Reddit has begun rolling out mandatory age verification for any NSFW content, as well as for some social media functions, if the AI determines you might be under a certain age.
Another good day to be on Lemmy… until the surveillance capitalist tech overlords lobby enough to get their great firewall of the West, anyway.
Further reading:
- https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/50368431806484-European-Union-Digital-Services-Act-DSA
- https://cybernews.com/security/eu-age-verification-app-hack/
- https://piunikaweb.com/2026/02/19/persona-age-verification-surveillance-allegations/
- https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/23595536875796-Digital-Services-Act-DSA-Information-for-EU-users
I don’t disagree that for most people, this will result in significantly less anonymity on the web and overall is a very dangerous trend.
However, that doesn’t mean that there won’t still be some countries that do not have such laws and that don’t answer to US/EU regulatory attempts. That’s already how many quasi-illegal (or even straight up illegal) websites that operate in such countries (such as circumventing DMCA requests), and these laws are highly unlikely to entirely prevent those from continuing to find safe haven countries.
Yah I do agree there will keep being those quasi gray area legal sites.
But even so, most ppl will live with the ID reqs, since they won’t go to the gray sites. Esp if the heavy hitters like US/EU go down the China road of hardcore clamping down on VPNs. In China today, some ppl get around that. It’s just very risky, so most ppl give up and use what the gov wants them to. I’m afraid we could eventually see a similar story in the US and EU. Also I forgot that Canada has a bill pending too, Bill C-34, the “Safe Social Media Act”.
IDK how the US bill will go. I am trying to remain hopeful. It sounds like it passed the House, but could be DOA in the Senate. And even if it passes the Senate, it’ll be hit with 1A lawsuits and go before SCOTUS. We can’t count our chickens yet or let off the pressure, but it has hurdles to clear before it becomes law of the land.