I’ve been thinking. Every mainstream social media is age verificated now. But sites such as SomethingAwful, 4chan and the Fediverse weren’t. So why are we trying to populate it if the Fedi’ was popular too, we would ALSO be verificated and spywared (made up this word for this post’s sake)?
Probably. Regulators usually care about reach, not architecture. If the Fediverse became genuinely mainstream, it would likely end up in the same political spotlight. The real difference is that federation makes compliance an instance by instance problem, not one global switch. That is much harder to enforce.
So, only the popular instance would get verification, not every one?
At present, most probably only those that appear on the regulatory radar in their own right.
thats not how it works. there is no company. if your server tries to age gate me, i’ll just use another.
I’ll run my own is also an option.
You can just join another instance that is outside the jurisdiction of these laws or run your own instance with closed sign ups since you don’t have to verify your own age (or the age of known friends if you offer access to them)
The fediverse is inherently resilient to this sort of law, it’s the laws that make platforms liable for the content posted to it, that are more of a concern for the fediverse.
The question is what are they to do if a kid starts their own instance. Will the kid get fined?
In one description I saw, part of the criterion was algorithmic feeds i.e. viewer manipulation. Lemmy has a fairly wimpy form of that compared to something like Facebook, and it could be shut off entirely without any loss. If it were up to me I’d shut it off either way.
