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Comment by locusm | Hacker News Reader

If you deleted all your social media and AI platform accounts today you would wake up tomorrow and be no worse off.

Dont forget what kicked this age verification in first place. Initially they wanted do age verification for porn, and only year later they moved into social media seeing there's wasn't huge pushback.

So even if this change doesn't affect you right now, but it will affect you later then it'll be too late to fight agaisnt.

It was funny here in Australia, they did it the other way. They banned social media for under 16 but didn't get around to porn until a few months later.

I mean, even if more things on the internet get restriced it wouldnt affect me since Im not a minor.

The "First they came for the Communists" logic still holds. When government able to open the flood gate, the mandatory ID check will be slowly and surely be everywhere.

If you don't use social media and AI platform. Fine. But what about app stores, what about any registries from docker, to npm, to apk and toward the end source code repositories like Github/Codeberg?

This is famously why ID checks at the liquor store led to the government eventually requiring a mandatory ID check anytime you walk the dog or go to the beach... except none of that happened.

First they banned the children from smoking cigarettes, and I did not speak out, for I was not a cigarette. Then they came for the murderers and pedophiles, and I did not speak out, for I was not a murderer or pedophile. Then they came for the carjackers, and I did not speak out, for I was not a carjacker. Then they came for the people who said "Free Gaza!", and there was no one left to speak for me.

I would call github a social media platform. So yes that would be a problem, even if my own projects are somewhere else.

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