The change is due to new age verification laws in the UK.

Finally it seems the end of Reddit is near.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Yeah, fuck all that.

    Guess we’re transitioning into a VPN only future.

    We have the opportunity to head into a utopic or dystopic future and we’re absolutely choosing the dystopic one.

    • cley_faye@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      A VPN future? Haha. Not if they don’t want to. There are many ways to prevent VPN from operating when you’re a government.

      You can just plain ban encryption, which sounds really crazy, but yeah, they’re trying to.

      You can just say “it’s illegal to use a VPN”. It’ll technically still work, but if there’s a trace of trafic from your house to a known VPN endpoint, you’re it! Great!

      They can force custom proprietary spying software on your devices. Sounds equally crazy as the thing above, right? But rest assured they’re ALSO trying to do that. Multiple times, even. And in some places… they did. Of course, nothing forces you to have such software on your device. Especially if your devices are not supported; it also turns into a “you have to buy this or that big name device, everything else’s de-facto illegal! Fuck you, we’re the government!”. And if you get caught for whatever, and your phone, PC, or anything isn’t “compliant”? Bam. Guilty.

      Plenty of option. All of them completely stupid and would weaken both privacy, individuals, and governments at large. It never stopped legislation from being pushed forward.

      • DFX4509B@lemmy.orgEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        They can force custom proprietary spying software on your devices.

        • That would block Linux from their borders, which means goodbye Steam Deck in the UK among other things.
      • breecher@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Indeed. With our current system it was only a matter of time. As soon as the internet became a default thing which everyone needed to access just to function in their daily lives, it would of course be subjected to the exact same exploitative mechanisms that the non-internet part of our lives have suffered from since the dawn of history.

    • plz1@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      They’ll criminalize personal VPN users for non-work purposes, next.

  • #!/usr/bin/woof@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    What’s to stop uploading a random picture of a person? Or even an AI generated person? I get what they’re trying to do, but seems like legislative theater more than anything.

    • Technofrood@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      So from my experience of these type of systems (mostly in the context of banking services) they normally want to use your devices camera to take the picture directly, and normally also want a photo of a photographic ID to compare against.

      • Babalugats@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Within banking apps it has become the norm, it shouldn’t mean it’s acceptable, but for the wider community it is accepted.

        But for a fucking forum?? Christ. Especially at a time when Europe are trying to establish digital sovereignty and all of the stories coming out about the US government having access to data. We already know that they are willing to share that with the highest bidder (s).

        People would have to be absolute morons to upload anything personal to Reddit, nevermind your photo ID like a passport or driving licence. But obviously that’s what they’re banking on (people being morons).

        • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          The photo will be uploaded to Persona, not Reddit, if their blurb is to be believed. But yes, it’s nuts, and also now required by law.

      • manualoverride@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Let’s not forget all that lovely metadata they can harvest by accessing the camera module, including the exact GPS co-ordinates the picture was taken.

    • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      I’ve once attempted to open a bank account where they wanted video proof, and expected me to say a randomly assigned phrase. I didn’t do it.

      Fucking KYC is BS.

      • themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Banks are highly regulated so it is not surprising that they would be strict in this, reddit on the other hand has no business doing it.

        • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          has no business doing it.

          Reddit is doing this as a response to regulation as well (1). Governments all around europe (2) are turning communications into a highly regulated environment (“for the children”), because they’re afraid of people communicating and having thoughts. UK is just one of the early adaptors.

          • themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Banks have many safeguard to protect clients for example PCI DSS. On the other hand as far as I know this is a law requiring them to verify people and I don’t think there is a standard for this. Every company will do its own thing. Highy regulated would require them to have some standard, and I don’t see that.

            • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              Seems like you use the phrase “highly regulated” differently then me. You use it to describe the “how”, for me the “what” is sufficient.

