Post #1873895 · Elektrine

2026-04-29 02:25 UTC

>Those are two different things. Being identifiable online is not the same as giving some company your personal information. >I 100% oppose forcing people to share personal data with private companies. This is not what we're talking about here. This is, in fact, exactly what we're talking about here. The assumption that de-anonymization has some foolproof implementation that only does a single identifying thing (like a limited signal that only says someone is *"old enough"*) is missing a lot of context. Even Von der Leyen's "privacy respecting" age verification app has been shown to have major flaws in that regard. The assumption that it will simply end there also contradicts the evidence. Privacy is a right of fundamental importance to virtually all notions of liberty. Like it or not, data rights are human rights. A society without privacy becomes a society without freedom. The discussions around abolishing privacy are actually always discussions about other problems which are better served by addressing them directly and honestly rather than promoting the idea that the answer is sacrificing essential rights. Our best approach is to address these ills with an honest assessment of their actual, specific causes (like social media algorithms, lack of accountability, and the many reckless, harmful and exploitative practices which have become industry standards, etc) and act from there.

Replies (1)

@ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2026-04-29 06:12

> This is, in fact, exactly what we’re talking about here. No, we're not. We're talking about publishing content online. That's the exact opposite of keeping things private. EU laws are clear here. Your data is protected and age verification does not overwrite those rights. We're not talking about removing e2e encryption, https, VPNs and making selfhosting illegal. We're talking about proving that things that are published (i.e. made public) on the internet are actually published by a citizen. It's baffling that people confuse anonymity with privacy. My Signal account is tied to my phone number yet my conversation are private. You somehow think that protecting this privacy means we have to protect russian bots creating Twitter accounts and spamming the platform with anti-EU propaganda pretending to be 25 year old single mother from Warsaw. > The assumption that it will simply end there also contradicts the evidence. And we have the slippery slope argument. Because that's the only argument people have here. "We need anonymity on social media because they will install cameras in our bedrooms next". I'm not buying that. So far EU has a very good track record when it comes to protecting its citizens from corporations. The fastest way to lose this protection is to let russia backed fascists from AfD, Vox, Kofederacja and Fidesz destabilize and take over EU. Online anonymity is not protecting us from them, it's the main tool they are using. And this is not some fantasy, we've already seen this in UK. Russia backed politicians did brexit and now UK is the most anty-privacy country in Europe. Seeing how toxic the topic of anonymity is I wonder how my russian assets are taking part in this discussion...

Open ##1873897