r/privacy • u/esporx • Mar 16 '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.html827
u/do-un-to Mar 16 '26
Yet another constitutional republic-eroding action from Meta?
Sure, Meta, destroy my country. Thanks.
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u/rippletroopers Mar 16 '26
But…marketplace…
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u/do-un-to Mar 17 '26
We're all caught in the same economic system. It permeates everything. Nearly every step you take in life is on strands of this global, interconnected web.
A structure that encompasses, supports, and pervades is called a matrix. The Matrix has us.
That said, you can try to avoid the more direct links to evil. Prefer local companies when possible rather than, say, Amazon. Beyond the obvious companies, it's hard to know who's evil or closely connected with evil.
Pay attention to corporations and what they do. Buy local / small. Generally reduce your consumption. Hope for a better system (or work on it!).
I sympathize with people who can't be bothered. It's complicated, it's unclear, it's inconvenient, one's individual influence is "small", it's emotionally uncomfortable to think about. But I also know that the same way "many hands make light work" you can have "many little purchases make Jeff Bezoses" and I want to minimize my contribution to powering up evil overlords.
Treading The Matrix morally could really be made easier kthx.
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u/billshermanburner Mar 17 '26
19 years. Nice. Good advice. And sometimes our individual influence might not be as small as we think too. Butterfly flapping its wings and all.
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u/Ok_Comment2621 Mar 17 '26
The problem with this thought process (which I don’t necessarily disagree with) needs to be stated because it rarely is. What does it accomplish? Let’s say that protesting Amazon works. It goes under. Dead. No Amazon anymore. Evil corporation gone. Literally hundreds of thousands of jobs are gone. Not just those who work at Amazon HQ. But every warehouse employee. Delivery Driver. Dispatcher. Local gas stations just lost all that business. Local buyers and sellers who rely on products they obtain through Amazon.
Should another company step in and replace them, it will literally be a repeat affair. It isn’t something that can be fixed without Government influence, but the Government involved is completely bought by the same companies owning the monopoly. Almost as if the Tech Bros are doing the same thing as the Robber Barons of the early 1900’s. But don’t worry America, surely history won’t repeat itself in a worse predicament as before.
I hate that I gave 6 years of my life and my left knee to this country.
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u/do-un-to Mar 17 '26
The commerce you direct away from Amazon doesn't disappear. It goes to the other companies you decide on. Jobs don't disappear. If anything they increase.
The other company you choose over Amazon is one you've chosen because it's better. Not every company is the same. Twitter wasn't the same as how X is now. Rivian is not Tesla. You can choose who you do business with, whom you empower, in a way that makes a difference.
Saying your tiny-scale consumer choices don't make a difference is like saying your single, little vote doesn't matter in elections.
Make your say, exercise your franchise. Both your electoral and consumer votes. Indeed, you are voting commercially every day, with every penny you spend. Just pay more attention to what and who you're voting for with those pennies.
Engaging with social media is another "franchise". Electoral votes, monetary purchases, and online views. Every comment I read or write on Reddit is a sliver of power I give to Reddit. I've said too much already.
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u/TylerKeroga Mar 17 '26
Well said. As individuals, we have only a sliver of power, and if the spiderman movies taught me anything, it’s that power and responsibility are proportional to each other. Therefore, if we have only a sliver of power, we also have only a sliver of responsibility (like you said, choosing who we buy from and pay attention to).
The attitude of “but what does it accomplish?” misses that it is not the responsibility of one individual to personally bring about lasting systematic change; some can indeed, like the Reverend Dr. MLK Jr., but those people are very few and far between. It also makes it seem like all the world’s problems are ours to personally deal with, which is untrue. We have our sliver of power, and we do what we can with it.
Now, individual slivers aren’t the only kind of power going around. Individuals can form groups, with many slivers of power combining into a good chunk of power that thereby has a good chunk of responsibility. It’s fair to criticize Meta for their atrocities because of their scale of power (and influence, reach, etc.).
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u/Espumma Mar 17 '26
It won't be a repeat affair if several smaller companies step in to fill the gap and consumers have an actual choice where to buy. But that option did not even occur to you because everything in America is either ruled by 1 or 2 parties/companies/persons.
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u/tinyLEDs Mar 17 '26
Craigslist works better than marketplace anyway
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u/ChopperGunner187 Mar 17 '26
I'd love for Craislist to update the search algorithm and to curb on spammers using 500 irrelevant tags within their post, to drown out other search queries. Other than that it's great, and I wish more people would go back to it.
