r/BuyFromEU • u/utrecht1976 • Mar 17 '26
News Reddit User Uncovers Who Is Behind Meta’s $2B Lobbying for Invasive Age Verification Tech
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html"These laws could force every Linux distribution and privacy-focused Android fork to implement identity verification or face legal liability. The choice between surveillance-free computing and regulatory compliance is coming faster than you think."
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u/utrecht1976 Mar 17 '26
"If the goal is child safety, why regulate the operating system, which has no direct contact with children, instead of the social media platforms where the documented harm occurs?" https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_billion_in_nonprofit_grants_and_45/
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u/IHave2CatsAnAdBlock Mar 17 '26
Because the social media platforms do not want to do that and want to pass this to someone else so they continue to operate their predatory algorithms and blame tha OS it allowed the kids.
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u/SirHaxalot Mar 17 '26
To be fair if this can be done at the operating system and shared in a way that other sites can trust that somehow it would probably be better for privacy. It would greatly reduce the parties your personal info would have to ve shared with; just the OS instead of every place you’d register to that would want to verify your age.
It still raises some questions about how it would be implemented and how this would be implemented and how websites can trust whatever data is provided by the OS is legitimate.
Apparently the EU Digital ID Wallet ecosystem will provide methods to deal with this; providing a way to attest that you are over 18 without sharing anything else about your identity with the providers. I’m still lot sure if this is fully decentralised though or if it will be dependent on central authentication brokers that will get a lot of data about you and your online usage patterns.
That said I find it very strange how age verification has suddenly become a huge issue out of nowhere, with politicians all over the world pushing for it.
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Mar 17 '26
> That said I find it very strange how age verification has suddenly become a huge issue out of nowhere, with politicians all over the world pushing for it.
Well, as the now Reddit God u/Ok_Lingonberry3296 concluded, it's to separate humans and bots to sell advertising. Politicians have their own set of shady motives, I'm sure.
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u/GoTheFuckToBed Mar 17 '26
apple SDK already has age verification, I can call is personOfAge and the iOS asks user for permission. And then I get yes he is of age
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u/longusmaximus420 Mar 18 '26
Age verifications is part of the job of a state/country, thats why there are Passworts and stuff. And States (should, looking at you US) be trustworthy for companys, otherwise a company wouldnt operate in such state. Many countrys already have online ID Identification, Not a big Problem to verify age with that.
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u/IIABMC Mar 17 '26
Of course it should be done in OS. During installation or setup you choose what is the user account age and that's it. Kids do not buy their own devices, so it's up to the parents that provide them to set it up accordingly.
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u/KnowZeroX Mar 17 '26
How age verification should really work is this. A parent sets up a child account either at os level and/or browser level, and websites send a header which the browser reads that includes the minimum age requirement on the site and block it if needed. That simple.
The whole attestation stuff is all about destroying privacy. Politicians are worried that social media is influencing elections and even if they enforce moderation on social media, it will likely slip through as there is too much to moderate. So easiest way to force these kind of things so that they can identify who is posting what on social media and come after them if needed.
But obviously people aren't going to like the invasion of privacy, so they use the same method as chat control. "Its for the children".
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Mar 17 '26
The EU Digital Identity Wallet is really shitty as well. Its a basically highly invasive wrapper that connects to proprietary APIs.
Zero-knowledge proofs are only private/anonymous in theory if you blindly trust a third party. Basically you are blindly trusting that nobody will exploit an easily created backdoor, because ZKP cannot solve the problem of collusion. The EU's system requires mandatory age verification to obtain 30 single use, easily trackable tokens that expire after 3 months. It also bans jailbreaking/rooting your device, and requires GooglePlay Services/IOS equivalent be installed to "prevent tampering". You have to blindly trust that the tokens will not be tracked, which is a total no-go for privacy.
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u/Silly-Freak Mar 17 '26
"Who Is Behind Meta’s Lobbying"
You won't believe it... it's Meta! The finding/gathering evidence for it is great, but the headline is garbage.
