Internet and media censorship/age verfication

Lounge EndeavourOS pub
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Goverments vs The Internet

I havent found anyone talking about this here yet, so I guess I’ll take this one on me…

I try to avoid politics as much as I can, even if this is a quite political topic. But I dont like politics a lot, and its also against community guidlines. Should I have failed, plz dear mods remove this.

:united_kingdom: UK: Online Savety Act has been fully enforced (July 25, 2025)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer
While when you read it, it may sound not that bad, even good in some cases, but it does come with a bad aftertaste, so to say, and leaves a backdoor that is now starting to get abused against your privacy and control on what you see on the internet.

Petition:

UK citizens made a petition that this act should be repealed:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
within a very short time it reached over 400k+ votes.

Their answer: It will stay. We dont care.

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:united_states: US - Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA)

The US introduced something similar (the same) as the UK.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1748/text

SCREEN Act

If this bill is passed, it will require full age verfication (verfiy with ID) for every american to access the internet
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/737/text

:european_union: EU - Chat Control

The EU wants to monitor your messages.
Despite being rejected before, next voting is scheduled on October 14, 2025
If it passes? Every image, text, or file you share will be automatically monitored with AI - no consent or suspicion required (this will bypass encryption). If it thinks you are suspicious by your texts, images or videos → automatic disclosure to police, authorities and non-govermental organizations.

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I dont think I need to explain that this is bad, so I’ll leave it like that.
Here are 2 links with more info on this topic:

Here is a website on how countries are planning to vote on it, who oppose and who are in favor of it https://fightchatcontrol.eu/

thanks @_Six for helping me with this

Google-PLay alternatives (F-droid) - Banned

Seems alternatives and trying to bypass this will be problematic too :upside_down_face:

:australia: Australia - Online Safety Code

In Australia you will have to verify you age by the end of the year to just use the browser. Yes, if you dont do that no more browsing for you.

:canada: Canada - Bill S-209

Something similar to EU and US
https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/s-209

:ireland: Ireland - Gardaí

Gardaí in Ireland could soon gain the power to intercept and monitor live conversations on WhatsApp, iMessage, Instagram but likely also Gaming Devices, Car Systems and Satillite Networks.
This potential change stems from the proposed Communications (Interception and Lawful Access) Bill, which is being drafted by the Department of Justice and is expected to be brought before the government in the coming months.

https://archive.is/L8amm

:brazil: Brazil - Digital ID and Biometrics

Lawmakers in Brazil have introduced a new bill to establish protections for children in digital environments, which includes provisions outlining age verification measures and design requirements for digital service providers. These mechanisms can include biometric age assurance technologies.
https://reclaimthenet.org/brazil-uses-child-safety-as-cover-for-online-digital-id-surge

Mississippi - Bill 1126

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed Mississippi’s age verification law, House Bill 1126 (the “Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act”), to take effect, marking a significant development in the state’s push for digital ID requirements on social media platforms.
This decision, made on August 14, 2025, permits the law to be enforced while legal challenges continue, despite concerns over its impact on free speech and privacy.
The law mandates that all users, regardless of age, verify their identity and age before creating an account on covered social media platforms, with minors requiring explicit parental consent

:mexico: Mexico - Biometric identifier mandatory for all citizens (surveillance)

Off topic but also interesting and fitting

Platforms are required to react

Due to these new laws, platforms especially big ones are “slowly” adapting to these laws.

X/Twitter:

When scrolling, you may every now and then stumble upon something like this. You may think this is definitly something bad, or even horrible? Spoiler alert: Nope. Not always. Often its critics or a link to a website they think is dangerous (websites with tutorials on how to bypass it, or just website with critics or similar). This also aplies to posts you made yourself, meaning you cant see your own posts anymore. This is not just in the UK its also in the EU.