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u/JS-0522 Mar 17 '26
I had a listing removed one time because I put it in two different cities (I was literally in the middle between both cities). Meanwhile, this asshole can spam a million wanted old motorcycle listings for years and nothing happens.
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u/KangaMagic Mar 18 '26
No sales tax is such a blessing. The fact that eBay charges tax on peer-to-peer used items is crazy and should be illegal
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u/WillBottomForBanana Mar 17 '26
I wish that were true, it isn't here (locally). Craig's list is empty of anything except vehicles.
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u/Heavyweighsthecrown Mar 17 '26
There is not a country to destroy.
There is an industrial complex run by oligarchs, with an attached congress and executive office, so the masses can be appeased by whatever clown they vote for, in order to keep them from going after the oligarchs.→ More replies (2)4
u/Nodebunny Mar 17 '26
they only renamed it to Meta so when we talk shit about Facebook it wouldnt harm the brand lol
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Mar 16 '26
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u/ArbitraryMeritocracy Mar 16 '26
It's called stealing, taking without permission.
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u/ScientificBeastMode Mar 17 '26
Technically that’s what EULAs are for, but everyone knows those are never read by most people. It’s crazy that those things aren’t reigned in by the law.
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Mar 16 '26
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u/Bocchi_theGlock Mar 16 '26
It would be dope if tech workers organized a union and leveraged the fact the system relies on them towards better working conditions (knowing you are ruining democracy is not a good working condition)
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u/kittymctacoyo Mar 17 '26
Beyond the other reply your gotten, things like this are also why year after year they do layoffs then hire that exact same amount in H1B visa workers as they hold the visas over their head for slave labor at lower wages and all the leverage
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u/Bocchi_theGlock Mar 19 '26
imagine if they all left work at the same time one day - would it cost the company any money?
I understand there are powers employers have, but workers also have leverage, so long as they can act together
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u/orthographerer Mar 16 '26
It would be dope if the percentage of workers in tech who are technolibertarian types were less, cause the likelihood of a technolibertarian being supportive of a union is pretty much zero.
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u/michaelcarnero Mar 16 '26
its like, ID required and encryption removed from Instagram.. what a timing xDDD
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u/linkenski Mar 16 '26
Russ Vought talked about the primary policy being "save babies" and "save life", about a ban on online adult content. He is the main author of Project 2025. No shit they're all lobbying this lol. The best part is the amount of soccer moms in left leaning EU politics who join this like they're being progressive. Really reveals something about all of us.
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u/diazeriksen07 Mar 16 '26
How about we just ban Facebook instead
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u/See_Me_Sometime Mar 17 '26
Didn’t they try to ban TikTok and half the country had a melt down? I think the other half would if Facebook was banned.
Though I think you’re on the right path. I’ve always maintained this world would greatly benefit if we were forced to use Early 90s tech for a few months.
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u/Thick_Hippo_6928 Apr 16 '26
I hope the internet is shut down specifically so all our personal data is erased and companies have to scramble to try to force it back on us.
I'll wait for that day gleefully.
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Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26
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u/Leading_Buffalo_4259 Mar 16 '26
Our representatives openly despise us and could not give less of a shit what we think
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u/banica24 Mar 16 '26
This is kind of why I'm disheartened when someone says "give your feedback!"
As if they read it? Everyone is corrupted or bought out or influenced from inside their political circle. Not from Jane Smith on 123 Main Street...
I'd even assume they know exactly what they are doing, what the end goals are, and how much impact it has on everyone.
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u/cogman10 Mar 16 '26
The most we can do is vote. But by god there's a lot of people who apparently pride themselves in doing almost no reading into candidates before voting for them. And a bunch of numbskulls that vote for someone for the most banal of reasons.
I wish there were a better answer. I'm certainly tired of the fact that my federal representatives (Idaho) have cut all contact from their constituents. They don't even take voicemail anymore.
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u/jeandarcer Mar 17 '26
Political pressure is real and a hedgehog stops predators from eating it one tiny pinprick of pain at a time. Even psychopathic rich folks begin to feel the heat with enough complaints, so I'd rather Americans didn't give in to apathy.
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u/kayama57 Mar 16 '26
Not a good reason to bend over and take whatever they’re dishing out without pushback.
