Comment by spacebanana7
4 months ago
I suspect the endgame of this campaign is to have mandatory ID checks for social media. Police would have access to these upon court orders etc and be able to easily prosecute anyone who posts 'harmful' content online.
<tin-foil-hat> ultimately, i think the endgame is to require government ID in order to access internet services in general, a la ender's game. </tin-foil-hat>
Many countries (including in the EU) already required ID to use a SIM card: https://forestvpn.com/blog/news/countries-sim-card-registrat...
Funnily enough, when the Philippines did this, it was decried as a violation of human rights [1]. But usually, media are so silent on such things I'd call them complicit. One already cannot so much as rent a hotel room anywhere in the EU without showing government ID.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_Registration_Act
I'm in NL and had my wallet fall out of my pocket once at one of the bigger train stations. I realized within ~5 minutes, and basically as soon as I realized got a call from an anonymous number. It was the police, who had found my wallet with my ID in it and were calling me to inform me about it. Luckily I was still at the station and could just meet them and got my wallet back.
I couldn't help but feel extremely creeped out, and my girlfriend still to this day doesn't understand why I felt uneasy about it. "But you got your wallet back!", she says. "Of course the police know your number!". Having 0 privacy has been completely normalized, and I'm afraid we're far too late to do anything about it.
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yup, and this gives the ability to look up per-citizen location data.
sidebar: i've been trying to raise awareness about "joint communications and sensing" wherever i can lately; many companies involved in 6G standardization (esp. nokia) want the 6G network to use mmWave radio to create realtime 3d environment mappings, aka a "digital twin" of the physical world, aka a surveillance state's wet dream.
https://www.nokia.com/blog/building-a-network-with-a-sixth-s...
Not only rent, but in Spain there is a central database where your details are sucked in real time when you rent a room or a car, and no oversight how this data is used.
You can buy (and top up) a SIM card without an ID in the EU.
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Please walk me from scratch how you would access the internet on your own right now without any form of Government ID
Walk into a coffee shop. Look at the wifi password, usually a sign near the register. Log onto the wifi network using the wifi password. Browse in peace.
Is this sort of flow normal elsewhere? It's certainly normal where I live.
???
I'd walk to a local library and use their wifi. Or walk to a local McDonalds and use their wifi. Or walk to a friend's/family's house and use their wifi. Or...
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I'm in the US. I do have government ID, but I don't recall showing it to my network providers. Certainly, some telcos want a social security number to run credit; but that's often avoidable. I'm pretty sure could also wander down to an electronics store (maybe a grocery/drug store too) and pick up a prepaid cell phone with internet access, pay for it with cash, and get that going without government id in the US. It's a bit of a hike to get to the electronics store from where I live, but I can get part of the way there with the bus that takes cash too.
Prepaid SIM from one of the EU countries that still has them, such as Denmark. Purchase in cash from a kiosk.
Prepaid 5G phone bought with cash and activated by dialing 611.
That would not be unprecedented: The first major change by the Lee Myung-bak government was to require websites with over 100,000 daily visitors to make their users register their real name and social security numbers. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_K...
I'm afraid the endgame is, all this activity tied to real identities will be repeatedly leaked, get used for blackmail, and by foreign intelligence agencies.
Followed by governments basically shrugging.
Which would kill social media. The cherry-picked tech giant iterations anyway.
They already have this in China and Korea. Hasn't stopped people from using social media.
The West isn't China and Korea. They can't opt out of authoritarian-state surveillance and great firewall, whereas we have options more amenable to privacy, even if you want to quibble that they aren't perfect.
Also the fact that UK and Australia are kind of backwards on online privacy.
That aside, this is targeted. The fediverse and vbulletin forums of old, even reddit, are all social media but will never require facial recognition. If they do, then far worse things are happening to freedom.
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I don't think it would kill social media, but it'd make it more similar to Chinese social media. Essentially impossible to use for protests or criticism of things the government doesn't critiques on.
Why? People make social media accounts with their real name and face already. I doubt it would have any effect.
It ties real world ultraviolence with social media. It won't kill social media, just make it materially toxic. IIUC South Korea in 2000s had exactly this, online dispute stories coming from there were much worse than anything I had heard locally.
Exactly, targeting children with their parents credit cards is a profitable business.
See e.g. "Ohio social media parental notification act"
(mind you, ID/age requirements for access to adult content go way, way back in all countries)
They already have access to this.
If you run a social media site, then you have an API that allows government access to your data.
You need to ask what would Trump do. Court order probably skipped, or from a friendly judge.
Good!
Why is the Internet any different than say, a porn or liquor store? Why are we so fuckin allergic to verification? I'll tell ya why- money. Don't pretend it's privacy.
there two false equivalencies in your argument, as presented in response to GP:
1. ID checks are not the same as age verification.
2. a social media website is not the same as a porn website.
if you take the stance that social media sites should require ID verification, then i would furthermore point out that this is likely to impact any website that has a space for users to add public feedback, even forums and blogs.
It's about power not money. The Chinese social media companies who do this are plenty profitable.
How about we don't pretend there's only 1 single facet to this issue, no matter which you think it is?
Money? Every big ad tech company would love to be provided with all that juicy verification data.
If they could make more money with verification than without then we would already have it.
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