Comment by txrx0000
1 day ago
> We are literally sending a request to our government's server to sign
You've already lost. You're at the government's mercy. They can simply refuse to sign.
"Mr. John Smith, we noticed you've published some poorly-worded comments online. Why are you locked out of your account, you say? Oh, that's just an unfortunate technical issue with our signing system, happens all the time. Anyway, this is a friendly reminder for you to improve your online etiquette. Have a nice day."
There's really two cases here.
You live in a democracy?
YES) the violation you describe is verifiable to a journalist. You publish story, and you keep the government accountable.
NO) Why are you even discussing if age verification is a good idea or not, you freak. It's not really up to you anyway. Go fix your country first.
You mean the journalists that are pro age-verification and pro banning everything that's slightly critical and constantly demonize everyone going against them?
Or you live in a democracy so you throw a fit until your government backs down. No amount of journalists is going to change the US or the UK at this point.
Didn't work for EU or US surveillance.
Do you trust today's democracy to be a democracy tomorrow?
Never. Cede. Ground. You'll never get it back, and one day the rights will be gone.
Age verification in Australia had like 70% popularity.
That is an astounding consensus in a system which regularly decides elections by 51%.
You're not getting mandated from up high: it is democratically enormously popular to do this.
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Plenty of democracies in Europe and elsewhere regularly and repeatedly fail to actually represent the desires and interests of the citizenry, but they keep getting reelected anyway. Why should this time be any different?
I'm sure they do fail, but at least they have the theoretical ability for citizens to more directly challenge crimes comitted by the government itself. Unlike the U.S., which removed it by statutes, most other common law countries, and all civil law countries, citizens retain the ability to force criminal prosecution (either by private prosecution or by appeal to a magistrate with proof a crime has been committed).
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