              From my point of view the law heavily restricts people’s freedom to be, that’s the mistake. Doesn’t matter the specific implementation, acronym, task force, …

    • Clot@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Oh the cute little corpo is promising to delete your data, how can we not trust him🥺🥺

    • killeronthecorner@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Very careful wording there to switch between Persona and Reddit to conveniently omit one from the justification given by the other.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Under the new UK law, lemmynsfw would also need to have some kind of age verification for UK users.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Or it can just defederate from UK based instances.

          .zip has already been trying to figure out how to handle this law, its also UK based.

        • ptu@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Just curious, how would this happen in practice? As I understand lemmy instances are defederated across the globe. Who would they send their demands to? Also there is already some nsfw content in lemmy, are those expected to respond now in some way?

          • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Maybe they’ll just make the Fediverse illegal in the UK. Or all non-corporate sites that can’t afford to pay a company like Persona.

        • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Real talk - or what? If LemmyNSFW isn’t based in the UK, what can they do?

          Block it? I’d rather have that than deal with processing users face data.

          • HereIAm@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            I believe if the UK finds a site that doesn’t comply with the law, they will block it from their side of things. I haven’t read anything about websites needing to be proactive to block the UK if they don’t plan to comply.

          • TheNamlessGuy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            While I don’t know this situation, in general it tends to be up to the site to block access, rather than the other way around. If they don’t, some government branch may issue a fine to the server owners, and if it doesn’t get paid it’s seen as a crime committed in the UK. Might mean the fineé gets banned, the country they live in might get an extradition order, or whatever.

            Again, no idea about this case in particular. This is just based on what I’ve seen under similar rulings.

            • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              Well as a Lemmy admin I’ll see if they seriously enforce this on international sites. If not, I won’t worry about it. If so, the UK gets blocked. 🤷🤷🤷

              I doubt they’ll be going after niche sites anyway. Big dogs like reddit, sure. Sites dedicated to porn probably. Everyone else? Doubt it.

          • Teal@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            Even though LemmyNSFW is outside of the UK the admins of any instance will be responsible for verification of UK users because of this law. This is why .zip (Lemmy and PieFed) have geoblocked the UK. It’s a lot of work and responsibility to take on.

            Here’s the post from Demigodrick explaining this situation better than I can.

            Important News - Geoblocking of the UK

            • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
              0·
              3 months ago

              Yeah only if the UK can actually manage to enforce any consequences to site admins outside the UK. I’ll wait and watch.

        • .Donuts@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          This. Can’t believe we’re seeing “lol Reddit sucks” when this is a country-wide implementation and has nothing to do with Reddit in particular.

    • themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      It is not just that, I don’t trust Persona security, if a malicious actor installed a silent program that monitors users and sends it to a command and control center they probably won’t know for months or even years. Cyber security is very bad in most companies.

      https://xcancel.com/H4ckmanac

  • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Yeah, I will definitely trust an internet stranger with my face so they can verify that I’m not underage to access content which could, in case of being leaked, damage my reputation or even destroy my life.

    DEFINITELY

    • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Because all the alternatives will have to implement similar shit as well. It’s UK law.

    • Brewchin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      By “that shit”, do you mean every website/app that may contain age-restricted (not just sexual) content? Because that’s what comes into force in the UK next week.

      I’ve been dreading this for decades. 🤬

      It’s not just Reddit, nor are they the first to roll it out early.

      • MagicShel@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Many sites will just geo-block the UK. I think my Lemmy instance has, just like PornHub has blocked US states that have passed similar laws.

    • survirtual@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      These assholes are all pedophiles and they use it to control the planet. To get to high levels of government, you must enter the shadow contract of pedophilia. It is easy to control people and trust people with that kind of shadow on them, so it is required.

      Then they turn around and use pedophilia to control everyone else. Any tech that threatens their power, they can immediately shutdown by pedo-bombing it. The counter to pedobombing is authoritarian moderation. Once you have that, it is over. The government they control now can control the mods, and that means they control the narrative. THAT is one of the core enemies to fight. An alternative to Reddit or any other system is not enough.

      Because pedophilia is such a taboo / social death sentence, it is among the most powerful shadow contracts.