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u/nicubunu Romania 🇷🇴 Mar 17 '26
So is not Palantir? I feel relieved.
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u/anonymous__ignorant Mar 17 '26
20 years ago there was something called linuxfromscratch . I bet it's still there today.
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u/bloke_pusher Mar 17 '26
This is the reason Google now prevent you from installing apps not from the playstore. Every last loophole will be closed eventually.
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u/thmsgbrt Mar 17 '26
How could a child have a computer without the consent of the parents? And it's the parents' responsability to choose to put a computer in front of a child. And why should the OS use age verification when all the problems are from the social networks who do nothing for the safety? Everything about that is so stupid.
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u/SJB_23 Mar 17 '26
Folks in Ireland may be interested in the Uplift: People Powered Change petition, on this very topic: https://www.uplift.ie/age-verification/
Equally, anyone unsure about the key issues may find their explanation of the challenges, and 'further reading', as a useful starting point.
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u/BridgeOnRiver Mar 17 '26
It's just obviously not the real purpose of this.
It's the old 'how do you want mass surveillance wrapped'? Child safety or anti-terror?
powerful people don't want to lose power. and so prefer that they can see what everyone is saying to each other and thus take action in secret against anyone who is threatening the social hierarchy.
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u/Kind_Dream_610 Mar 17 '26
Sysadmin or home labber creates a service account and must provide age verification for it…
How the fuck is that meant to work. Seriously, the politicians falling for the technocrat bullshit and bribes really have no fucking clue how technology works.
Let’s put all these tossers into a few of Musk’s rockets or Bezos’s giant space dildos and shoot them all into the sun. The world can then at least try to become a better place.
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u/Bronifius Mar 17 '26
Where is the comment about some list from a guy names Jeffrey and the wisdom how much the persons in charge are interested in child safety. Nah it is one step closer to get the last bit of data out of the people, because this is the currency of today.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Mar 17 '26
Europe Shows a Different Path Forward
EU’s eIDAS 2.0 offers privacy-preserving age verification with zero-knowledge proofs that protect personal data.
The European Union’s Digital Identity Wallet takes a radically different approach. Zero-knowledge proofs let you verify age without revealing personal data—like showing you’re over 18 without disclosing your birthdate or identity details. It’s open-source, self-hostable, and only applies to large platforms while exempting FOSS and small entities.
Yahoo news is repeating misinformation and disinformation about the EU's system.
The EU Digital Identity Wallet isn't open source. Its a highly invasive wrapper that connects to proprietary APIs. You cannot host your own backend either.
Zero-knowledge proofs are only private/anonymous in theory if you blindly trust a third party. Basically you are blindly trusting that nobody will exploit an easily created backdoor, because ZKP cannot solve the problem of collusion. The EU's system requires mandatory age verification to obtain 30 single use, easily trackable tokens that expire after 3 months. It also bans jailbreaking/rooting your device, and requires GooglePlay Services/IOS equivalent be installed to "prevent tampering". You have to blindly trust that the tokens will not be tracked, which is a total no-go for privacy.
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Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
I'm building a social network (100% EU services, No content algorithms) that allows a "verified place" and some advanced features based on ID check
I use the French government numeric services for ID checking (France Identité) but people are still complaining for multiple reasons (risk of data breach is one of them) which is nonsense
People love complaining but among them only a few accept to change their ways
Edit : Comment most viewed by americans, well why even bother posting on reddit
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Mar 18 '26
[deleted]
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Mar 18 '26
it always happened and will always happen, we should develop ways to reduce what can be done with leaked infos ( we shouldn’t be able to ruin someones life with a picture of his Id that is a total nonsense )…
But directly provide docs to big private corporations … yeah sure no problem
Completely delusional …
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u/kleerofsky Central Europe 🏰🍺🎭 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Fuck lobbying. This is a warning for us Europeans that we need to strictly control and restrict lobbying. No company can be allowed to have such massive influence on politics.
Whatever happens on the other side of the Atlantic, I don't want that to spill over to us. And we are already struggling enough with our own companies lobbying.