I don't want to google it because I don't want to be put on a list but I also feel somewhat confident that this is being done. Apparently, HN feels safe to ask questions like that for me.
Actually, a follow up. PII leaks are so common, I guess there must be millions of identities out there up for grabs. This makes me wonder: we’ve got various jurisdictions where sites are legally required to verify the age of users. And everybody (including the people running these sites) knows that tons of identities are out there on the internet waiting to be used.
How does a site do due diligence in this context? I guess just asking for a scan of somebody’s easily fabricated ID shouldn’t be sufficient legal cover…
That's why some of them don't even ask for ID but just guess the age based on appearance. That's good enough per the law, usually.
Of all the controversial things out there we've become afraid to even google in order to learn more about the world around us, this one strikes me as not all that controversial.
But you're not wrong, just making a comment about how sad the world has become.
Ironically there was no way to report the image anonymously to the service hosting it.
You might think about using something like the Tor Browser for anonymous web surfing:
https://www.torproject.org/download/
...If you are worried about getting on a list by downloading the Tor browser, then take a trip to the next-town-over public library and download it from there. I guess your ISP could still guess that you were using Tor, and you might end up on a list of people using Tor. Also: If everyone is on the list, then no one is on the list.