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Update: August 1st:

X made a statement on this situation, they are not happy with it.
(they made many posts about this, seems this is one of the more official ones, as it is an article)

Update: August 8th:

if you want to view sensitive content, X now requires you to verify age via selfie or ID if age can’t be determined in a different way. This is required to comply with UK’s Online Savety Act and EU Digital Services Act

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Discord:

Discord now requiers you to do a face scan to verify your age, or ID (many report issues, so face scan is all they can do). Currently seems only to be a UK thing.
People are trying to bypass this by using photos of someone else, or using games like Death Stranding with photomode. (might be illigal?)

Update: August 26th:

There are a handful reports that this is now affecting some in the US too now (unverified)

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Spotify:

Yeah,… Spotify too. This is defintly not weird. And definitly about protecting children.
Seems to be only UK for now. Only UK for now mostly.

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Reddit - Aug 9th:

If you want to view certain topics or communities, subreddits or however these are called, you have to age verify. (currently only UK it seems)

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Youtube:

Youtube is already jumping onboard and using AI age verifing tools to determine your age, starting August 13 (US only for now)
If the AI decides you are under 18, you can only watch content made for children and puts you in “kids mode” with digital wellbeing tools active (screen time, timer on when you have to go to bed, etc).
Of course, if it incorrectly estimates your age under 18 you still can send in your ID to proof you are older.

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Update:

There is a petition going on against this issue:

Update2:

YT seems to start banning VPNs:

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Google - Aug 21st:

Google is now starting to expand AI age verification to Google’s Search engine.
That means your search history, queries, and behavior are being analyzed by an opaque algorithm to guess your age, and if it flags you, your entire Google profile may get locked behind age verification prompts.

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TikTok -Aug 10th:

Similar to whatever YT is doing, TikTok does too, with one difference. If the AI misinterprets your age, you can loose your Account. Unless you hand over your ID and a Selfie

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4chan

Ofcom, the UK’s independent communications regulator is attcking and fining 4chan as they fail to comply with the Online Safety Act

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Response from 4chan:
“We’re American, you have no control over us”

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Bluesky - Aug 22nd

Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi because of the state law that requieres age verification for all users

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Mozilla warning that Germany could soon ban Ad-Blockers

Bit off-Topic but also fits in here:

VPNs are at risk now as expected

A trade group representing companies that build age verification systems is now lobbying to extend these checks to anyone using a VPN in the UK.

Now you wonder why I’m doing this to myself making such a big post here. Well, first of all I think its quite important as I did switch to Linux in order to avoid Windows watching every step of mine. Yes I am aware that you can never fully be anonymus when using platforms like these (or the internet in general).

Yes shame on me for using Spotify.
Shame on me for using X/Twitter.
Shame on me for using Discord.
Shame on me for watching Youtube.

But damn let me have some fun on YT.
Let me play with my friends on Discord bc I cant force them to use something else.
Let me listen to my favourite band and keep the top 100 listener of all time streak going.
And damn without X/Twitter I wouldnt even know that.

Now with all this, how will you go on? What will you do if this will become worldwide reality? (i hope we can save this sinking ship)

I try my best to keep this topic updated, if I can. (have already added a few things now)

plz ignore possible grammar or typos, i did this without translation tools and i hope it isnt too obvious. If there are mistakes, or critical errors in any shape or form plz notify me so i can correct it

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No this is beyond political this is just wrong and should be warned agenst!

Note some but not all can be circumvented with a good VPN.

And if this becomes “worldwide reality” f me I gonna go off grid hell no I’m uploading/showing me id/passport over the net!

Note I’m 42 years old.

Oh and here’s an other worrying thing:

Wi-Fi tracking! :enraged_face:

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Yeah right now you can bypass it with vpn. But if some higher ranked ppl already say stuff like “free and low cost vpns are harming children” something like that, you know what will be next…

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Yeah that’s true but I think VPN’s would then try to fight them in Cort Because VPN business is worth a lot!

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Hopefully. I know Proton is posting a lot of this issue, they also are recording +1400% usage since this, so I guess they are on board with us

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Government saying “No plans” means there are plans

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“don’t worry, we are just looking closly​:eyes:”

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Wi-Fi tracking (and bluetooth I should note) has been a thing for many years now, that’s nothing new. Having worked for a marketing agency for most of the previous decade as a technical lead, clients (usually retail) were very interested collecting visitor data. This particular technology provided accurate visitor numbers, and data on visitor physical movements.

