It was never going to stop at just adult sites, and it won't stop with social media. I see s world where the ISP will be required to check your ID and "verify your age" because people were using bond to circumvent these.

Then it's not a stretch to see the government requiring all good citizens to "check in" with the government every month like someone out on parole.

It would be exactly what they would love and like the frog that slowly boils, I believe they'll get it.

This is, of course, the entire goal of the social media control for "children". And you can safely bet that this will creep from social media to essentially all content. Governments have been looking for a means to destroy the anonymous internet for years, and they're making significant progress lately.

I was under the impression that it was already required for any website in which you can communicate with someone else?

And who's gonna stop them!? They're constantly unpopular, doesn't matter if they're individually voted out when all the party lines follow the same doctrine.

Genuine question, but how does anyone see this all being shut down?

Everyone needs to go transparent. Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft.

Unless you're a politician, they're exempt.

Of course, it'll be possible to circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy. 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.

This comment was brought to you by the British Class System: Making Nanny Proud.

Which is why the UK Government is currently discussing restricting VPNs behind real-ID style verification too.

So all of the legit providers will be required to collect ID, and anyone not willing to will be funnelled onto the sketchy providers; which I'm sure won't backfire at all...

> 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.

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.

> Of course, it'll be possible to circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy.

Not if they can make Apple forbid this.

> Not if they can make Apple forbid this.

I mean, even in China, Apple users can still use VPN to get around the great firewall. And that's despite the fact that their government already imposed quite a few extra requirements on Apple in terms of iPhones sold in the country + any China-based accounts. I also don't think that any of it really applies to general purpose computers at all there (as opposed to smartphones).

So I don't see VPNs going away with that recent UK requirement. To be clear, I am 100% fully opposed to the ID verification requirement from the UK, for plenty of reasons that were discussed on HN and elsewhere to death by now. My only point is that even if China didn't get to forbid Apple from allowing VPN, I don't see UK succeeding at this either.

P.S. For those curious about what "extra requirements" for Apple look like in China (only listing the directly relevant ones to this discussion, as there are more of them that aren't):

* iCloud is operated by GCBD/AIPO Cloud, a Guizhou-based Chinese cloud operator, rather than directly under Apple’s standard global iCloud entity.

* Apple also moved the relevant iCloud encryption keys into China. This means Chinese authorities can pursue access through Chinese legal procedures without needing to go through US courts or obtain data from US-based servers.

* App Store is much more heavily censored, but that's not really relevant. VPN apps aren't as easily available, but nothing is stopping a person from just connecting to the same VPN providers through the iPhone VPN settings (they just get to type info in a few fields, as opposed to a one-click-app solution).

> I mean, even in China

And Iran?

You don't need Apple (yet) to access the Internet.

Apple only dominate the US mobile phone market

If the app on the kid's phone knows that the phone is registered in the UK, how would a VPN circumvent it?

This would only work for anyone foolish enough to attempt to access content and services with their phone. You don't own your phone. It might has well be a company-owned device.

"But everyone uses their phone all the time!" Yes, and everyone will be worse off for making the obviously worse choice.

"But everyone uses their phone all the time!"

Kids do.

Sure if they want to circumvent and go home and use Dad's laptop to cyberbully or send pictures of their wang they probably could ...

Suppose the user isn't using a device that leaks its location to any userland software that asks?

Not it's location.

You know perfectly well what I meant.

It is, of course, wild that people are saying "just use a VPN"... in the context of the UK.

The UK gov's approach to internet regulation is absolutely cancerous.

Fully expect pretty much all countries to follow suit though. The "think of the children" angle to force dystopian surveillance is just too neat of a trick to resist. It functionally can't be defeated. No politician is ever going to stand up against it because it risks "oh so you're in favour of harm to children".

The strategy is equal parts brilliant and evil

One thing I saw receive very little attention is that social media seems to be a bit recruitment platform for the various thief gangs in the UK [1]. It suits everyone that kids do this, as they are gullible, cheap to hire, and have a more lenient penal code.

Sure, as with everything, this ban ks circumventable. But more and more I don't see any social utility of these networks at all. It's the cigarettes or our time.

They're not even particularly social any more. Most posting is done by professional influencers and disinformation bots. And criminals, it seems.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-londo...

What disappointments me even more than the UK having these authoritarian polices, is that so many people seemingly support this.

Anonymity online is of course a double-edged sword, but we've seen the authorities, particularly but not exclusively, in the UK use intimidating tactics against those with unfavorable political views. Even when those views didn't break the law (e.g. no calls for violence).

If you also look at how nearly all the existing "verification" systems work, it is just a giant data drag-net, that is absolutely used to associate your real-ID with their advertising analytics. It isn't subtle. Which is why "big tech" (e.g. Meta, Google, Palantir) aren't far behind many proposals.

For all the noise about "EU consumer protections" this certainly seems quite the opposite.

So, to be clear, I have to tiptoe around cookies but eu-users will simultaneously do this so they can share pictures of their ...

The UK left the EU years ago.

But the entire EU is implementing stuff like this. Gov ID's, backdoors (swiss article 50a), etc.

> But the entire EU is implementing stuff like this. Gov ID's, backdoors (swiss article 50a), etc.

Switzerland isn't in the EU, though.

+ Australia + Canada

UK is no longer in the EU

Article is doing a lot of supposing:

"To enforce it, platforms must age-check their users. In practice that means anyone opening a new account will likely have to prove they're over 16 by uploading an ID or passing a facial age scan."

> likely

It could, of course, use a double-anonymous system like the French one.

Probably not, but I'd rather that they didn't state their guess as fact in the title.

> It could, of course, use a double-anonymous system like the French one.

Which isn't really anonymous or privacy preserving, despite it's funny name : https://broken-by-design.fr/posts/proto-authz-porn/

"like"

It's not beyond the wit of humankind to build a working system.

Yeah, I would assume the worst from the UK government on these things.

I hadn't heard of the French double-anonymous system, though. That does sound slightly better.

If a site creates some opaque token representing the request, and the token is signed by the ID service with no other information disclosure that "The user that presented this is of the appropriate age" that would seem like a reasonable compromise.

Token could be signed out-of-band to obscure the interaction between the parties.

I suspect there will be a leadership challenge to the prime minister before this, and the legislation will be dropped.

Curiously all the opponents are in favour of it, or even think it doesn't go far enough.

The dude making the challenge is just as nuts. I am a Left person and it's astonishing how alienated I feel by Labour.

The moment this comes to America im deploying nanogram.

https://gitlab.com/here_forawhile/nanogram-pi

Time to build your own platforms I guess.

You mean countries?

World?

Planet?

It's increasingly North Korean here, there is talk of mandatory bad haircuts late 2027 ...