though they're speed running the same BS at home

Meanwhile in the Land Of The Free:

> Prairieland defendant sentenced to 30 years in prison for moving a box of antifascist zines

https://theintercept.com/2026/06/23/prairieland-texas-ice-pr...

> US President Donald Trump threatened a "10 year prison sentence" to anyone caught vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool

https://www.dw.com/en/us-trump-threatens-prison-for-reflecti...

[micromacrofoot]

the funny thing is that the US created the credit system

[thih9]

Also the Chinese social credit system is not what most think it is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit_system#Misconcep... .

[kridsdale1]

Because we dismantled class and caste. It’s a “meritocracy caste” system (nevermind that you likely get huge advantages based on your origin)

[lenerdenator]

Well, the powers-that-be saw how a society that doesn't allow a lot of open criticism works in the form of China. The massive returns on investment, the near-permanent ruling class in the form of party cadres, etc. Then they decided they want that for themselves.

If you do business with totalitarian societies that aren't made to liberalize, you too will become a totalitarian society.

[janalsncm]

It’s funny, 30 years ago the argument was the exact opposite: China opening up and doing business with the rest of the world would force them to liberalize.

[lenerdenator]

That was the argument, yes, but let's be real: the reason that capital loved China wasn't because they were going to have to deal with trade unions and citizen initiatives to constrain their ability to unlock value. If that were the case, the then-newly-democratized Eastern Europe, or maybe India, would have gotten a lot more attention from business than China.

No, they liked China because the standard of living meant that it was easy to improve people's lives while also keeping them in line via a government that wasn't above grinding protestors into hamburger with tank tracks. The bar to clear wasn't "maintain the American standard of living", it was "provide more calories than Mao did during the Great Leap Forward", and so long as they could do that, they'd get to do whatever else they wanted with the workforce. Anyone who wanted more would get to deal with the CCP.