Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen how exactly these platforms should identify minors? And what would prevent minors from using a VPN to connect from a country that doesn't put such restrictions? Also, let's say you target the big players and VPNs are not a thing: how much time does it take to people to migrate to other less known porn sites, potentially being exposed to higher risks (e.g. viruses)?
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen M.me commissioner, little by little these companies are forcing age verification systems down to the operating systems. At that point, literally everything done on that computer/phone can be traced back to the ID card used for the verification, it does not matter how sophisticated the protocol may look like.
This is worrisome for many people. -
Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen How do you suggest the platforms should do that? The lazy way everybody around pushes results in the platforms storing huge ammouts of data with government issued IDs. If you don't trust them with child protection, do you really trust them to keep that data private, not leak them and not misuse them?
So please, really think through the next steps. Cause so far I see only really stupid solutions for this issue, resulting in weakening privacy in the name of protecting children.
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen I understand all the concerns here, but do we realy want minors to grow up watching 5 dudes in a group r*pe like scene do a young underaged looking woman with pain in her face, urinating on her, thinking that's normal and they have to do or accept this in their later lifes?
Those are contents minors find behind these companies "Are you 18 years old? Klick yes or no!".
This is irresponsible!
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen it's interesting that there is almost no commentary or reaction to this on US-centric and controlled Bluesky while quite a bit here on the more European fediverse.
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen personally I don't think age verification is something that works. It's like putting speedbumps on the highway because a few are driving too fast. Parents should educate their kids on how to use the internet. I would love to see more investigations on products our kids use that see show our kids stuff they should not see
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@HennaVirkkunen How is that to be done without handing these platforms our identities and ability to track us? Seems the last thing I want is for them to be trusted with anything.
There is a simple way: the EU establishes a «neutral point of identity» similar to the passage of Spanish administration https://pasarela.clave.gob.es/. Just the regulation enabling it have to make sure it doesn't store data on which sites you visit.
This service only has to respond to the provider's request affirmatively or negatively given legal conditions to access its site.
CC: @HennaVirkkunen@ec.social-network.europa.eu
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
Just 2 cents: the EU should provide census API, so that it would be possible to verify age of people. Census is a govt job. There is no digital identity on internet.
This is a fault of governments. Once you create a digital ID to check with, then you have the right to complain about "you don't check their age".
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen And what priority has the protection of personal data of adults?
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There is a simple way: the EU establishes a «neutral point of identity» similar to the passage of Spanish administration https://pasarela.clave.gob.es/. Just the regulation enabling it have to make sure it doesn't store data on which sites you visit.
This service only has to respond to the provider's request affirmatively or negatively given legal conditions to access its site.
CC: @HennaVirkkunen@ec.social-network.europa.eu
@david @HennaVirkkunen That sounds reasonable-ish. I hope they don't build regulations which create a sea of very poor malicious compliance.
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen You don't keep our kids safe by doing this, It's the opposite. That's sad for EU
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There is a simple way: the EU establishes a «neutral point of identity» similar to the passage of Spanish administration https://pasarela.clave.gob.es/. Just the regulation enabling it have to make sure it doesn't store data on which sites you visit.
This service only has to respond to the provider's request affirmatively or negatively given legal conditions to access its site.
CC: @HennaVirkkunen@ec.social-network.europa.eu
@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen that site somehow doesn't seem to work here. But in general, these proposals fail, because sites can regularly probe for age brackets. If you do this on a regular basis, you can figure out someone's birthday.
E.g. if 12 years is a bracket boundary, the day that age gets attested is the birthday of the kid. Even more likely because someone is more likely to check close after their birthday to unlock some site/functionality.
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Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
Dear @EUCommission and @HennaVirkkunen
Please consider what the world wide community of scientists for computer security and privacy, who are studying the impacts of technology on society, have to say on this topic. They published an open letter, signed by more than 400 scientists in the field, calling for a (temporary) moratorium on age verification online earlier this month:
https://csa-scientist-open-letter.org/ageverif-Feb2026 -
Keeping kids safe online is a top priority.
Today, the Commission has preliminarily found porn platforms Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos in breach of the Digital Services Act for allowing minors to access adult content.We’ve also launched investigation into Snapchat under doubts that the platform has failed to adequately protect minors from harmful content, grooming, and illegal products like drugs and vapes. We also suspect that they have failed to verify users age sufficiently.
@HennaVirkkunen First a #privacy first age verification tool. Otherwise each platform makes his own system and collecting enorm much data.
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@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen that site somehow doesn't seem to work here. But in general, these proposals fail, because sites can regularly probe for age brackets. If you do this on a regular basis, you can figure out someone's birthday.
E.g. if 12 years is a bracket boundary, the day that age gets attested is the birthday of the kid. Even more likely because someone is more likely to check close after their birthday to unlock some site/functionality.
Excuse me Daniël, but I don't understand the problem. Wasn't the goal to prevent people under the legal age from accessing the service? Once that was achieved, what's the failure?
CC: @bjoreman@toot.cafe @HennaVirkkunen@ec.social-network.europa.eu
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Excuse me Daniël, but I don't understand the problem. Wasn't the goal to prevent people under the legal age from accessing the service? Once that was achieved, what's the failure?
CC: @bjoreman@toot.cafe @HennaVirkkunen@ec.social-network.europa.eu@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen The problem with most age attestations is that you can work out someone's birthday by keeping track of past attestations. When the attestation changes, someone had their birthday, thus the attestation gives away information that someone might not want to reveal.
This gets worse with implementations with which you can test age brackets (different age brackets under 18, to allow some content).
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@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen The problem with most age attestations is that you can work out someone's birthday by keeping track of past attestations. When the attestation changes, someone had their birthday, thus the attestation gives away information that someone might not want to reveal.
This gets worse with implementations with which you can test age brackets (different age brackets under 18, to allow some content).
@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen So, the problem with age verification is that it is yet another attack on privacy. Not surprisingly, behind the scenes Meta is pushing this a lot through various sock puppets.
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@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen So, the problem with age verification is that it is yet another attack on privacy. Not surprisingly, behind the scenes Meta is pushing this a lot through various sock puppets.
@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen Also, age verification is strongly detrimental to open source and your freedom to choose your OS.
Most implementations of 'anonymous' age verification require remote hardware attestation (eventually), because otherwise you can manipulate the app/process that partakes in the attestation.
Mandatory remote attestation is pretty much the end of free OS choice, because you running your own non-approved software will shut you out of services.
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@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen Also, age verification is strongly detrimental to open source and your freedom to choose your OS.
Most implementations of 'anonymous' age verification require remote hardware attestation (eventually), because otherwise you can manipulate the app/process that partakes in the attestation.
Mandatory remote attestation is pretty much the end of free OS choice, because you running your own non-approved software will shut you out of services.
@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen Age verification + remote attestation is big tech's pipe dream. Google can already shut out competing systems from phone NFC payments, because pretty much every bank only supports Google/Apple Pay and Google doesn't attest alt-OSes.
Remote attestation of websites would be another level, making it practically impossible to live outside the Google/Apple duopoly.
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@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen Age verification + remote attestation is big tech's pipe dream. Google can already shut out competing systems from phone NFC payments, because pretty much every bank only supports Google/Apple Pay and Google doesn't attest alt-OSes.
Remote attestation of websites would be another level, making it practically impossible to live outside the Google/Apple duopoly.
@david @bjoreman @HennaVirkkunen For these reasons, Europeans should outright reject age verification.
Yes, I know it is difficult when kids can pretty much access anything, but as parents we have to find better ways than those that further kill privacy and entrench big tech players.
