I don’t like this article. Irrelevant technical nuance is comingled with a philosophical opposition. The technical issues are all solvable. The free speech argument is foolish too: if limiting who can jerk off to pornography is an issue of free speech, surely so is limiting who can enter a bar and converse with the patrons.
Opposition to ID checks because you believe the internet should be open and free is reasonable but this article twists itself into knots throwing everything at the wall. And it is reasonable to believe it is a free speech issue. But we can’t say, at the same time, that the same arguments don’t apply outside of the internet.
(Convenience stores scan ID, bars scan ID, hotels take copies of passports…)
These are new things, not old things. The idea that stores and bars should be able to record for all eternity the identities of the people who have purchased things from them is just as much of a horror. They can sell that information to anyone.
> hotels take copies of passports…
This is not really a new thing, although it is a fairly new thing (i.e. within the last 40 years, since cheap enough photocopiers.) But it comes from laws about keeping track of who is staying in temporary accommodation, 100 years ago you would have had to sign the register.
I am not that fond of stores scanning my ID data either. I’m over 21, there’s no question about it. Per policy, they’ll have my name and address in some log too, and with my photos and gait on camera and probably my license plates. What does all of that do for me? Are you safer because I am being recorded?
I like the (disputed) comment elsewhere on this page, requiring parents to parent. They aren’t my kids.
If you have the money definitely get yourself a passport card. Stores can’t scan them and they only contain a pointer to personal info in some government database.
The free speech argument is that these ID checks aren't just being applied to porn sites; there's a push to make social media websites (probably the largest hubs of free speech in the modern world) do them too. That's a much bigger deal. It'd be like if you had to show your ID to a police officer in order to enter exit your front door.
Opposition to ID checks because you believe the internet should be open and free is reasonable but this article twists itself into knots throwing everything at the wall. And it is reasonable to believe it is a free speech issue. But we can’t say, at the same time, that the same arguments don’t apply outside of the internet.
(Convenience stores scan ID, bars scan ID, hotels take copies of passports…)