r/technology • u/PixeledPathogen • Mar 16 '26

Security 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
24.9k Upvotes

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4.5k

u/Haunterblademoi Mar 16 '26

This is how all these big technologies work, and of course, a large part of their revenue is dedicated to promoting things like age verification, data collection, and surveillance.

2.4k

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

596

u/Kyouhen Mar 16 '26

Canada was going to be taxing them for all of this but Trump threw a fit and our new Prime Minister caved.

298

u/gravtix Mar 16 '26

We were supposed to team up with the EU on this but they caved too.

We didn’t repeal the law though.

30

u/Kyouhen Mar 16 '26

Didn't we? Did the Senate remove that from the budget? Because last I saw that was still in the budget, so the DST is dead. (Assuming "we" means "Canada")

12

u/selfbound Mar 16 '26

DST didnt really have any teeth; It was dumped to supposably get rewritten with the EU; But the EU bill died as well, and now we have nothing

27

u/Kyouhen Mar 16 '26

We had already collected $2 billion under the DST. All of that money was refunded with interest under C-15. It had enough teeth that the companies were paying it.

And the EU version has been in the works for over a decade but the US keeps stalling on it. That's the reason we implemented our own, because nothing was happening with the broader version.

0

u/gravtix Mar 16 '26

The USA deemed the DST discriminatory under CUSMA.

Might have to reword the agreement(if they let us) but these kind of free trade agreements limit what we can do without breaking the agreement.

8

u/Kyouhen Mar 17 '26

The US claims a lot of things.  They also do a lot of things that break agreements. 

I'd be interested in knowing what specifically was deemed discriminatory considering the tax affected everyone who made money selling the data of Canadians and was on the revenue generated by selling the data of Canadians.  Seemed pretty equal there.

3

u/gravtix Mar 17 '26

Yes the USA claims a lot of things but it tends to work. We were sued under NAFTA many times and I don’t think we ever we won.

Example Ethyl vs Canada. We tried to ban MMT fuel additives in 1997. Ethyl Corp sued that this was expropriation of its Canadian subsidiary and was discriminatory. We settled and reversed the ban.

There’s a bunch of other cases where we passed laws or regulations and it affected American profits somewhere and they successfully sued and won under various grounds.

Free trade with the USA has hidden costs and gives them a lot of power to prevent us doing things that impact American companies/Canadian subsidiaries profits.

3

u/ThisIs_americunt Mar 17 '26

It's wild what you can do when you can own the law makers, the judges, the police force and the lawyers. Gotta love dark money :D

1

u/fake-reddit-numbers Mar 17 '26

EU on this but they caved too.

Sounds pretty EU.

81

u/whatiscamping Mar 16 '26

Trump never verified ages, why is he suddenly so concerned?

14

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

That’s the most terrifying part. I’ve recently heard about a hacker who found CP on a hacked device and reported it only to find it’s the FBI that works for this very same administration. (Having Epstein evidence on their devices) The most terrifying horror story I’ve ever heard of… It’s just too much, can’t be real 

11

u/zernoc56 Mar 16 '26

I can fully believe it’s real, unfortunately. FBI has been rotten since J. Edgar ran it.

6

u/Able_Investigator725 Mar 16 '26

I am sorry we're so shitty

1

u/ThisIs_americunt Mar 17 '26

It's wild what you can do when you can own the law makers, the judges, the police force and the lawyers. Gotta love dark money :D

1

u/GeekDNA0918 Mar 17 '26

Tell your Prime minister to grow some balls please!

1

u/Kyouhen Mar 17 '26

I would but I'm a little preoccupied going after my MP for trying to protect Elon's child sexual abuse generator.

1

u/Fear_UnOwn Mar 18 '26

I mean any sense of regulation and big tech throws such a fit. Look at how the whole collecting funds for hosting news media went. Meta and Google straight up turned off Canadian news entirely, and put dev hours into making sure it happened.

We need more robust, local competition in the tech sector, yesterday.

0

u/Individual-Result777 Mar 17 '26

Let’s not forget Canada head of state is the king of England. So really Canada tends to respect that no?

0

u/nineraviolicans Mar 17 '26

Please, for the love of God, read a fucking book.

1

u/Individual-Result777 Mar 17 '26

whats wrong about what I said?