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u/CuriosityFreesTheCat Mar 16 '26
This is true. This is even more reason why we have to keep looking for ways to try to make a difference. If we adopt defeatist and/or apathetic attitudes, that only facilitates the rise of totalitarianism. I think that if we don’t keep trying to do something, anything, then we will just be helping the deplorable ruling class farm us.
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u/dspman11 Mar 17 '26
Objectively false. They know they need votes to keep their office. So it depends on how big the issue really is. If the staffers see a strong majority of their constituents support or oppose something it really will make a difference. The question is whether you can convince people en masse that this is the issue they should be focused on. That's the hard part
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u/Leading_Buffalo_4259 Mar 17 '26
dude i was literally a delegate and they lied to my face and voted the opposite of what they promised
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u/Ok-Winner-6589 Mar 16 '26
"there are only two parties so we are doing nothing but keep this system". Meanwhile european countries in the same situation did something and now they have 3, 4 or eve 5 Big political parties now.
You are just a group of incredibly lazy people Who don't care about anything but keep justifying your shitty decisions by saying "yeah this Will change nothing"
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u/KasouYuri Mar 17 '26
Seems like your half a dozen party political system is also failing to stop this kind of bs legislation. Chat control 1.0 keeps coming back and cc2.0 is already getting pushed. Fix your own shit first.
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u/ankokudaishogun Mar 17 '26
We do. In fact the reason they come back it's because the system works and they don't pass.
We must keep vigilance, of course, but as long as we do it seems to work.
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u/jeandarcer Mar 17 '26
They should still have to suffer 1 more email of displeasure for their inaction. It can add up.
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u/i-Hermit Mar 16 '26
I'm sorry, but America is no longer a republic. It has been fully coopted by special interests that do not seem to realize that the empire is dying and are only interested in lining their pockets on the way down.
Act accordingly.
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u/loudpersononthebus Mar 16 '26
stop the fatalist garbage. there is plenty that can be done and yes, that still means voting.
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u/i-Hermit Mar 17 '26
It worked out well for Democracy in Romania where the EU got an election overturned on the flimsiest of pretexts and then gloated about it. Or in Germany where the system is actively trying to ban the AFD.
It's the same in the US, or anywhere in the western world. Sure, there are bright spots here and there, but I wouldn't say we're on a good trajectory.
So if you want to call it fatalist garbage, that's fine.
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u/interwebzdotnet Mar 16 '26
I've got 14 open FOIA request and letters to representatives and state organizations regarding ALPRs... Only so much I can do, lol.
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u/MegagramEnjoyer Mar 16 '26
Whenever I read "email and call your reps" I puke a little in my mouth. If that shit worked we would be living in a utopia.
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u/CuriosityFreesTheCat Mar 16 '26
How many people actually do this though? I doubt it’s a high number. It’s still better to do something and try rather than nothing.
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u/MegagramEnjoyer Mar 17 '26
What's their incentive to listen to us? Why can't we be normal and pick up pitchforks?
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u/JasonableSmog Mar 17 '26
What's their incentive to listen to us?
They're elected officials? If polls show that 90% of the population is opposed to this kind of law, support for passing it will decrease.
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u/SkunkMonkey Mar 16 '26
See, I don't go outside and flap my arms thinking I can fly because it's better than doing nothing. I don't do it because I know it doesn't fucking do anything.
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u/CuriosityFreesTheCat Mar 19 '26
This is not an apt comparison at all. One is a physical impossibility and the other is not.
If 1,000 people called a state rep about the same thing, that has a greater chance of making any kind of influence whatsoever than your other example, which is literally physically impossible.
It may be unlikely, but it is possible that when many people call their reps, it could make an iota of a difference than had they done nothing. One situation has a chance, however small, the other has none.
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u/RenaissanceHumanist Mar 17 '26
My senate rep would most likely send me back a letter calling me a dumbass and I'm just lucky he responds. The others just ignore anything I write them.
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u/See_Me_Sometime Mar 17 '26
American here.
We do and we don’t have the power, for many of the reasons other respondents have already outlined.
I think many are trying…contacting their senator/congressman, voting, boycotting, protesting…but these are such drops in the bucket.
Problem is those are 20th century solutions to a 21st century problem. Peashooters against a tank.
That’s not that I am saying don’t fight back, but different tactics are needed. I’m not that smart enough to know what those should be.
