r/privacy • u/Electromad6326 • 1d ago
discussion I don't know why the ID Verification/Face Scanning thing is barely getting any opposition? If even at all
I have to admit, I was fine and even somewhat supported the practice at first because I naively thought that it would actually protect people but as time passed by and I gradually knew the truth about it. My view has completely changed from how it was before.
Like we're seeing this happen in our lifetimes, we are being gatekept from ever experiencing the freedom we could ever have on the internet. The freedom to talk to our friends, the freedom to be in our desired communities and the freedom to showcase what you can make.
Yet all of this is slowly being eroded away with ID verifications that governments across the world are actively promoting and I don't know when the internet will become unusable for me unless I have to give away my ID because my country just recently passed a law (almost unanimously btw) that would require that but the enforcement or inaction is yet to be witnessed but it feels like I'm playing a game of Russian roulette from how it's not even being enforced yet and knowing that there's nothing I could do about it. I'm not even sure what to do at this point.
Yet there is no fighting against this, no opposition and even if there is it's very little. The algorithm is even trying to divide us and distract us with all of this stuff just so we can forget about it until it's too late.
Most of the hope I have is lost and I'm trying to cherish what little time I have left but I still have so much to do and it's so hard to cherish such.
Yet this whole thing is spreading like a virus and eventually it just becomes normalized.
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u/Timbo303 1d ago
It pretty much is getting backlash. It has everything to do with the folks at power.
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u/Akari_Kitsune480 1d ago
Oh there is a massive opposition, look at how the UK’s VPN usage soared after they passed the OSA. The only issue is that the folks over in power literally don’t give a shit and are too busy kissing the ass of massive corpos (who also want ID verification so they can sell our data)
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u/deficilee 1d ago
Oh, the opposition is there alright: (1) https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2026/000011_en and (2) www.fightchatcontrol.eu
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u/philbertagain 1d ago
All the platforms are own by people that want the doxing... really easy to bury stories if its your algorithm. These are companies have perfected data manipulation and use that egregiously in their favour.
There is opposition but its not nearly as organized as the multi front multi nation attacks of the epstein class.
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u/tempestkitty 1d ago
I have been fighting since all the age verification and social media bans were being discussed. people would look at me like I'm some sort of conspiracy nut... still do, even when you lay out actual factual information. no one seemed to care. it would be constant arguments with "what do you have to hide" etc etc. I got fed up and just went even deeper into my self hosting. people are going to continue to not listen and not care.
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u/RamblingReflections 1d ago
The time for opposition was years ago when people in the IT industry first tried to flag it for everyone else and explain how it would impact the average user, and how it would result in the loss of online anonymity.
No one paid any mind, or worse, accused people pointing out how this would go of not wanting to “protect the children!”. There’s no closing this Pandora’s box now. Now we simply deal with the state of affairs as it is and try and find or make something that gives us our online privacy.
Adversity is the mother of all innovation. And humans have a great track record when it comes to adapting. So can we undo this? No. Can we create something new in its place? I sincerely hope so.
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u/HighRoad684 1d ago
I think the opposition feels smaller because every rollout is presented as a separate, reasonable exception: protect children here, stop fraud there, comply with one local law somewhere else. People rarely see the common infrastructure being built across all of them. “Upload your ID once” also sounds abstract until you ask who stores the document or face template, how long it survives, whether it is reused, and what happens after a breach. Those concrete questions are probably a better way to bring people into the issue than telling them the whole internet is already lost.
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u/billdietrich1 1d ago
Various courts have struck down social media age restrictions:
https://www.jurist.org/features/2025/05/05/teen-social-media-law-the-ebbs-and-flows-in-2025/
https://www.deseret.com/2024/2/13/24071928/why-are-judges-blocking-social-media-laws/
And there have been some court rulings in support of age restrictions:
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u/Ach3r0n- 1d ago
I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but most Americans are weak, subservient and apathetic. The government keeps moving closer to totalitarianism and people just mindlessly go along with it. Without any pushback, the powers that be just keep pushing things further along. I genuinely hope I am not around to see what the world looks like in 10 years.
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u/skeptic246 1d ago
The much touted American constitution is largely ignored by your secret agencies like the CIA and as the US is effectively a capitalist dictatorship the government serves the corps not the people
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u/Ach3r0n- 1d ago
Agree completely and while I think our current WH admin has really taken it to entirely new, dystopian heights, I think it's naive of people to think it will change with new leadership going forward. Why roll back what the people have already demonstrated they will tolerate? The two parties are two wings of the same bird.
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u/Electromad6326 1d ago
Tbh I'm scared too and I don't know why the world is slowly ending up like this.
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u/OldManJeepin 1d ago
It's easy...."It's for the children"! Or some such contemptibly dishonest pretext like that...