In a nutshell:

  • Mobile devices, whether they’re actively connected to a given WiFi network or not, are constantly probing for nearby access points. That probe the mobile device sends out as a normal and mundane part of it’s functionality, is what’s tracked.

  • The device is identified (albeit with a changing MAC address on more recent devices) and its position triangulated between access points (based on signal strength) with a decent amount of accuracy. No special hardware is needed, just a few WiFi access points and the data they already collect.

  • If they manage to entice you to connect to free public WiFi, and it’s that network that is tracking you, this vastly improves tracking as the data transmitted is far more constant.

So there you have it. The same principle applies to mobile towers as well I expect.

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Sure but this one is a tad bit more advanced! Read article! Thy can now track bodies not just devices.

This can(and probably will) be used in the near future.

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It’s dystopian. trying to not make starset references now, but I guess I can’t resist.

“The bigger the lie
The further it goes
It’s all fun and games
Till the overthrow
When it gets inside
And it starts to grow
Then say goodbye
Cause that’s the deathblow
But I’m not giving up that easy
I’m not giving up my mind
Cause the more that you try
The more that they need
There’s nowhere to hide
When they break out the guillotine”

-Brave New World

I really think in the end everything we do might get tracked. Be it our internet activity, bound to an digital identity which will be connected to your real world identity. If you try to avoid it, well cameras are everywhere and they are already getting equipped with ai to identify you, including your mood and the potential if you are criminal. So the question is, what will come next? Drones to cover places outside of cities? Will the wifi tracking also be used against us, likely to track our movement for those who don’t have cameras installed in the home. Just a thought progress.

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here is some interesting information from David Bombai

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I notice this topic hasn’t been mentioned here until now, likely due to the politics rule, but this is something that shouldn’t stay silent.

I expected these laws to appear eventually as they were mentioned before for a while now, even on this forum this UK bill was mentioned in 2023. But people have ignored, not known about it, or don’t know how these acts will affect them. Or they would outright tell people warning about this as overreacting, even despite the information Snowden leaked a long time ago, proving not to trust governments and big tech companies.

The only good thing is it will hopefully generate a lot of noise across US, UK, and Europe. People have not been taking privacy seriously for too long now. These safety Acts are the equivalent to showing ID for every local shop you go to down the street as they contain something deemed harmful to children.

These laws may inconvenience enough of the general public where they will be taken more seriously, finally the public will be visually inconvenienced and have to mentally process and put in work to bypass or comply. People in the UK always moan about the TV license and being harassed by the letters, maybe they will finally start moaning about something important like this instead, as it can be easily expanded upon by the government to almost anything.

Wishful thinking though, too many believe the “protect the children” lies but I’m hoping more of the general population won’t ignore this now.

I would argue these bills do more to harm the mental health of children as they grow up than what the bill is supposed to supposedly protect against. Feeling like you cannot have privacy is damaging to psychology of everyone, a type of damage that governments can manipulate, such as in China and Russia, for controlling free speech, protests, citizens trust in each other to say their thoughts openly, etc.

In the UK we only have one party who is vocally against this but you cannot trust them either. Hopefully, regardless if you like them or not, they will draw enough attention disagreeing as they seemingly thrive with that in the past. They at least made someone in our government insult them for it accusing them as being “on the side of predators” which only exposes the government, and an insult to him is technically an insult to any citizen in the country who disagrees with the safety act too.
UK government spokesperson also apparently threatened everyone with possible fines if they suggest VPN to anyone to get around this safety act.

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Yeah that’s my concern too, whatever you upload has a risk to get breached. A feast for hackers who sell data, and criminals might get an easier time taking on a fake identity.

Edit after 4hr: I remember I wanted to add that for some reason (i think it was uk goverment? maybe eu?) they want to make a backdoor for encryption. which is ironic since goverments, banks and other critical infrastructure use encryption. yet they seem to decide general puplic aint allowed to have it?