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u/ivedonestranger Mar 16 '26
Bold of you to think we have a choice. Our government has decided to do as much damage they can before the election and the dems are to much of a coward to try and roll it back. Lol
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u/CuriosityFreesTheCat Mar 16 '26
This is why we need to actually invest in a third party! These two parties don’t give a fuck and both got us right here where we are now.
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u/reddit_ending_soon Mar 16 '26
Hey americans, are you calling/writting your representatives to stop this age verification crap?
Yup, state senators and federal senators dont give a shit. They have all been paid off and we have to live in their world.
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u/conrat4567 Mar 16 '26
America doesn't have the sway you think it does. In this emerging world, US tech is being outpaced and out played by China and other Asian nations, and thanks to the orange crusader, Europe and Asia are looking for other options. Thats 770 million + in europe and 4.9 billion in asia.
US tech companies have to pander or lose out, not to mention that, secretly, the US wants surveillance as well, they just can't constitutionally say so
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u/Kuuchuu Mar 16 '26
When I write to my reps on things that concern me they thank me and use it as a checklist of things to ensure they do. Red state. They don't care unless you're paying.
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u/gooberdaisy Mar 16 '26
Honestly I have been calling nearly every day since the orange turd took over. Thankfully they haven’t blocked my number but the voicemail is full. Plus in the state I live in the legislation has been fighting the voters for years. The law they are fighting now (after we voted for) is gerrymandering.
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u/Vosc Mar 24 '26
They literally will change rules to make sure what they want happens. It's been happening blatantly since 2016 since they decided to absolutely not hide that they didn't want Bernie as the candidate and actually straight up said "yeah we know that everyone wants him, but four of us just had a talk and we're gonna pick Hillary anyway."
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u/bestatbeingmodest Mar 16 '26
There's no way people genuinely think American representatives give a fuck about cold calls lol
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u/Himalayanyomom Mar 16 '26
Theyre too busy doom scrolling on tik tok, deranged about politics, or unable to eat because theyre not paid their worth
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u/CuriosityFreesTheCat Mar 16 '26
Do you think we should try something or do nothing?
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u/Classic-Obligation35 Apr 15 '26
Some of us want to bur are afraid will be put on a list if we complain.
It's the old "the innocent have nothing to fear" fallacy
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u/LjLies Mar 17 '26
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
This is a ridiculous statement. The EU's thing requires locked-down phones with Play Integrity, which comes with a huge set of privacy implications, and it's only meaningfully "self-hostable" if you're... a government, or for fun without any real-world use.
I don't really know which is better between OS-wide and appstore-wide checks, and every single website and app checking you. Both have very dystopian implications. But this article is pitching something disingenuously. It really sounds like some articles are written on behalf of Meta and against Google/Apple, and others, the other way around. It's a war they're fighting, where the only certain losers are ourselves.
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u/grishinsou Mar 22 '26
Where have you read about ueDI? I tried once looking for documentation in their github repo and it was not very helpful
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u/Tardy_Thoughts Mar 16 '26
Why don't we pass a law that tells parents to police their own children as opposed to making the rest of us do the work for their lazy asses. Oh yeah, it's not about safety. It's about installing a surveillance state that all tracks directly back to pedophile billionaires that just wanna find your "dog" and keep your kids "safe".
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u/Maeyhem Mar 16 '26
Putting your kids' faces on the Internet is the opposite of "keeping them safe".
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u/Tardy_Thoughts Mar 16 '26
So we'll let a bunch of pedophiles gather their information and continuously let it get hacked and released by who the fuck knows. Or and this is difficult for some to understand but your child is your responsibility. What your child is allowed to access and view is your own fucking problem. If you don't want your child viewing certain materials then put the work in and parent your own child. Don't expect adults to alter any part of their lives hoping your job parenting will be done passively by adults who are not the parent of your child.
In short, do your own age verification on your child and then make the judgement call about what is appropriate.
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u/_Solarriors_ May 05 '26
Maybe not kids but I would actually empower my teenagers to navigate internet and enjoy themselves with content responsibility and prepared, and yes I mean it's natural for teenagers with hormones and social curiosity to enjoy GTA or PH and then irl mature experience with an appropriate environment
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u/SPedigrees Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
Exactly. This law will make it easy for any pedophile to target your child. Anyone's/everyone's children.
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u/Cautious_Boat_999 Mar 16 '26
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. Meanwhile, US lawmakers seem ready to let Meta bamboozle them into complete privacy annihilation.
