The EU’s planned KIDS Act is causing unrest in the Fediverse, the network of independent servers around Mastodon. Critics warn of age verification on every single server and foresee the end of decentralized social networks.

My home instance is outside EU jurisdiction.

It may be very damaging for the Fediverse, but even if the EU outright banned all ActivityPub servers, that wouldn't force an end to the Fediverse.

And the rest of the world?

The Fediverse does not end at the external borders of the EU. The draft applies to providers regardless of their location as soon as they offer their service to users in the EU (Article 2) and requires them to have a legal representative in a member state (Article 24).

You have to meet the US definition of doing business in the EU for the US legal system to enforce any EU rulings against US-based instance operators, and simply having a service accessible to EU users is not alone sufficient to meet that bar. My guess, though I'm not familiar with other legal systems, is that they likely have a similar bar. The EU itself probably uses a similar jurisdictional bar, which is why, for example, EU-based server operators are not subject to Iran's death penalty over blasphemy just because an EU server might be accessible to an Iranian user.

The EU might seek to compel EU-based ISPs to block EU users from having access to US-based instances, prosecute EU-based instance operators that federate with US-based instance operators, partition the network, and that might be adequate to cut off EU-based users from US-based instances, but it won't be a worldwide ban via a legal route.

I hate when people validate the core idea of needing to protect children through age verification. Timmy lying about being over 18 to look at some boobs is not a problem that needs to be resolved. It's like requiring everyone to wear body cameras specifically to prevent store clerks from being rude to you.

Man this is fucking exhausting. The treadmill of these policies.

EU lemmings, who or what groups are promoting these? It feels like every time one gets defeated another crops up and that it's relentless. Is this an astroturfed or organic campaign?

I'm fed up with this shit. My parents educated me on the internet and the potential of seeing things you don't want to see. They knew there was no change to 100% block or monitor what we did and instead made sure that they were always there if we did see something disturbing.

Now I'm at the frontier age of getting kids and I just know that my kids will be just as smart in circumventing this kind of bs as I was (school monitoring web traffic ain't working with a vpn) and I will gladly teach them about the internet. Hell, I'll even take them back to when the internet of old and show what kind of crap we had to deal with.

Solutions like these are like a bandaid. You're not solving the problems. And even that is a utopian thought, but they ought to focus on the people that make the web unsafe, not the kids

I think it's important to point out that is yet again the EPP, this one being led by Henna Virkunnen.

As was the undemocratic vote that was pushed through by Roberta Metsola

The most effective way for all of us to stop these relentless attacks on the internet and our privacy, is to stop them getting elected in the first place.

EPP representation in each country.

Use the internet for something useful -

#STOP THE EPP

If it applies to mastodon it also applies to IMAP right? I wonder his exactly they see email protocol being updated to check how old is the recipient and i bet all those spammers will NOT send their unwanted content to my child inbox.

Fuckers don't understand the internet

Maybe we just protect everyone and then we don't need age verification?

I feel all of this is to prepare for future legal enforcement of approved internet use. AI is destroying the internet we know and value because rich people want more power, as they do with everything they touch.

It is unclear which servers are covered. The draft adopts the definition of a social network from the Digital Markets Act. Its Recital 11 clarifies that it concerns “information society services,” which EU law defines as services generally provided for remuneration. Whether a private, non-commercial hobby server falls under this depends on the legal classification of the specific offering. The statement that every instance without exception is covered is therefore an overstatement.

Funny when the article itself contradicts the breathless clickbait headline.

That said, perhaps this will apply and cause problems. Or perhaps not.

Website wants to open my DRM software? Fuck off.

The way it's imposed on the fediverse is bad, but I like this part:

The Blueprint is open source and uses zero-knowledge proofs: cryptographic methods that prove a statement like “over 15” without revealing the underlying data. Each member state must provide at least one such solution free of charge to its citizens.

Hey Europeans, can you make your continent less cringe? Thanks.

I'm really tired of fighting with our governments to do any of the important helpful things they need to, and then also having to fight with them to not do shitty things that destroy good or worthwhile stuff

It gets fuckin old man

KIDS ACT= mass surveillance, fishing out political dissidents.

The irony of linking to an article about forced identification that requires you to login and pay to read it without trackers or a giant banner that covers the article.

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A proposal for mass surveillance of all Internet users named the "KIDS ACT" huh. What a clever name for such a thing. Did the Americans write it, or did the same people who write bills for the Americans write it?

I bet that it will be such a mess that they won't dare to enforce it.

It is unclear which servers are covered. The draft adopts the definition of a social network from the Digital Markets Act. Its Recital 11 clarifies that it concerns “information society services,” which EU law defines as services generally provided for remuneration. Whether a private, non-commercial hobby server falls under this depends on the legal classification of the specific offering. The statement that every instance without exception is covered is therefore an overstatement.

I don't like any of this but losing social media including Lemmy just isn't that big of a deal to me.

The European fediverse may be at risk, but the rest of the fediverse will tell them to go fuck right off.

We must remember that EU is a democracy (not): therefore this is what the majority of EU citizens want.

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I wouldn't say that the fediverse is at risk. The whole internet is.