zlacker

>>mmaria+(OP)
Basically every new law, piece of news or media I see coming from the UK paints a picture of a beat-down, cynical & scared society that's complacent to or in support of increasing surveillance and control by the government. Like maybe Adolescence or basically any mention of the NHS. The crimes they cite like child grooming or terrorism/hate being incited sound pretty terrible too, but I wonder why the UK specifically is taking action - is the issue bigger there, or are they just more aware of and willing to act on it.

>>zapthe+zf
You are approaching this from a uniquely U.S. perspective. The U.K. is pretty middle of the road as far as “surveillance” and while this may offend the freedom-at-all-costs sensibilities, it’s a fairly milquetoast change.

Visiting the Heineken website in the U.S. requires that you assert you are over the age of 21. Texas has instituted I.D. verification for pornography.

Regardless of how you feel about this law, it is not accurate to say the U.K. is unique in implementing it.

>>abxyz+Mu
> You are approaching this from a uniquely U.S. perspective.

It’s not uniquely U.S. at all

What other countries require ID checks for services like Discord?

The U.K.’s implementation of this law is much more unique than you’re claiming.

>>Aurorn+q31
Discord’s own articles about this change explain that the fundamentals (content filtering) are applied to all accounts owned by teenagers worldwide. The only U.K. specific aspect of all of this is that if you tell Discord you are over 18 you must prove it. That’s a very small difference and not something most people in most countries care about. I’d go as far as to say, I think the majority of people in the majority of the world would be in favour of requiring people to prove they’re over 18 online if they want to claim to be over 18 online.

https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959...

>>abxyz+A51
> The only U.K. specific aspect of all of this is that if you tell Discord you are over 18 you must prove it. That’s a very small difference

Requiring ID verification in one country is not a small difference.

The rest of the world checks a box. People in the U.K. must submit to ID verification.

It’s so strange to see things like this claimed to be small differences.

>>Aurorn+N61
Again, this is a radical internet-libertarian-freedom-at-all-costs view. Normal people do not think that proving you are 18 is notable. We’ve been doing it for decades with credit cards. The system is more mature now but it is not fundamentally different.

>>abxyz+F71
Uploading your government-issued ID to random sites to prove your age is insanity.

We have daily reporting about database breaches where people were duped into uploading their picture/ID, and then it gets posted on 4chan. This is true for the latest "Tea" app this past week, but also ID verification services for big companies like TikTok and Uber. I draw a hard line: I will not upload my ID for some private business to review, because they will never delete it.