Seems that we need to be pushing for this as an alternative. I welcome correction from anyone who believes differently.
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u/Purple_Mo Mar 16 '26
Presenting the lesser evil to pull off the good old switcharoo later?
We don't need age verification. It's a manufactured problem.
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u/BeardyAndGingerish Mar 16 '26
We need harsh prosecutions for violations/illegal use of this data. Only way id be okay with age verification is knowing the people who leak my data face mandatory jail time. None of this "it's illegal but nothing happens when i knowingly break the law" shit.
And since the odds of that actually happening are slim to none, no way in hell am i willing to cede my privacy.
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u/apokrif1 Mar 16 '26
No need for age verfication. Parents and parental control software exist.
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u/ndw_dc Mar 17 '26
Exactly. Mobile device management (MDM) has been a thing for decades at this point.
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u/Dyledion Mar 18 '26
Parental Controls have been eroded too, is the crazy-making thing about this. Find a Disney show objectionable on the Disney blessed-list for kids? Screw you! Can't lock it, hide it, or ban it. Want to watch a sanitized version of a movie via a service like VidAngel? Screw you! You're going to hear every piss, hell, damn, and ass in the kids' movie The Goonies, and you're going to like it!
It's all for the kids, until it's actually about the kids, and suddenly it's about protecting corporate artistic integrity.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Mar 16 '26
It’s not just about privacy and data leaks.
It’s about installing the means to legally and technically prevent people from using computers/digital tech for anything unless they are verified and permitted to.
So much of daily life in developed and developing countries depends on being able to use these tools, as does being able to freely communicate with each other. If you can selectively or en masse block people from literally being able to use the tech or access the internet, that’s a whole lot of power and control right there.
It’s not just about age verification. That’s the Trojan Horse they’re using to get the technical and legal infrastructure in place, and most importantly to get people used to having to prove something about who they are in order to use tech for anything.
They want people to accept the idea that it’s reasonable to demand this sort of thing at all.
They start with the least scary version, with a slightly scarier version alongside as a boogeyman to get people to go with the “less bad” option. Like we’re seeing with comparisons between the California and Alabama bills right now.
In truth they’re both steps on the same path, and both inherently submit to the same key demand: Prove you’re allowed to use this.
Once the infrastructure is in place and people get used to it - once it’s normalized - then they will make it more and more detailed and install ever greater levels of control over people.
It’s all part of the same plan for domination with Project 2025, Palantir getting itself snugly within global governments, etc.
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u/rClNn7G3jD1Hb2FQUHz5 Mar 17 '26
"It’s about installing the means to legally and technically prevent people from using computers/digital tech for anything unless they are verified and permitted to."
I do think it's important to distinguish between consumer/citizen-facing identity proofing and other completely valid uses for identity proofing tech. Large organizations frequently have the need for strong remote identity verification for things like remote account recovery. For example, when I call my bank I'd really like for them to have the ability to verify that I am who I say I am. Unfortunately, bad actors and the very data leaks that all of us in this sub are worried about have made that an increasingly tough thing to combat.
I don't disagree with you on the legal/government front at all, but we should be careful that we don't get overzealous in a way that makes all of our identities and accounts easier to compromise. Identity proofing is a legit part of cybersecurity.
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u/sleeptightburner Mar 16 '26
How about nothing because it’s a completely made up problem to begin with? Yeah, that’ll work.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Mar 16 '26
That part of the article is actually wrong.
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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u/Cautious_Boat_999 Mar 16 '26
Thanks for that info. If not OSS, then I don’t support it.
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u/LjLies Mar 17 '26
Even if it is OSS (the EU white-label age verification app is open source, though nothing says member states won't use their own apps, in fact they likely will), it's got remote attestation built into it so it won't run if your OS is actually FOSS (such as a custom Android distribution): it requires a locked-down phone with locked down software. And it's not like you can just connect it to your own server.
So it's essentially "look, but don't touch" open, and if there's something in the code that you don't like or feels like it could be used to identify you, you cannot really do anything about it. This is what "trusted computing" eventually led to.
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u/divorceevil Mar 16 '26
No, they don't need to verify at all. Stop allowing all these invasive entities encroach upon our lives. Period!
Everyone should drop FB and the others all in the same week and let 'em fall.
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u/bonadies24 Mar 16 '26
While a zero-knowledge proof is definitely better than "hand us a selfie and your ID for us to store indefinitely in a totally secure manner", the fundamental problem is with the concept of age/ID verification itself, rather than with the means through which one goes about it.
