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Comment by palmotea | Hacker News Reader

> So what this will achieve is it will reduce the number of British muggles on social media, thus bringing us a bit closer to the Good Old Days when only nerds were online. I'm fine with this.

I think you have a skewed and inaccurate understanding.

Why would "British muggles" be so up in arms over an ID check that they swear off social media if they can't "circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy"? It's not like everyone has the same attitudes as your stereotypical computer geek, but with less computer skills.

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I think underestimate how suspicious the British people are of carrying ID. You don't have to have your driving licence with you when driving a car. Having to show ID to vote was controversial when introduced, remains controversial, and backfired on the party that introduced it. We don't even have a proper ID system here; you need to use utility bills to provide proof of identity for a surprising number of government services. This is a crowded little archipelago; we're fiercely protective of our privacy, in ways that would surprise someone who hasn't lived here.

I'm in a state that PornHub and most of the other adult sites will block due to age restriction laws. I'm not going to make a login, or give them my ID, and I'm not motivated enough to use a VPN or otherwise work around the restrictions... so I guess the law achieved its goals. I don't think I'd bend over backwards to keep access to social media either. It's really not that important.

That includes hackernews right?

I would say yes. I would not give Ycombinator my ID to be able to post here.

If they decided this site was for 16+ or whatever, and there was some privacy-preserving way to prove that, I might consider it. But not by sending them my driver's license.

You won't be sending ID to site operators. It all gets hoovered up by third party identity verifiers who can suffer a breach at any time.

They can have the proof that the person accessing a given site is of age, but they don't ever get to know who.

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