[jck86]

But it is needed to protect the children. The politicians say so, so it has to be true. Being against this is very dangerous to our children and democracy. There is no alternative.

Seriously, there is something tremendously wrong with governance when politicians keep changing the whole world around us, without us having any say in it at all. The threat this measure poses to the internet and society is significant, yet it is being pushed through without any substantial debate or push back. This just is not how decent and actual democracies should function. What messed up timeline is this?

[Terr_]

> The politicians say so, so it has to be true.

The Politician's Syllogism (or Fallacy) [0]:

1. We must do something.

2. This is something.

3. Therefore, we must do this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

[roundabout-host]

Children die from wrongly-prepared food, thus we should only allow people to eat at McDonald's from now on! /s

[leonvoss]

When they run out of other rights to destroy, they will pipe videos of little girls crying from food poisoning into your e-verified telescreen during ChildSafe^TM viewing hours, and the result will be that you will get to choose between two state approved restaurants thereafter.

[mrec]

Two? Since the Franchise Wars, all restaurants are Taco Bell.

[anal_reactor]

> Seriously, there is something tremendously wrong with governance when politicians keep changing the whole world around us, without us having any say in it at all.

That's where you're wrong. Most people actually do agree with age verification. Just because a decision is stupid it doesn't mean it's undemocratic. Trump was elected democratically, twice. Brexit passed through a referendum.

[jck86]

Most people are in favor of solving world hunger, poverty, the wars and climate change. Until you hand them the bill. Likewise most people will not agree with age verification when actually implemented.

[leonvoss]

It requires reason to understand the consequences of your decisions. Reason is something democracies have a shortage of. Thus, democracies structurally suffer from issues like this.

[Ajedi32]

It worked great for the last several hundred years. The problem is that as government keeps expanding to control more and more of our lives, every decision it makes it necessarily imposes on everyone, whether they agree with that decision or not.

E.g. In a country of 100M people, if 60% agree with a bill and it becomes law, the country has imposed that law on 40M people against their will. That's just as true in a dictatorship as it is in a democracy. The more areas of our lives government involves itself in, the bigger this problem becomes.

[DangitBobby]

Whether it's federal, state, or local, you're going to see laws imposed on the 40% of people who don't agree with it. From what I've seen it's the federal legislature that is interested in protecting my rights and the state and local legislatures that want to infringe on my rights. The governments we are under have never been particularly hands off.

[betaby]

> It worked great for the last several hundred years.

No, it did not.

> E.g. In a country of 100M people, if 60% agree with a bill and it becomes law

That's not how that law was adopted.

[wobfan]

This doesn't make it untrue, instead it just confirms it (I know you didn't say or mean to disprove it, just wanted to add my thoughts here).

People make dumb decisions and don't think about possible outcomes twice, or even once. But (unfortunately, in this case) this is a core principle in a democracy. People may be lied to, or at least they are fearmongered into thinking that age verification is needed and encryption needs to be weakened because they thing they have nothing to hide, but if in the end they elect the people that are pro-age-verification, it's perfectly democratic.

IMO the media (including, most importantly, social media) is the problem, not the politicians and/or the democracy or whatever. They all play their part, sure, but it's how people are influenced by the current state of media what's driving all these populistic forces.

[roundabout-host]

Maybe it depends on how you frame it.

> Social media is destroying children's brains! Do you want access to be delayed until a certain age?

> Do you want children under a certain age to be banned from social media, which means that you will now have to give your ID, only with Android or iOS?

[anal_reactor]

> only with Android or iOS

99% of people understand this as "you need a smartphone" which is not a problem in 2026, even for the elderly.

[Hackbraten]

Linux-based smartphones exist. Are they going to be e-waste?

[netsharc]

Imagine if the requirements were instead "You need to have a phone with an OS controlled by Huawei"... do you see the issue there?

Maybe 99% of people have surrendered to Google/Apple (include me there), but the 1% has a valid point...

[roundabout-host]

Indeed, it is just as unfair no matter if 1%, 55% or 99.99% of the affected population has one. Your operating system should be a choice.

1. By doing this, the EU is killing any alternative operating systems for phones: no one will switch to one if they can't access online services. Banks are already making it extremely hard.

2. Google and Apple might be better regarded than Huawei, but they are not moral (or they are not guaranteed to remain so).

3. The very idea of a de facto state-enforced monopoly on operating systems is outrageous.

[roundabout-host]

"only if you choose to share your personal data with either Google or Apple"?

[duskdozer]

I don't think it's going to be any more convincing with that. At this point anyone I encounter in "normal" life already assumes that I and everyone else has and primarily uses a Google or Apple account.

[anal_reactor]

How is that different from having a banking app installed? Or a government ID app?

[kevin_thibedeau]

I have neither. Phones are too much of a security liability to be linked into such sensitive realms of personal life.

[roundabout-host]

What you can do with the ID app, you can also do on paper (if not with a Web service), except "age verification".

[afandian]

You can survive and be exist in society without both.

[spwa4]

Luckily, the EU's current structure was put to a referendum. That referendum then failed to get the votes needed, so they implemented it anyway. Much superior.

It's just like democracy. Without the "dem(b)" part. Much better now.

We have such warm feelings about it! What could possibly go wrong with doing such strong governance and extreme-right parties polling at record highs in more than half the EU countries? We have warm feelings now. Or maybe the warm feelings the result of 30 years of climate action in the EU. Luckily, the extreme right is hard at work defending our right to airconditioning!

[joquarky]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

[inigyou]

Maybe we should protect the children and then they couldn't use the excuse

[AnthonyMouse]

The scope of the things we already do to "protect the children" is tremendous. None of them have, will, or could prevent them from continuing to use it as an excuse for things that should never be done.

[inigyou]

I mean, Facebook conducts genocides and we just, let it do that.

[AnthonyMouse]

You seem to have jumped from "protecting children" to accusing them of an unrelated war crime for not censoring things aggressively enough.

On top of that, the relevant law they would have to comply with in those countries would be the laws of those countries, and those are the governments committing the genocides.

[inigyou]

Do you think Radio Libre was at all responsible for the Rwandan genocide?

[AnthonyMouse]

How does this question bear any relation to age verification?

[leonvoss]

their parents won't protect them and everyone else has to pay for it. maybe they shouldn't have been allowed to have kids.

[undersuit]

The governments won't protect them either. The governments are the ones enabling these corporations to exist and facilitate harm towards children. Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to have those corporations.

[inigyou]

And then the moment the government does do something, "it's a totalitarian power grab!!!111"

[roundabout-host]

They are doing something which is not a solution but can fake being a solution, so that the masses will accept it. An actual solution would be to regulate these social media, to prohibit addictive and manipulative algorithms.

[aa-jv]

Maybe OS vendors should stop trying to sell ads and instead fix their operating systems so that parents can responsibly monitor their children's online activity in a way that promotes both parental responsibility, and children's human rights ... but of course, that would require OS vendors to stop selling ads.

[inigyou]

Nothing could possibly go wrong with eugenics

[moi2388]

It can, but we’re quite good at it with all animals and plants..

[account42]

If you mean that we can breed subservient cripples then sure.

[BoingBoomTschak]

The Idiocracy scenario we've stepped into isn't much better...

[bennettnate5]

It is. It's far from good, but it's much better than eugenics.

[inigyou]

Note that we do have a system of eugenics, which we call money.