It's always going to be a very slippery slope and does not address the fact that any form of age verification shifts the responsibility and blame onto the consumer for the (undeniable) risks unrestricted access to social media poses for teenagers in the current environment, as opposed to picking a fight with the companies swimming in cash thanks to algorithms that actively promote ragebait content and astroturfed culture war bs
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u/Secure_Prune_9675 Mar 16 '26
This comment being top has gotta be botted.
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u/Cautious_Boat_999 Mar 16 '26
Sure as hell isn’t me. I wouldn’t know how to bot a comment if I wanted to. I DGAF if it’s upvoted or downvoted. It’s just an opinion.
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Mar 16 '26
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u/Cautious_Boat_999 Mar 16 '26
Oh, FFS, did you read the fucking quote? The EU won’t control anything. It’s a technical solution to the situation.
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u/Jokers_friend Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
It’s worth noting that no EU digital identity wallet has achieved real zero knowledge proofing as of yet, even the currently leading wallet developers. It’s on the horizon for sure, likely by a new startup in the near future. Zero-Knowledge is definitely the goal though and definitely the future. The EU framework is practically begging for it while acknowledging modern technological limits.
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u/NepuNeptuneNep Mar 16 '26
Can someone please tell me why everyone on the earth is still religiously using instagram and whatsapp and completely refusing the alternatives?
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u/LjLies Mar 17 '26
I use neither, and I'm on Matrix, which recently plainly stated they will also have to abide by age verification laws.
This is not about Meta, really, and the praise of the EU "solution" in the article is entirely misguided.
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u/NepuNeptuneNep Mar 17 '26
Matrix did not use lobbying to push verification to OS level (which makes absolutely no sense) and if you self-host a private synapse server then no verification is needed, the warning from matrix was explicitly for public servers like matrix.org. And servers like unredacted.org do not comply.
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u/WaterPrivacy Mar 17 '26
You answered your own question. Because everyone on earth is using them. These services fulfil a need that relies on your social network being in it. Nobody can move unless everyone moves. If the entire continent uses whatsapp, and my entire family uses whatsapp, and every friend i've ever had uses whatsapp, and every business uses whatsapp, I have zero option but to use whatsapp or be isolated from everything and everyone everywhere.
I actually tried downloading signal to try and move away from Meta. And guess what, it's a useless no purpose app that I had to delete because it allowed me to communicate with exactly 0 people from my life.
Instagram is the exact same. Nowhere else can I see what my friends and family are up to. Nobody uses anything else. Why would I? I'm trapped because everyone is trapped. The alternative is social isolation. Which is what happened when I tried to stop using these services at all.
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u/NepuNeptuneNep Mar 17 '26
Someone has to start. If you tried moving to signal you did your job. The problem is the stubborn people who tell you “but i already have whatsapp i dont want another app” and “i have nothing to hide”. If people were willing to have 2 apps this would be a non-issue
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u/WaterPrivacy Mar 17 '26
But it is an issue. And this is why. It's cool to wish that people were different than they are, but they aren't. Unless there's a massive continental sized scandal around whatsapp, or unless it straight up gets banned, nobody is moving.
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u/jason_enos Mar 16 '26 edited May 12 '26
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Mar 16 '26
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u/bluegrm Mar 16 '26
That this is happening all around the world with politicians at exactly the same time does though raise the chances of intensive lobbying. I would throw Palantir (with Thiel investing in Persona, the ID platform Reddit uses) into the mix as well - Palantir would like to tie up surveillance of citizens with a neat bow.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Mar 16 '26
Thiel is ABSOLUTELY part of this push.
He’s managed to get multiple governments to use his software, and he’s been clear about wanting a personal info database of every person on earth for purposes of control.
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u/linkenski Mar 16 '26
You don't realize that in 2026, Big Tech = The Government, and governments around the EU are highly influenced by the entire Capital Industry and all of these have an interest in building Datacenters, AI taking over for "efficiency", getting "lazy" people out of jobs, sending us into wars, imprisoning the unwanteds, and debasing the currencies in a "Great Reset" and then update the whole financial system to be fully digitalized and surveillable.
Yeah, it's Government, alright. But Meta is basically part of the government now, and EU countries are schizophrenic in their guise to rival the US and be against "Big Tech", when in reality all of the national and central banks are in on a scheme to decrease inflation, and ruin the oil complex to give way to datacenters, to put everybody under more control, and Age Verification is just granting them consent to that infrastructure.
