Comment by shit_game
7 hours ago
I remember my mother watching a news segment on TV about the subject of online identity verification several months ago, and she commented that she supported it because "kids shouldn't be looking at these things." I asked her if she believed it's a parents responsibility to parent their children and block childrens' access to unsavory things, or if she felt it might be dangerous to tie a persons legal identity to what they do on the internet, and her face kind of glazed over and she said "no?"
The average person is not thinking about the ways in which legislation can be abused, or in how it oversteps its "stated purpose", or how it can lead to unintended consequences. I remember the news segment saying something to the tune of "new legislation aims to prevent children from viewing pornography", which is a deliberately misinformative take on these kinds of legislation.
The current political atmosphere of the western world is edging towards technofascism at an alarming rate - correlating online activities to real-world identities (more than they already are via the advertisement death cult (read: industry)) is dangerous. A persons political beliefs, national status, health status, personal associations, interests, activities, etc. are all potential means of persecution. Eventually, the western world will see (more) TLAs knocking on doors and asking for papers and stepping inside homes. They're going to forensically analyse computers belonging to average people (which government agencies are already doing at border checkpoints in the US) to weed out political dissidents or people targetted for persecution.
Things are going to get exponentially worse for everyone, and nobody is trying to stop it because the average person is uninformed, uninterested, and - worst of all - an absolute fucking idiot.
Exactly, this is why the 'think of the children' argument always wins when it comes to democracy. People who do not have the knowledge are easy to scare.