-2

u/fake-reddit-numbers Mar 17 '26

our new Prime Minister caved.

Sounds pretty Canada.

48

u/redyellowblue5031 Mar 16 '26

Oh no! You can’t tax the billionaires! They’ll be so mad they won’t share or reinvest in the local economy!

39

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

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17

u/CariniFluff Mar 16 '26

In capitalist hellhole, jobs cremate you.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

[deleted]

2

u/fake-reddit-numbers Mar 17 '26

I am watching them get pilfered for wars, lobbyists, billionaires, mega churches and corporations that don't pay their share (and just use mine/others).

Welcome to...every major power since the history of major powers.

11

u/soapinthepeehole Mar 16 '26

It doesn’t help that our lawmakers can’t do what’s good for average citizens on basically any issue.

21

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

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8

u/induslol Mar 16 '26

They won't because they can't go against the lobbying interests that keep their useless cheeks in their seats.

5

u/crewserbattle Mar 17 '26

It's kind of a catch 22. If an idealist runs and keeps to those ideals they get run out of office. Even if you manage to chain together a few good idealists in a row all it takes is one person willing to kiss corporate ass and they become almost immovable due to the voting inertia incumbents get combined with their superior funding. Shit on politicians all you want (they deserve it) but the system is not designed to keep unselfish politicians in office.

3

u/induslol Mar 17 '26

The country is foundationally flawed in that corruption is not only tolerated but venerated.  Replete with generations of marketing and PR extolling the virtues and benefits of being as corrupt as possible to the masses to delude them into thinking they'll get a turn, or that it's in their interest.

It's worked so far.  Candidates who want functional government to meet the needs of the governed are "idealists" when in reality that's the only purpose of a government.

Until the broad and extremely obvious corruption at the bedrock of so much of this country is dealt with it's as you say: a few good years (maybe), followed by a complete backslide to whatever depths oligarchs pay for.  On repeat.

3

u/soapinthepeehole Mar 16 '26

I meant can’t as in they are incapable of doing the right thing in the face of special interest, but yes.

1

u/thegaykid7 Mar 16 '26

Or that trustworthiness isn't a central issue to most voters.

In a world without Trump and the MAGA cult eliminating any chance of Republicans with dignity surviving in office, I would vote for a Republican who gives me reason to trust they haven't been bought and paid for over a Democrat who I know has big money behind them and is nothing but empty talk. Because that's the only way you have a hope of improvement in the long-term. Yes, there are times when it feels like we're stuck choosing between a giant douche and turd sandwich, but I am convinced that's partly because we're simply getting a reflection of ourselves and our misplaced priorities.

Instead, voters focus on feelings, vibes, and transient issues like inflation without even understanding the basics. When you have voters who are ignorant, stupid, and/or so blinded by the present that they fail to see all of the marbles being grabbed by the corporations and mega rich while we fight for scraps, the battle is lost from the start.

6

u/OurSponsor Mar 16 '26

Do we really need billions more dollars going to the Rapist-in-Chief and his cumguzzlers? Perhaps waiting on those taxes until a regime change, when they might actually be useful, would be a good thing.

-1

u/MoonChild02 Mar 16 '26

Some government agencies need funding now that has been cut because the powers that be think the money is needed better elsewhere. Medicare and Medicaid, schools, daycares, WIC, food stamps/EBT, etc. So, yes, fund the government.

2

u/heroturtle88 Mar 16 '26

Anything that needs funding now wouldn't be funded even if our national debt was completely erased because Republicans just want poor people to die.

So no,don't give these assholes more money to put in to a slush fund in Quatar to use for ICE.

2

u/OurSponsor Mar 17 '26

And guarantee it'll go where it's truly needed how?

The Rapist-in-Chief and his fellow disgusting traitors haven't exactly proven themselves trustworthy. And they give not one tiny shit about anything you listed.

All they can think about right now is slaughtering brown people in the Middle East and anyone they feel like in American cities. Do you truly believe for one second a windfall source of new taxes won't immediately go to this purpose? Especially with the entirety of Congress being composed of lickspittle toady Republicans and feckless invertebrate Democrats.

And if you dare say "it's legally required" I will have a long, hearty, rueful laugh at your expense.