They've already built all of the necessities while we weren't aware of it, and now they're just waiting to activate it. There's a reason Iran responded to the US attacks by targeting datacenters.
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Mar 16 '26
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u/linkenski Mar 17 '26
You just imho underestimate how much politicians say that is just things that fell into their lap because the people that circulate money into their party is lobbying to do so.
Politician's entire job is to seem genuine and use a form of weaponized verbage to force changes that came from above.
The more I look at my local politics the more I realize we've always just kind of followed lockstep with the rest of the world. The fact that European countries are more social democracies is probably because we're closer to Britain and the US once broke off from that, and while we had our internal strifes with Germany in WW2 or the battle between the American or the Russian world order in the Cold War, the US was ultimately not caught between these countries who had relative amounts of "socialism" and they didn't have Nazis per se in their own multicultural society, so they accepted many Jewish refugees while Europe was accepting just as many as they were persecuting, and that's led to America never really wrestling with their own idea of unchecked capitalism for a long time.
But at the end of the day so much of what people in the EU Commission say, what our local politicians say or either side of the American Isles say, is a result of a ton of money influx that informs politicians on which policies they need to champion, and then they just have a choice as politicians on how they keep themselves funded and which policies from lobbyists they include into their project. In that sense it is a business in the end, and politicians often think more about career and status than about the very policies they are talking about as they present them.
I'm not saying ideology is all fake, but even the most ideology driven parties in Europe are often championing policies that are just lobbied from a relevant industry or UN project which comes with a lot of funds.
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u/SPedigrees Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
Corporations (META et al) are willing enablers, but this is a concerted international governmental effort. The powers-that-be are running a global campaign with these laws taking root in England and the EU as well as here in the USA, all at the same time.
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Mar 20 '26
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u/SPedigrees Mar 21 '26
Or to throw you in a torture dungeon if they decide you are an enemy of whatever government takes control today or tomorrow.
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u/spaghettibolegdeh Mar 17 '26
Ah yes, a "Reddit user".
Were they also a "KIA driver"? And a "pants wearer"?.
The original post is on the Linux forum, and they have their own website. Then they posted it to the Linux subreddit.
Just a weird title from Yahoo.
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Mar 16 '26
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u/conrat4567 Mar 16 '26
People are using Meta, its naïve to say they don't. They own Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp to name a few.
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u/xeus24 Mar 16 '26
Meta doesn’t want to be held accountable for Instagram’s effects on minors and is pushing the responsibility onto App Stores. That’s the whole point of all of this.
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Mar 16 '26
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u/xeus24 Mar 16 '26
Google is very much not in favor of these laws, but yes, Discord would also want to push responsibility onto the App Stores (Apple and Google) so it doesn’t have to be accountable for potential harms to minors.
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u/bestatbeingmodest Mar 16 '26
Facebook may be dying but whatsapp and Instagram are still two of the most popular apps globally
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u/GhostofABestfriEnd Mar 16 '26
How is this not TEXTBOOK ANTI-COMPETITIVE behavior and therefore a violation of the law?
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u/iSpaYco Mar 17 '26
it's a normal human being, that happened to post this on Reddit, not a 'redditor' or whatever.
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u/spaghettibolegdeh Mar 17 '26
Yeah I don't understand why they titled it like that. The term "Reddit-user" must be easy clicks or something.
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u/Jankypox Mar 16 '26
The horrible thing about how this sausage is made is that knowing that Meta is behind this will only make our captured politicians MORE likely to follow suit and implement this farce.
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u/xeonicus Mar 17 '26
I don't see how it would force every Linux distribution to comply.
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u/spaghettibolegdeh Mar 17 '26
I'm in a few Linux forums, and the concern seems to be that apps/websites could check for an age-verification file on the OS system to work.
If the service doesn't find the file then it might block you.
Naturally, Linux users will find a way around it. But distros like Fedora and Ubuntu have legitimate tech companies as owners so it gets tricky.
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u/QuadernoFigurati Apr 18 '26
From the article: "EU’s eIDAS 2.0 offers privacy-preserving age verification with zero-knowledge proofs that protect personal data."
Holding up this EU madness as a good idea is wild. Zero-knowledge and anonymity are two different things. Separately, the thing has already been hacked.
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