Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws | TechCrunch
techcrunch.com
Decentralized social network Mastodon says it cannot comply with age verification laws, like in Mississippi and elsewhere, and says it's up to individual server owners to decide.

Decentralized social network Mastodon says it cannot comply with age verification laws, like in Mississippi and elsewhere, and says it’s up to individual server owners to decide.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    3 days ago

    I mean, kind of…

    That means individual server owners have to decide for themselves if they believe an age verification component is a necessary addition.

    The laws are written for capitalism. Not an open source code base that lets literally anyone create an instance of their own.

    So “Mastodon” might have lawyers and shit, but a tiny instance with 100 people would just get shut down, or maybe even charges.

    It sounded great at first, till I got to the part they were just passing the buck to smaller instances.

    • blarghly@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      3 days ago

      I mean, it kind of works, right? With tons of small instances, the government is playing whack-a-mole

    • NarrativeBear@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      Hopefully sites will rather go dark then implement systems to store and retain “age verification” data, or more specifically “identify data”.

      Age verification in my mind just means people that want to create a website will now have large barriers to entry.

      Where I see this going is a service will probably pop up that will allow site developers to stick a third party “age verification” platform infront of their site that acts like a gate keeper or bouncer.

      Sign in with Facebook will probably become more common now that I think of it. Visiting bestbuy? Sign in with Facebook. Visiting a adult website? Sign in with Facebook.