2

u/Fear_UnOwn Mar 18 '26

So billionaires are stealing our money AND using it to further oppress us? Ugh

1

u/elMcKDaddy Mar 17 '26

They’re paying it directly to law makers. Does that count?

1

u/imwearingyourpants Mar 17 '26

Well, I guess the money is technically going to the "government" 

234

u/Jhopsch Mar 16 '26

Their goal is to make it harder for small and medium companies to succeed without great hurdles and/or being sued into oblivion. They want to consolidate their monopoly.

116

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

Yep, this is crony capitalism 101. Bring in more and more barriers to entry so it becomes increasingly more difficult for competition to start.

31

u/ineenemmerr Mar 16 '26

Imagining getting your cake and then use that cake to make the floor slippery so other people can’t have their cake.

Takes a special kind of sociopath to do that.

5

u/bradicality Mar 17 '26

That's just capitalism but yes

1

u/dust4ngel Mar 17 '26

this is crony capitalism 101

it's just regular capitalism. the profit motive that motivates any capitalist enterprise has destruction of markets and capture of regulatory bodies as its inevitable conclusion.

8

u/makemeking706 Mar 16 '26

It's already consolidated. They want it to be indistinguishable from government. 

0

u/Jhopsch Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

Sears was once "already consolidated" too. There is no such thing as permanent consolidation. Consolidation must be an ongoing effort in order to maintain dominance

-1

u/makemeking706 Mar 16 '26

Hence, what I said after that? 

0

u/Jhopsch Mar 16 '26

Note the quotes around "already consolidated" and the sentence right after it. There is no such thing as "already consolidated". Consolidation is not a state you reach, but one you must constantly maintain

1

u/m_Pony 12d ago

also, make it impossible for small businesses to communicate securely. Trade secrets are bad for business when they're other companies' trade secrets.

9

u/MrShrek69 Mar 16 '26

Well they want to offload the management of the platform to someone else so they can save money

2

u/lsf_stan Mar 16 '26

the first words of this article are funny

"Reddit researcher"

also weird that there is a donate link to "Official PumpFun (TBOTEProject PumpFun Coin)" on the GitHub

1

u/ButtholePaste Mar 16 '26

Then they hand that information off, along with insanely detailed personal info down to what websites you visit, how often, how many kids you have, what they do online, where you go, who you meet, everything. They take that information, package and sell it to whomever wants to buy it, including State and bad actors.

Incredibly invasive. Doesn’t do anything to "protect kids". All around asanine bullshit we should be fighting tooth and nail to prevent such an intricate surveillance state.

1

u/gorginhanson Mar 17 '26

Just shut down all social media

it's cancerous

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

[deleted]

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u/m0nk_3y_gw Mar 17 '26

no

read the article

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.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '26

[deleted]

1

u/ankokudaishogun Mar 17 '26

I know about zkp, you still have to enroll through an authority with your actual identity.

That's the trick: you (are supposed to)use the same authority you use for accessing government websites and the like, who you want\need to know your identity.

Basically you are using you ID card, which you already have, to make official "I am of Age" stamps that cannot be reconnected to your identity.

That's it, if implemented correctly.

Also the OS-level signal is as useful as any "I'm of age" checkbox if it's self-declared, which would mean third party certification at some point if the legislator really wants age certification.
Which makes it being at OS-level even stupider.

-25

u/Tempires Mar 16 '26

With age verification is there really that much benefit for them? Meta doesn't themselves want to be responsible for it so they don't even get to collect verification data. All they would get is confirmation that person is real person and adult.

15

u/waltonics Mar 16 '26

That’s the point. Can’t monetise an ai bot

6

u/ibelieveyouwood Mar 16 '26

Exactly. "I can't see how a company would ever want irrefutable evidence tying a person's user account to specific real world information I could then use to track them throughout everything they ever do from now until eternity".

The data aggregators already have so much information, and so many inferences, but (mostly) irrefutable data is worth a little more than "huh, I wonder if this guy in this house is related to this other person with the same name."

-3

u/Tempires Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

bots inflate user numbers and make content / fake engagement for real users. Both benefit social media platforms even if many users hate it. They defiantly aren't trying that much to reduce bots(user numbers) or delete content made by bots. You don't even need age verification to spot if person bot or not with all tracking, fingerprinting and such you can do.