According to a draft of the proposed regulation seen by Computer Weekly, the proposals extend beyond social media companies. Video-sharing services, online games, chatbots and app stores will also be required to follow “safety by design” requirements, including verifying the age of users.
The draft has raised concerns among some critics that it would lead to the widespread use of “identity checkpoints” on internet services to verify people’s ages, changing the “open nature” of online services.
The thing is, that an awful lot of this is already happening. They’re using AI on things like reddit to profile people, if you post faster that they can profile then you are a “bot” or are simply spamming. Its rather insidious like all these things.
I’m old enough to remember a tine before the Internet & have lived through all the changes that have come about.
I think that a ban for under 18s on social media is a good idea tbh.
Do I like it? No, I don’t.
Do I think that many of these sorts of “checks” are a way to monitor other people activities? Yes, I do.
However, when we’ve AI profiling us in order to manipulate us, when such a massive proportion of content is being created by bots & bad actors, how on earth do we even begin to deal with it? Providing ID to access the Internet feels appalling, but, would it reduce bots? Could it counter the flood of propaganda we are subjected too by countries & companies pushing their own agendas?
I don’t know, but I think we are at the point where doing nothing is not an option. The Internet I knew is already long gone & it’s never coming back, so we need to figure out ways to protect ourselves & make it less of an a swamp to manipulate people.
It has nothing to do with safety, just pure authoritarian bullshit to control the internet and all its users.
True, tech bros lobbied the European commission to implement this dystopian 1984-style shit in order to get even more data to train their AIs.
This isn’t about protecting the children. That’s just an excuse to further promote mass surveillance and to exempt companies from responsibility for the additive design of their products and services.
This only serves to favour large corporations. It’s easier and more rewarding to penalize the users and smaller businesses.
Furthermore this will make all game servers that do not collect users’ personal data illegal in the EU, including discontinued and community-run ones, even if authorized by the publisher.
Indeed.
Today, we can choose between:
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Being „influenced“ (tracked & profiled) by Tech Bro‘s to stick our eye on the screen to watch infinite ads and spend our money on bought bullshit we don’t need. Starting in young age to get burnt in our brains.
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Starting to get tracked & profiled by Governments and all the shit a authorian government can do with this control. Actually what we see in China nowadays.
Both is about mind control.
If you ask me, who I trust more, I choose the second option. Because I have a very tiny option to steer it. I can elect my Government and I can resist the Authorian movement by my actions. Tech Bro‘s are out of my reach and way more dangerous by this. And Tech Bro‘s already proved that they have a weird inhuman vision of the future.
The EU has already announced they will implement an age checking mechanism that doesn’t transfer personal data. Furthermore while the Comission is data-hungry, they don’t get to vote on the laws, that is the job of the European Parliament and that has a record of actually protecting their citizens privacy, even from the EU itself.
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