I just host my own open source instances. Like matrix for chat. And mbin for the fediverse. This is how I now communicate with you.

No age verification. Mbin will never implement it either. And matrix won't either. Otherwise I will fork matrix also.

You must never comply ESPECIALLY if you have nothing to hide.

I agree. I just mentioned it explicitly, since I was afraid of responses like.. Ow.. Do you hide something?

They are trying to set up identifying every account to a name and face to have their computers record everything, from their footage on the streets, cctv of you in your car, in stores, over traffic lights, to every website you visit, every word you read, every word you write, and so forth and run it through AI threat detection/social scores. It's new tech that is coming online and they are trying to surrender us to it, to bring this trojan horse behind the walls of liberal democracy. To let Palantir and like companies to decide winners and losers, what jobs you can get, loans, what search engines will even show you, what prices you are charged, how the government treats you, how businesses treat you, etc. All in a way not attributed to it, that you can never know and never challenge.

This became incredibly obvious to me several months ago. I was trying to buy vape parts (coils and tanks, no liquids or batteries or anything) and the site wanted me to do a 3-D selfie to verify my age.

First of all, absolfuckinglutely not. Second of all, metal and plastic aren’t controlled substances so there’s no reason I even should have been carded, much less asked for 3-D face scan shit.. so yeah it wasn’t FOR anything other than data mining.

100% accurate.

Well.. I dunno well.. I think both. I believe nobody wants to be responsible and they just point to each other 🤔

ahem... politics is NOT pushing on tech..

Bullshit. There are plenty of examples of politics pushing on tech and tech pushing back. Tech may have its hands in politics' pocket, but they don't have a hand up their backside like you imply.