so the uk government just required all its citizens to provide proof of age in order to access certain content. the idea that i'd have to give a picture of my ID or my face to a 3rd party company just to goon is wild. it's only a matter of time before one of them gets hacked and a bunch of passports and drivers licenses get leaked. apparently people have noticed that they need to give their ID in order to access some wikipedia articles as well, idk how true that is but the idea that people need to give their ID to a 3rd party company just to goon seems like a bad idea. the checks are easily bypassed by using a VPN or TOR, rendering it useless anyways and would probably lead kids to much worse content than they'd find on a porn site. of course the whole thing is supposed to 'protect the children' but every internet sevice provider already gives people the ability to blacklist sites like pornhub, it should be left to the parents to monitor their children online, not the government.
at this rate, i might just start learning to code just so i can set up some sort of alternative to the internet, similar to that whole 'internet in a box' thing but with an added mesh network to share content and connect with people without having to use the internet itself. i've heard talks of america and new zealand implementing similar ID checks for the internet as well, so it's not limited to the uk. if you're reading this and haven't set up your own website, i highly recommend you do. whether it be on neocities or somewhere else, we need to take power away from the corpos and governments in order to keep free speech alive on the internet. ditch social media, set up your own site, locally host an LLM, use privacy respecting communication networks like signal, telegram and the likes, do what you can. and make sure to take ownership of your favourite content.
i hardly ever use spotify in favour of pirating music as well as E-books and video tutorials from youtube. if you're serious about privacy, get yourself an old google pixel and flash graphene OS onto it. this is just as much about maintaining your right to privacy as it is about taking power away from those that want to abuse it, strip you of your privacy and prevent you from accessing whatever content you so chose.
the internet is changing for the worse. reject modernity, embrace web 1.0. get your own site and join a web ring today...