Although I live in Ukraine (where that law wasn't applied), I think that this so-called """age verification""" thing is making social media unusable not just in the US, but also in EU, UK and Australia.
Do I really have to show my ID to a fucking AI bot just to watch a single YouTube video? What if I end up being a victim of identity theft?
And no, YouTube isn't the only one doing this, if you don't know yet, Bluesky rolled out this feature (only in UK) before them. A literal open platform where anyone can do stuff with it was restricted in UK. That does not follow the open network principles, does it? I'm not saying that Bluesky is terrible though...
I think that the internet need a little bit of freedom.
Freedom, that corporations and the government won't take from us.
Freedom, as in, well, literal freedom.
We all have to migrate from centralized social media onto open networks and protocols. Twitter's downfall made Bluesky popular and we should do the same thing with other platforms!
Try out independent social media maintained by individuals, like Hjonk, Vanillo or the Fediverse (another open network that existed before Bluesky). Join public IRC chatrooms instead of Discord servers or start using E-Mail for communication and not account verification.
Another great option would be getting a personal website and/or a blog, where you can put anything you want without getting censored by companies. Websites are not just documents on the internet, it's an art form.
Together, we can forge the web that is restored from the ruins of what was taken away by the corporations!
Repost of https://blog.yoyle.city/social-media-became-unusable/
