its not going to happen. Quite the opposite. The EU's age verification app will only work on Google attested (i.e. controlled by American big tech) smartphones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44705240
The UK's Online Safety Act's main effect is to strengthen big tech and protect them from competition, and make self hosing prohibitively expensive for many.
European governments will talk about digital sovereignty but will do nothing that involved actually spending money, or regulating the private sector or anything actually effective.
There have been many, many other examples over recent years. Anyone making any claim to the superiority of the EU regulation state in how it respects digital rights for individuals is full of shit or sheerly ignorant.
> Anyone making any claim to the superiority of the EU regulation state in how it respects digital rights for individuals is full of shit or sheerly ignorant.
The EU is a huge organization and too often the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing.
But, the EU isn't alone in curbing digital rights for individuals, it's a worrying trend all over the world even over here in the states, with congress introducing a bill of our own along the same lines (Kids Online Safety Act) - we'll see if it goes anywhere, but the overton window is shifting to being in favor of regulation like this, unfortunately.
Authoritarianism is on the rise everywhere, and rapidly.
Authoritarianism is much easier to implement in a pervasive surveillance environment, digital or otherwise. Unfortunate for all of us, even those who think they are immune.
The unfortunate truth is that all governments suck at dealing with technology in a positive way. The EU has some wins, the US has some wins, and so on... but they all have significant fails too. It's a question of which bad things you can live with, more than a question of who doesn't do bad things.
Correct I’ll take the cluster F of what we have now over the UK style of the government watching over my shoulder as they force me to give up anonymity on the web for those sites that most require it
If you live in one of the states that hasn't yet added
one of these laws. I expect it will become a federal bill in a year or two so there aren't 20 variants of the same law.
You can really feel the "big tent" nature of the GOP when these bills are being pushed despite being absolutely abhorrent to large swaths of Republican voters.
I actually can see an argument for age verification, if it could be truly guaranteed to apply only to porn.
The constitutionality of the current laws was upheld on the basis of treating age verification for access to porn as an incidental burden, and thus warranted only intermediate scrutiny.
My (naïve?) hope is that any future mission creep will be rejected by the Supreme Court under strict scrutiny, especially as it extends into general and political speech.
However, once you have the legal and technical frameworks in place, mission creep is almost inevitable, and it could easily take years of litigation to resolve.
“Think of the children” has always been the thin end of a wedge used by those looking to incrementally dismantle inconvenient civil liberties.
All that said, we’re in a much better position in the US under the first amendment. The UK’s “online safety bill” is already targeting a myriad of forms of political speech, and is just the latest example of the significant shift towards the curtailment of free speech across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
I voted for Trump and would make the same choice today without hesitation but agree the Republicans pushing this state by state age identification is pretty bad. State level Rs and house reps leave a bit to be desired. My vote is essentially a vote against the other party. Sometimes we have to choose between the best of two less than perfect choices. Politics is so often a deal with the devil against a worse devil
Can't really say I agree after being quite pleased with Biden's admin—would have been more than happy with the sequel. I clearly don't see the same thing you see in this guy but at least someone is happy and optimistic about it. A center left Democrat reaching across the isle so hard it pissed off her own base and with a platform of not rocking the boat sounds way better than whatever this mess is.
I hear exactly what you are saying. I voted for Biden and Clinton before. The country went insane from 2020 thru 24 and the concealing of Biden’s decline was atrocious. For me the left just went to far. I have 2 white heterosexual sons and I could not vote for a party that declared them an enemy. Everything else was downstream of that for me. Ill vote for the bad guy before I vote for that. Trump has actually surprised me, delivering on many of the issues I voted for him on. If I have to endure his grift and other flaws its a price I’ll pay. I voted against what the Dems offered.
I completely understand and empathize with why some people are upset or even dismayed at what he’s doing though; i just think it’s necessary.
Your opinion is unpopular among a very vocal class, but is also very widely shared. There has been an incredible shift rightward by Gen Z males, and specifically, Gen Z white males.
When you consistently deride and undermine a demographic, they see what you’re doing, and don’t like you very much for doing it.
Its my opinion that Trump was just the warmup for the rightward shift.
Vance or Desantis is going to be next and will be far to the right of Trump.
Desantis' 2nd term was the first time I ever voted R in my life. I'm in my mid 40's.
I've always been a Dem and was right up until Biden's term. I've never seen anything like it. Maybe I was just blind to the creep before that. First time I noticed it was the DEI training at work. I did not like that at all. I'll never vote Dem again, the risk to my kids is just to great. So to the right we will go.
Sure would have been great if, in 2016 and 2024 elections, the democrats had nominated someone who could have beat Trump. Or conversely, had not nominated the two people who didn't stance a chance.
Im not sure anyone could have beaten Trump. It was his time, the prior 4 years pushed many over to his base. I voted for Clinton and Biden but there was no one that could have gotten me to vote Dem last election
I said it many times on this forum, Harris had no platform. There was nothing to vote for.
I’m just so tired of “fuck the GOP” when, as you say, it was inevitable. People love to hate a villain, I get it. “It was Hilarys turn, we will just keep marching forward” really didn’t work out. This GOP narrative is basically screaming into a mirror. Not your GOP narrative, not picking on you. Just frustrated.
I hear you. And based on how the left has reacted to his term so far, I'm not sure there is anyone currently that can prevent a Vance or Desantis presidency next time. The left is to far left, they have abandoned the center and the center has sought safety in the GOP. Not because we want to be there but because there is literally no where else for us to go. My politics have not changed, but the party I have voted for for almost 3 decades very much has.
We have left leaning main stream media organizations implying that a jeans commercial is a nazi rallying cry because it features a white woman. I just cant vote how I used to vote and look my young sons in the eye. The Dem party is gone.