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u/Electromad6326 1d ago
I've seen someone said that if it really was for the children, they wouldn't have suggested it in the first place if they have to actually think it through.
Also this will literally socially condition people to authoritarianism, the internet played a major role in Progressive legislation like trans rights and even gay marriage. In about 40 years or so, all of that will be gone because children then will likely only be influence by their parents and the government, leaving them closed minded.
Society will likely slow down on social issues or even stagnant.
Maybe I'm being hyperbolic here but I have a theory that if things get worse, they get worse.
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u/JackSkell049152 1d ago
When they come for me, they’ll already know what I’ve got to resist… just not how hard I’ve made it for them…
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u/ResponsibleQuiet6611 1d ago
This.
Also most Americans seem to be morally bankrupt. Not a great combo.. And that's not even mentioning the whole, "we knowingly elected a pedophile, twice!" situation.
The world should put the USA at the kids table, permanently.
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u/QuadernoFigurati 1d ago
You used to support it yourself, so there's no basis for you to be baffled, as if supporting it is beyond your comprehension. Be honest: you used to be a myopic dimbulb who failed to think further than the end of your nose. And the reason the issue is barely getting opposition is because most people are still confined in the same prison of idiocy that you managed to escape from.
Out of all the madness being churned out by governments all over the world these days, ID-gating is the most concerning of all. Because privacy is required to organize resistance to injustice. That's ultimately why it's being targeted.
Social media and other companies that make money on ads support this because they can then present to their advertisers verifiable evidence of the audience their ads will reach.
Other companies support it because they're offering tech services that'll conduct the surveillance.
Governments support it because it'll stifle objections to the increasingly authoritarian terms and conditions in the social contract they have with their constituents, and moreover operate as a useful mass surveillance network that can be used to identify, harass and further punish anyone who objects.
So for all intents and purposes, it's a win-win for the public and private forces with the capacity to exert control over our lives and monetize every aspect of our being. Against this is a feeble flurry of emails and phone calls from a sliver of people who understand the consequences.
IMHO, if you want to see an effective response to this, look to what people are doing in France.
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u/NyxGenesisLNX 1d ago
As an American I can say we’d rather take convenience over anything which is why so many are doing the verifications. I agree with you with the original thought being good but then the leaks happened. in reality it would do something but there’s so many better alternatives if it really was to “protect the children”
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u/ilovecats434 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s because we’ve become so far removed from the danger of privacy violations that we can now focus on the safety of minors, which does matter. It makes sense. Someone who’s living in what they perceive as a safe country will not be aware of the purpose of prior rules/laws. They worry about their children and own modern experiences/problems, not what came many years before. They’re not worried about how this can be used against their best interest. It’s why 18 year olds are more likely to believe in anarchy. Founding fathers tried to integrate lessons that caused other nations to fail. We don’t have a prominent tie to those lessons anymore. It’s kind of a natural cycle. I hope I’m making sense
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u/exhaustedexcess 1d ago
People have been trained that if you don't have anything to hide it doesn't matter
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u/Pirate_Economist1477 1d ago
You still have options to resist: you can stop using any service that requires it, or you can try to spoof it (which also poisones their dataset).
I don't know where you're located, but if you can get a VPN you do have options. If you can't get a VPN, you can download the in-/famous onion router browser to put your IP in a different country's range where you might be able to access tools that are geoblocked.
But if you want to stick to chrome, reddit, fb and insta.. Yeah. It's going to be a shitshow.
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u/Ok-Priority-7303 13h ago
Even when there is opposition, most people are unwilling to do anything. Get rid of Gmail, nope. Social media, nope. And on and on.
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u/creepinghippo 1d ago
Probably because it is the least worrying thing the government is doing right now. People are worried about food and fuel prices.
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u/MortgageMindless7175 1d ago
What country is that?
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u/Electromad6326 1d ago
I'm from the Philippines btw, an ID law was passed almost unanimously that would make the internet borderline unusable unless an ID is submitted.
Not just social media, the internet.
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u/MortgageMindless7175 1d ago
And when people comment on EU sites that it will be for WHOLE internet then I'm conspiracy theorist. Unbelievable. That is probably also why there is no much opposition- people are refusing to accept that we are coming into techno-faschism and that governments are working against us while we are literally paying them for that, unfortunately. You are proof that this is going global. I expected it in US, EU GB etc. But not Philippines. That unfortunately means that there are no safe countries. This is truli agenda 2030 and NWO in the making. Good luck to everyone.
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u/18Apollo18 1d ago
I'll take E gates any day over being interrogated by immigration officers and treated like a war criminal or a drug smuggler
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u/press_F13 1d ago
You can fail for ads if you are broke. Cest la vie, if it diesnt end well, i still isnt the end
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