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I myself was warning against this already like 4-5 years ago. This was when I was learning IT. (I think apprentice might be the right word?) I stumbled over these topics and overall always had this feeling something like this could happen, with the AI development too. But back then it was always seen as conspiracy theory, even my teachers said “AI will never happen, and will take maybe 20-50 years till we may have something we maybe can call AI, its just a hype not more” The very next year chatgpt was out and he was very silent about this. Everyone was using it. And I was already imagining, how this tool might be used against us, with all the students putting all their data in there, and how other devices like cameras might be using ai in the future…

Well idk maybe I have the gift of prophecy or something or I just think different idk but it somehow all became true which is scary when I think about it

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I was doing my two apprenticeships for IT in 2015-2018 and it was kind of the same then with people, even in my IT jobs no one is a skeptical as they should be. AI is something I have always distrusted, especially for client side scanning to scan your files on devices as a method to bypass end-to-end Encryption.

You have to be careful with a lot of services as well, WeTransfer for example puts any file you place through them in to an AI to “train it on content moderation”, and the AI they use is based on OpenAI so they get the training data too, they also collect IP address and various other data while doing this too as part of privacy policy and even specify they can send this to law enforcement, data brokers etc.

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I’m sorry, but I’m not giving my ID to any 3rd party. Period. The TEA app is a prime example of how simple it is to breach and disseminate the data. Politicians have a habit of being grossly misinformed and downright technically illiterate, VPNs are essential to operational security for most orgs working with remote services and workers. Banning VPNs is tantamount to saying you’re going to ban mathematics, good luck with that.

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EU is also now trying to bring back Chat Control. With Denmark trying to get it implemented as early as October this year. You will never guess it but this is also to protect the children.

  • Providers need to search all private chats (Including game chats), messages, emails automatically for “suspicious content”, stated aim is CSAM, just like these online safety laws.
  • End-to-end encrypted devices are not excluded from the scope. Which I imagine means a client side AI is scanning the messages, or maybe server side. as it specified using “machine searching” to find suspicious images, videos, and messages, and any files are reported to the police.
  • ISPs can be obliged to block access to “prohibited” and non-removable images and videos hosted outside of the EU through URL network blocking.
  • This will be fully automated surveillance of chats in real time and all messaging apps can be affected.
  • According to the bill to protect national security it will only affect chat/messaging services accessible to the general public.
  • This means anyone in government or people rich enough I imagine can get the tools that are not publicly accessible and therefore exempt.
  • Makes me struggle to believe this is “protecting children” because through this exemption that are saying the perpetrators could never be in government etc so those devices don’t need to be scanned.
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Urgh now I know what I forgot to include in my post. Yeah that too, chat control. If you allow me, I will copy paste it into the post above later at some point (with credit ofc) else it might stay here in the comments unrecognized.
I’m trying to keep it updated every now and then if I think of it and find something major or interesting.

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It’s fine to add anything I post in to the main post above, no credit needed from me for it either but if you want to add credit that is also fine.

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Same with me, I will try everything first except give my ID over. Apparently some people have used AI generated faces here in the UK to trick the detection system and even a template of a driver license on image search, some have even mentioned a virtual AI camera if the system needs you to move your head on camera, never tried these though as I don’t want to comply to their rules or system, VPN currently is working for me, but I know our government has been annoyed at how easily it’s being circumvented and doing threats of fines.

Only way they could “break” encryption is client side scanning with AI, so everything is scanned from device end before it is encrypted, so it bypasses encryption but not directly break it, but does break it in the sense of rendering it useless. I guess the other is if the service provider themselves encrypted the data, which means they may have the encryption key to unlock it to scan. All of which are a huge privacy and security risk to everyone.

VPNs I think will pretty much be mostly safe technology wise for now, China and Russia have been unable to get block them completely. However, VPNs have been effective mostly as they could connect to a “free” country, may be less possible in future though if the number of “free” countries reduce.

Pretty much sums it up, unfortunately dangerously so and don’t understand the security consequences. Bit like wanting to add “lawful” back-door access, but a backdoor for one is a backdoor for everyone.

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