The UK's War on Anonymity Has Come to America

matheusmoreira

> These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously. Of course. Anyone who brings up kids is trying to manipulate you into giving up your freedom for security. Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

Havoc

The whole think of the children angle is so cursed. Used to push surveillance meanwhile actual harm against children goes ignored. See Epstein files and the grooming gangs in the UK If it actually did anything to protect the children it wouldn’t be so objectionable

Analemma_

On this topic, have people noticed the sudden coordinated media push for Flock Is Your Friend? The Free Press, The Atlantic, and Axios have all churned out pro-Flock articles in the last week. Clearly someone (I assume A16Z, but it could be multiple groups) is panicking about the mounting bipartisan backlash to Flock cameras and is starting to write checks to try and head it off.

BeaverGoose

I'm always surprised how defensive people get in here about privacy when so many corporations have vastly more information about you than the government does.

tbrownaw

Several states have already had this for a while now.

drivebyhooting

Like it or not, there is a large constituency who wants to “protect the children”. By demonizing them and failing to engage with the worries over social media and pornography We have brought it on ourselves. Is it to be wondered at that many people are angry when tech companies have polluted the commons with their effluvium?

doginasuit

HN has this guideline for comments: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says. If the same standard were applied for posts, this one would fail. I recognize that it is a popular perspective that these measures are essentially a war on anonymity, but that is not what they intend to fix, although it is quite possible that anonymity is a casualty of whatever war is at hand. I believe efforts to resist these measures would be more effective if they engaged with the problem: the modern internet is a harmful experience for young minds, beyond what any society should consider acceptable. I personally don't think shocking content is the worst of it. Algorithms that maximize engagement over enriching experience are a curse for any age group, and developing brains face the worst of it. Is age-gating the internet the right answer? Will it even help? Are there ulterior motives? Those are open questions that need discussion. Dismissing a genuine problem is choosing not to engage in the discussion.

anonreeeeplor

It is very unlikely that “NGOs” have the funding influence and power to do this. The more likely source is state backed intelligence agencies. The NGOs are just there to create a buffer. Ask yourself logically - who would pay these NGOs to do things like attempt to extort meta into a $500M+ settlement over “harming child mental health.” This is all connected and intelligence agency backed. It’s far from innocent, it’s non corporate - some had suggested meta was behind it - but as we have seen meta is the one getting targeted.

Barrin92

Didn't HN decide to not allow AI submissions? This is quite explicitly one in that the operator of the site declares to "automate investigative journalism" and launched the site with its five pieces of 'journalism' yesterday. And to point out the obvious on the actual quality of the piece, The US has itself passed age verification laws in 20 states, such as Texas where it was driven not by the British but by domestic interest groups and decidedly state senators like Angela Paxton. Also given the slant of the site it's pretty obvious was the political motivation here is, I guess yelling at the British always works

areoform

For the first time in human history, the cost of surveillance has dropped below the cost of privacy. It is more expensive today to maintain your privacy and anonymity than it is to surveil you. The collective surveillance grid makes it possible to track people's movements, whereabouts, their predilections, political views, personal images and more for a few cents every day. It's a bargain. And in this new world, the eye watches everyone, all the time, forever. Most people, including people on HN, are still stuck in a human-first world. The new surveillance state isn't going to be thousands to hundreds of thousands of humans sitting in a shadow-y room going over pictures and videos. Today, a bunch of vectors and a large multi-modal model will do just fine. Servers are cheap (for a nation state) and never need to eat or sleep. And they will be used to watch you. Especially if you're attractive. Or, valuable. Or, blackmail-able. After all, NSA employees routinely abuse multi-billion dollar surveillance assets to stalk women. It's so common that the NSA calls it LOVEINT. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT In the world to come, people are going to wish they were being surveilled by the NSA. Because at least the NSA punishes these people. Occasionally. When this kind of technology becomes this cheap and this pervasive, then the end of anonymity means unaccountable sheriff deputies stalking their former spouse and family. Or, prospective romantic interests. https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/08/03/brentwood-officer-acc... https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/cops-using-license-pl... https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/rogue-officers-turned... https://www.newsweek.com/flock-camera-police-arrests-1226378... https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-rea... https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/26/us/flock-cameras-surveill... With this new oracle, these people will be able to set up alerts for when their spouse is thinking of leaving them. To catch their child accessing support for abuse or something more ephemeral like being an atheist, having different political views or LGBT+. Anyone who doesn't see the forest for the trees, or who embraces this because "parental controls are too hard to use" will doom themselves and future generations to a world that's materially worse than our hyper-surveilled present. I can't believe I'm saying this, but at this rate I'm going to miss the days when it was just the NSA reading my emails (and they still do! Howdy!). I know the track record. But at least the NSA has some sense of institutional responsibility and control. Most institutions in your life, including your HOA don't. https://ktvz.com/cnn-regional/2021/07/22/arnold-residents-ce...

lingwu05

This faced a huge backlash when first introduce in the UK, there's even a infamous meme with a children saying face the wall lol.

Buttons840

It seems to me the intrusiveness of age verification will continue to grow. They want the OS to report the user's age. People will use this to claim whatever age they want. For instance, if companies cannot advertise to children, they might find that almost every computer is reporting that the user is a child--turns out adults want the protections kids receive as well--sometimes. Eventually they will have to enforce a system intrusive enough that no lying or abuse of the system is possible. We might even approach "Verification Can" levels of verification.

mrmckizzle

It never came, it has always been here.

Pxtl

Honestly I wouldn't be so cranky about this if it were proper government based ID instead of creepy Thiel companies doing it. And if it was mostly about posting content anonymously instead of even reading these sites.

kajaktum

Having privacy necessarily means that it will also make conversation between any adult and child private. This is simply a risk that I am willing to make. Just fuck off already.

6r17

Fight this shit off. We do not need this. Digital Privacy has tools coming up - we are all loosing on this because of a few monkeys I wish some people had to courage to deal with. I'm honestly exhausted by this shit. Let all of it rot.

jaimex2

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

cuoder

UK government (and the rest of Europe) has had a very easy time implementing strict administrative regulations due to public acceptance. And the children argument is like the easiest angle to attack, you can use it for almost any cause and win.

mrcwinn

We should copy nothing from the UK on topics of technology, privacy or air conditioning.

jaimex2

What can the average person do to try and dismantle these NGOs?