age assurance as the trojan horse for digital ID

more adventures in trading essential liberty for "a little safety"

(and by “please” i mean “or else.”)

ubiquitous and mandatory digital ID is the dream of authoritarian states and the nightmare of anyone seeking privacy or liberty.

governments love it.

but populations hate it.

so how does a budding dictator get a recalcitrant citizenry onboard?

with the same shabby trick they always use:

they call it safety and the drag in the kids.

there is a new movement gathering steam around the world to ban kids from social media “for their own welfare and safety.”

"We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm," says Anthony Albanese (aussie PM)

at first blush, this does not sound so unreasonable.

they may even have a point.

and that’s what makes it a trojan horse.

the pretexts are many and varied from social and mental health damage, to stranger danger/safety issues, to preventing “misinformation” and making sure that only accredited agencies get to indoctrinate kids. (trust the schools, not the internet!)

but in terms of the real motivations of the state, it’s largely bunk. i’m sure a few people care about these claims and the useful idiot karen class can be whipped up in support by simply screaming “safety!” over and over, but honestly, how has that been working out for you these last 20 years?

yeah.

so maybe we want to go another way on this one.

the real game here is something deeper. the real game is “how do you make people not only willing but desperate to participate in your global registration and monitoring program?”

easy peasy:

1. you take away a right they currently enjoy.

2. you then offer to give it back if they do the thing you demand. in effect, you are selling them their own freedom back if “they just comply.”

3. you pile on the guilt of “it’s not about you, it’s about the kids, just accept the ID.”

laugh all you want, but look how well it worked with vaccine passports and jabs to travel, work, and go to school. how many people do you know who only got the vaxx so they would not lose their job or because they needed to attend university or elementary school or because they needed or wanted to travel? how many people folded under “your mask protects me”? because this will be the same gag: choice is not about you, it’s for the kiddos.

this is going to be 1,000 times worse and far further reaching.

“people of troy, comply your way to freedom!”

the whole movement is a pure trojan framing. (article explains for those unfamiliar with the term)

here’s how it starts:

the aussie government (and a number of EU governments as well) are suddenly all up in arms about “protecting kids” from social media and are mooting a law that will ban under 16’s from such online forums. this is a large scale project with widespread industry support.

it’s all the folks you’d expect, all the folks who benefit from establishing and mandating the ID of everyone for everything because such mandates are good for business and give them better and further reaching data on you to use and to sell.

it’s a massive new compliance burden that favors the big and prevents new entrants from competing or providing alternatives.

it also keeps these aging and fading tech co’s onside with increasingly authoritarian informational regimes who are deeply unhappy with the emergence of a reputation economy and of the proliferation of anonymous punditry whereby critics may speak against leviathan without incurring its immediate and specific wrath.

it’s oligopoly through fascism and everyone wins because big business and big government share a common incentive: neither one likes competition.

“age assurance” means “getting carded for everyhting.” it will mean that you will need affirmative digital ID to log into social, possibly all media. (how else can you keep kids out?)

you are no longer anonymous.

worse, you’re no longer even able to access the internet without “affirmative permission” from a credentialing agency that will collect not just your government ID numbers and birthdate but likely real time location, biometrics, and every other form of data mining known.

they start with small markets, but this force all the big internet companies to build the capability to apply these restrictions into their offerings. then it will be not just social media but all content to “combat porn.” then misinformation. then…

people think this is the end game:

but reality is worse.

needing digital ID to access online content or to post on social media is also a mandatory opt in social credit system that commands your speech rights.

whoever issues and validates that ID can take it away and just like that, you’re silenced not just from one network or social media site but from ALL of them. you just disappear. poof.

this is a central choke point of astonishing power. those who can revoke or red flag a digital ID can control what you are allowed to say or if you are allowed to speak in the public agora at all.

they’ll move this to the ISP level (easiest to regulate) where the choke point is simple, universal, and regulation is already omnipresent. no digital ID, no logging on. to see packet one, no privacy.

it could easily be tied to keywords and used to make your speech impossible or invisible. they’ll just stop others from having the ID to see it. this is “freedom of speech not freedom of reach” but run ubiquitously by the state. you won’t even know you’re shadow-banned and suppressed. you’ll just get no views. (well, until they turn you bank accounts off. but by then, who you gonna tell? how would you tell them?)

perhaps most chilling, they can choke off who is allowed to accept these mandatory ID’s. all they need to do is revoke the access of your site or your platform to the database that validates ID and you will literally disappear from the internet. no one will be able to access you unless you let them in without ID, and that will be a crime so no ISP will allow it.

you’re just gone and cannot come back because coming back requires both verified ID and affirmative permission. it’s a no fly list for internet content and even internet service.

and who is in charge of this power?

probably no one who you want to be.

hell, will you even know?

this project constitutes a universal threat with one hidden and probably unelected technocratic adjudicator and no other options or appeals.

piss me off, the internet is gone for you

this would represent the most far reaching, comprehensive, and capricious censorship regime in human history and it could be applied to mass lists with the push of a button.

and once you’re locked into the ID, they just tie it to more and more aspects of your activity, pushing ever further until your whole life, travel, work, school, finance, speech are all tied to this one ID that is granted by fiat by a group whose interests are not your interests.

“protect kids from social media” is the thin end of a truly awful wedge.

it cannot be allowed.

even and especially if you like this individual outcome, it cannot be allowed.

they chose this case because arguing against it is difficult. it’s the same reason they use “nazi speech” as a pretext to take a power that is then put into more general use against more general speech later.

you pick a sympathetic rights abuse and use it to set precedent for later depredation.

the simple fact is this:

control of who may speak and what they may say is not a power with which anyone can be trusted and coyote’s law would seem germane here:

“before granting any power to the state, first imagine that power wielded by the politician you hate most, because one day it will be.”

do you really want the politician you most despise to one day have the right to “de-internet” you?

do you want trump or kamala or groovy gavin newsom to hold this power? how about dick cheney or justin trudeau or albanese or ursula von der leyen? how about scary poppins or a valerie jarrett appointee?

if even one person on this list upsets you then you have to say no to mandatory digital ID to access social or other media.

if you approve of a power only if your side gets to exercise it, that’s not principle, it’s desire to wield the whip hand.

and that’s dangerous. because even if it’s you right now, once the whip is in play, someone else will grab it away from you at some point.

this whole emotive appeal is the mandate to drive the wedge of “you all have to have digital ID and all legal anonymity online is gone” in.

this is not about kids.

it’s about power and who gets to speak truth to it.

watch what happens in the US. the people who will rise to champion this mandate and demand universal digital ID to access the internet are going to be the same ones who say that “requiring voter ID is racist.”

there is no principle here, no concern.

it’s all special pleading and mendacity.

social media may well be bad for kids, but government control of who gets to do what online is far worse for everyone.

that is NOT the solution.

if this is, indeed, a problem (and it may well be) then the answer lies with parents.

they are the ones who should be making a choice like this and defending/deciding for their kids.

it’s not a power the state should have. it’s also a clear first amendment violation. “shall make no law” is not exactly a gray area.

access to the modern version of the public square is covered by speech just as access to a modern rifle is covered by a right to bear arms.

“permission culture” is not culture, it’s capture; it’s subjugation and suppression.

the instinct to “protect the kids” is strong and those who would manipulate the populace bank on this.

this is why it’s so important to remember to protect our progeny from the predation of politicians most of all.

for those who would trade liberty for safety inevitably wind up with neither.

and that is not a world to bestow upon future generations.