Which is why big tech is actively lobbying for these laws because they know that they will be the only ones who can comply and therefore exist.

Don't forget to write to your MP - being polite but angry helps. Explain the issues, shortcomings and why you feel this should be repealed and a better user-friendly and privacy respecting alternative needs to be found BEFORE implementing stupid asinine knee-jerk legislation like this.

My poor MP is getting it in the jugular because they boasted about working in data security and I'm exploiting the hell out of that statement so they can't easily weasel their way out of it.

I'm just waiting for the response to be something along the lines of... "According to existing law (see Online Safety Act), websites are required to do age verification... blah blah blah, no changes will be made, thank you for your inquiry"

i2p

How about Gemini? https://geminiprotocol.net/

Gemini is a group of technologies similar to the ones that lie behind your familiar web browser. Using Gemini, you can explore an online collection of written documents which can link to other written documents. The main difference is that Gemini approaches this task with a strong philosophy of "keep it simple" and "less is enough". This allows Gemini to simply sidestep, rather than try and probably fail to solve, many of the problems plaguing the modern web, which just seem to get worse and worse no matter how many browser add-ons or well meaning regulations get thrown at them.

How it applies to geolocation and server hosting in light of the OSA I really have no clue. But it's an interesting underground hacker/tinker type alternative.

Social/Political problems need social/political solutions, not technical solutions.

VPNs aren’t going to be a practical solution going forward. You are creating dependancies that governments can target, spying on traffic and enforcing censorship for these relays is something any country can and likely will implement at some point. The clearnet is dying because the evangelicals are killing it.

Because it’s something where the current government can claim they’re “doing something” or “addressing a real problem” but it also doesn’t threaten the rich and powerful.

Going after Facebook would threaten the rich and powerful, for who it is an important tool for manipulating people, who think they can use it to mold culture to what they want it to be my breaking the minds of children.

The current UK government is desperate to say to the public that they’re governing and fixing problems, but they also really don’t want to piss off the rich and powerful.

because Facebook is an abstract danger, porn is (relatively) well defined

Have to agree with you. If every site just blocked the country with a stupid law like this, then the regular (regarded) folk that are gonna send over their ID the first chance they get will maybe log off their wank station and idk join the cause.

Saying that, at least ppl will be forced to use a vpn instead of sending their id through the internet if they dont comply and just block.

Fuck off with your device based verification system. That's just the same service, but as a more invasive app installed on your phone.

not necessarily. you give a phone to your children. you partly lock it down by setting it up as a child account, with its age. you make sure to install a web browser that supports limiting access to age appropriate content according to the age set in the system, maybe taking a parent allowed whitelist. the website is legally obliged to set an appropriate age limit value in a standard HTTP header.

that way, the website does not know your age. the decision is on the web browser.
the web browser checks the configuration in the system, that only the parent can change. it does not send it anywhere, only does a yes/no decision. if the site is not ok, it'll show a thing like when the connection is not secure or it was put on the safebrowsing list, except that you can't skip it, only option is to request parent permission.
and finally the age is set in the operating system, without verifying its truthiness, but once again requesting lock screen authentication.
oh and app installs need parent approval for kid accounts, like it should almost always be.

this way it's as private as it can get. the only way a website can find out information about you from this, is to log if your browser loaded the html but not any other resources, because that means you were caught in the age filter. but that's it.

there's multiple pieces in this that is not yet implemented, but they should be possible with not too much work.
this is all possible with open source code, if you make sure the kid can't install anything without parent approval. stores like fdroid could have some badge or something if a browser supports this kind of limitation.

Who said the device based service has to be closed source?

To be fair, this already applies to any baseband blob.

The great firewall of starmer

because these laws aren't about protecting children they're about elimination of access to things the government doesn't like... like queer spaces

Don't give your children unrestricted acces to a smartphone until they've proven they can use it wisely. No smartphone before age twelve. Limited use until age 15. And ffs. Ban smartphones at school.

Teach your kids about the internet. It's part of sexual education.

And don't leave it up to private companies to identify me and collect sensitive data on me. Fuck that. If you really want age verification. Deliver the framework.

I've been saying this a couple places recently, but why not pass legislation requiring every site to provide a content rating. Then parents can choose if they want to restrict content by ratings or not. Yeah, you could have malicious actors, but it makes it easier and simpler for everyone to work than having ID laws.

My 5 year old son does have access to an android tablet, but i restrict, selectively, what he can do on it and time limit his usage so it locks down after a few hours. I curate his youtube and frequently spend time watching kids content to decide if i want him watching it. If its good and educational i will share it to his kids youtube account. He cant browse the web, he cant buy things on the play stores. He has to get me to approve any app install and i will always install first and play to ensure it safe.

Its hard work, but its worth it to protect him online. And this has lead to it just being another one of his toys, it doesnt absorb his whole existence. He can take it or leave it. Which i am chuffed about.

When he is older and i can help him understand for himself how to be safe, i will help him however i can. Rather than restric, i will help him understand what the internet is, the good the bad and the ugly.

That requires effort, which most parents are unwilling to do, and newspapers will still want it banned and governments would still want to ban it so they can ban other things too.

This is a conservative idea if conservatives weren't evil lmao. And I agree