        • survirtual@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Those that have entered into the shadow contract. A shadow contract is one of few mechanisms to enter large-scale consensus (it isn’t THAT large when compared to a solar or galactic scale, but large enough for planetary control, and with some clever management, can scale larger).

          Consensus requires untrusted sovereigns agreeing to collective action. It is a very difficult mechanism to operate. One way is by having a crime so heinous, the mass population block would eviscerate you if it came to light.

          Pedophilia is king among these shadow cornerstones. It illustrates a total lack of empathy, no protective nature towards the innocent, no concern for the perceptions of society, high intellect / manipulation abilities, and a willingness to do anything. You can say it is the “panther” among the shadows.

          So most leadership is among that tribe, which is why they are the way they are. It is only logical.

          There are other tribes as well. Use your imagination and the answers will follow.

          Funny thing, Reddit did that “circle” event many years ago. How big did anyone’s circle get? That is an example of what I am explaining. It is nearly game theoretically impossible to have large scale consensus without some mechanism to make sure people are on the same page.

          • troglodyke@lemmy.federate.ccEnglish
            0·
            3 months ago

            A shadow contract is one of few mechanisms to enter large-scale consensus (it isn’t THAT large when compared to a solar or galactic scale, but large enough for planetary control, and with some clever management, can scale larger).

            You don’t know that, I’ve seen shadow contracts that apply to intergalactic scales. I would wager they can be used for interdimensional organisations

    • Mrkawfee@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      UK is full blown authoritarian now. They have been arresting journalists who are covering the genocide in Gaza and designated a direct action protest group as a terrorist organisation.

  • r00ty@kbin.life
    0·
    3 months ago

    Umm. I just tried old.reddit on a “gonewild” subreddit with no login even, and it was fine. Now I’m sure they’ll patch it out. But, seems to be an easy workaround as of right now.

    • blackn1ght@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      I don’t think it’s been fully rolled out to everyone yet, as they don’t have to start enforcing it until a later date.

      • r00ty@kbin.life
        0·
        3 months ago

        Yeah I wonder if they’re A/B testing on some accounts and old.reddit is generally the last to feel changes.

        • blackn1ght@feddit.ukEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Yeah I think that’s what they’ll be doing, seeing what the impact is to usage and also iron out any kinks before it gets rolled out to everyone.

        • Ace@feddit.ukEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          if you can bypass the id check on old.reddit, DO NOT TELL THEM

          nsfw already requires an account on new.reddit and the app, but old.reddit just has a button that says “I agree I’m over 18” and then you can view without an account. So I’m hopeful that the old.reddit loophole will remain open here too

    • NostraDavid@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Pretty sure .compact also still works.

      Slap .compact after a URL and you’ll see a mobile version of reddit from like 2006.

      edit: THEY REMOVED IT! D: RIP .compact - I’ve visited you about 5 times, ever.

  • PastafARRian@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    To follow compliance with the Know Your Customer Pornographic Materials Act, please use the following guidelines for your photograph:

    1. The picture must be clear, at least 720x480p.

    2. The picture must include your entire body, including your head and toes. Portrait only. *This helps us identify you better.

    3. Please remove any articles of clothing, your body must be unimpeded by any obstruction. *Burqas and other headscarves must be removed, no exceptions.

    4. If you were assigned female at birth, you will be required to rotate 180 degrees and upload another portrait photograph of your back. *Please use only your valid binary gender at birth, either male or female.

    5. Further requests for identification photos are at our discretion, our board has full authority. You may be required to upload alternative photos, such as positions bending over to help us identify your genitalia to ensure it matches your birth gender.

    Thank you for using Persona. For any questions or complaints, please direct them to: BigDaddyGuns6969@aol.com. Please allow up to 14 days for an initial response, and 88 hours for subsequent replies.

      • PastafARRian@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        Harassment will not be tolerated. Your comment has been sent to the board for review and we will decide whether your identity will be removed from Persona. We are not obligated by law to communicate the outcome. You may receive a writ for violating Amendment 3 C, “Requirement of official identification”, the pecuniary fine is at our discretion.