Reddit Starts Verifying Ages of Users In the UK (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0178386856
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/15/1922235/reddit-starts-verifying-ages-of-users-in-the-uk
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4ep1znk4zo
> Reddit, known for its online communities and discussions, said that while it does not want to know who its audience is: "It would be helpful for our safety efforts to be able to confirm whether you are a child or an adult." Ofcom, the UK regulator, said: "We expect other companies to follow suit, or face enforcement if they fail to act." Reddit said that from 14 July, an outside firm called Persona will perform age verification for the social media platform either through an uploaded selfie or "a photo of your government ID," such as a passport. It said Reddit will not have access to the photo and will only retain a user's verification status and date of birth so people do not have to re-enter it each time they try to access restricted content. Reddit added that Persona "promises not to retain the picture for longer than seven days" and will not have access to a user's data on the site. The new rules in the UK come into force on 25 July. [...]
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> Companies that fail to meet the rules face fines of up to 18 million pounds or 10% of worldwide revenue, "whichever is greater." [Ofcom] added that in the most serious cases, it can seek a court order for "business disruption measures," such as requiring payment providers or advertisers to withdraw their services from a platform, or requiring Internet Service Providers to block access to a site in the UK."
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4ep1znk4zo
For Subreddits Dedicated to Porn (Score:1)
I am assuming this 100% because of the UK law requiring age verification for websites hosting porn starting July 25th. And Reddit has a ton of porn.
Re: (Score:2)
NSFW subs can also contain no porn, though. Assume they will be blocked too.
These Companies Are Fucked (Score:4, Interesting)
> an uploaded selfie or "a photo of your government ID," such as a passport.
You have to do the full Know Your Customer(KYC) registration for Reddit? Their next earnings report will be discussing a massive plunge in visits and ad revenue.
This whole formal identification to use internet sites is a disaster. Worst of all, it has no effect on violators. Kids know how to get porn. Crooks know how to get crypto/bank/phone service without KYC. These companies are fucked.
Re:These Companies Are Fucked (Score:4, Insightful)
Yup. But this wasn't ever about protecting children. These laws are about shaming people, and asserting dominance over those who like things that they don't, and about compiling an easily subpoenaed list of people whom they consider deviants.
If the laws were really about protecting children, they would have passed a law requiring browser vendors to provide age check support in a privacy-protecting way.
Re: (Score:2)
"or", not "and"
Re: (Score:1)
Why are you pretending to discuss this issue without actually discussing the issue?
NEARLY ALL SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS ARE FAKE AND EVERY PLATFORM IS KNOWINGLY CATERING TO SCAMMERS AND SPAMMERS OPERATING SWARMS OF ACCOUNTS IN ORDER TO MANUFACTURE FAKE USER METRICS.
Reddit is an ongoing criminal conspiracy and we all know it and we also know that KYC does actually stop that kind of criminal conspiracy. Every single crypto or sales platform that adds KYC, fails as a result. That absolutely means that the accoun
Re: (Score:1)
Are you serious?
Re: (Score:3)
Facebook, by their own admission, deletes BILLIONS of fake accounts every few months (https://cybernews.com/editorial/facebook-deleted-billions-fake-users/).
Reddit's current CEO admitted to filling their platform with fake users and fake content from the very beginning(https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/reddit-faked-its-first-users-resurfaced-video-shows-co-founder-alexis-ohanian-admitting-99-of-early-submissions-were-fabricated/articleshow/119263428.cms?from=mdr).
Anyone trying to def
and... (Score:2)
reddit dies a little more. This is like a death of a thousand cuts.
Fake picture? (Score:1)
I wonder what's stopping someone from using someone else's picture or AI generated image and then taking a picture of that.
I can't remember the last time I was on Reddit (Score:3)
Must have been years. I'm feeling like a proper adult right now.
Backups at the ready (Score:2)
In preparation for the 25 July I've backed up about 1TB of my favourite porn onto my cloud-backed NAS.
I'm all set and ready for years to come.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So what you're saying is you're ready to come for years.
Re: (Score:3)
> In preparation for the 25 July I've backed up about 1TB of my favourite porn onto my cloud-backed NAS.
There's porn on Reddit? Seems to me it's mostly just people spamming their OnlyFans teasers in NSFW subs that allow such self-promotion, and slyly asking to be DMed (so they can send you their OnlyFans link, obviously) in subs that don't.
Ever since the great PornHub purge, most of what's online these days is just someone trying to get you to unzip your... pocket book.
The internet was a regulatory arbitrage... (Score:3)
Social media and web 2.0 were just a regulatory arbitrage and it's been regulated out of existence...at least in the UK. For a couple decades you could call your business a tech company because they were unregulated compared to the existing alternative. Uber was less regulated than taxis. Paypal was less regulated than a bank. Crypto was less regulated than securities. But regulations caught up and now we have these massive monolithic monopolists dominating the internet with business models that no longer seem to be legal.
If KYC breaks a platform, then it means that platform was crooked. Full stop. If your platform involves transferring money between accounts, then KYC is obviously needed. If any of these platforms actually stuck to their purported business model, communication between users, then this would be an insane invasion of privacy but these platforms decided to financialize themselves and pay users to post.
Reddit turned itself into a transnational payment systems by choice. Of course they need KYC.
Online age verification is impossible (Score:3)
Kids are smart and can easily find workarounds
Censorship is fascist! (Score:1)
Please, help us circumvent it!