Technology

It's not about porn. It's about tracking your every move online.

Most western governments look at the ability of some of the more authoritarian places ability to just snap there fingers and make the entire internet go away with great envy.

• Govt. want to control access to everything
• People are not too happy about this
• Govt. say "to protect children, you have to install this app, under these conditions"
• You want to protect childrens, so you do so
• Govt. say "to protect this or that, we have to impose approved gates on many websites, based on the app you installed before"
• You want to protect this or that, so you accept it
• Govt. say "fuck you, you whatever is not in line with the fucking biggot at the helm of your country/federation/whatever, now we know what you do, we control what's allowed, and anything to get around the blocks is illegal and will land you in jail. Fuck you again, fucker."
• You're a happy little plant in a pot.

Basically, it's not about porn. It's not about protecting kids. It's not about helping "victims of abuse". If anything, it's putting all these in more danger, along with everyone else.

In addition to the other answers, I want to add that the anti-porn stuff gives them the reason they need to force you into a more monitored environment. In which, everything you do is tracked. Your instinct is right imo. They want Google monitoring your mobile device as the primary piece. It's legislative market capture and fascism at the same time. No one company has to have all the info on you, but in forcing you to confirm yourself they make it so half a dozen can report on you if your habits trigger something. Half the technology is already in place as it's been built under the guise of better ad targeting.

Fascism is making a comeback, and everyone's dumb enough to believe it's an America problem, instead of a global oligarchy, class war, problem.

The legal precedent for gaining the ability to ban content under the guise of preventing the dissemination of "obscenity" allows the future banning of "obscene" political opinions and "obscene" dissent.

Once the "obscene" political content is banned, the language will change to "offensive".

After "offensive" content is banned, then the language will change to "inappropriate".

After "inappropriate", the language will change to "oppositional".

If you believe this is a "slippery slope" fallacy, then as a counterpoint, I would refer to the actual history of the term "politically correct":

In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was used to describe strict adherence to a range of ideological orthodoxies within politics. In 1934, The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct".[5]

The term political correctness first appeared in Marxist–Leninist vocabulary following the Russian Revolution of 1917. At that time, it was used to describe strict adherence to the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that is, the party line.[24] Later in the United States, the phrase came to be associated with accusations of dogmatism in debates between communists and socialists. According to American educator Herbert Kohl, writing about debates in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The term "politically correct" was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the CP line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in egalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance.

— "Uncommon Differences", The Lion and the Unicorn[4]

FYI: Most of the world actually restricts, and some outright bans, porn.

Its only western countries that have unrestricted access to porn.

Been wondering myself. It's certainly part of the general right-ward trend. Societies are becoming more illiberal. It's not just the right that is moving to the right.

Obscenity laws have always been about enforcing the "correct" sexuality. Protecting minors meant preventing them from becoming "confused"; ie becoming LGBTQ.

You also have growing nationalism. In Europe, people are saying we should enforce "our laws" and "our values" against meddling foreigners (ie Big Tech). It often sounds a lot like the rants against the "globalists" that have been a staple among the US far right for decades. Age verification is part of that.

For example, Germany has long enforced age verification within its borders. It's part of the whole over-regulation thing that makes competitive tech companies almost impossible in Europe. For some reason, Europeans have trouble accepting that. You can see it here on Lemmy. The solution must be to enshittify everything to level the playing field.

Why is the government so obsessed with parenting and nannying the citizens?

I think it's because people from outside the traditional political families are getting popular votes.

For the established politicians, blaming "the internet" and building a supressing censorship machine is easier than looking in the mirror and seeing where the discontent comes from.

This is just my speculation, so take it as you will. The EU has been pushing for digital ID cards for quite a while, and this is just another attempt. The last serious attempt was the Covid vaccination passport, but so many people still opted for paper certs, and the rest deleted the app when vaccination was no longer mandatory, that it failed again. So, now the authorities are becoming smart and trying to go through the vector that has a proven record of driving technological change: porn.

Gonna guess it's outside influence with money pushing their ideology. Just like the crap with Visa and steam, itch.io, etc.

This has been discussed a while back, at least here in NL as far as I know it started because of legalising online gambling for which you need to be identified. Also, due to GDPR, businesses aren't allowed to make copies of ID's/passports/driving licences any more which is required for certain businesses (notaries, accountants, etc). In my office we currently use some kind of identification software, but it isn't anonyms because well we wouldn't be able to do our job.

Too many bots online :D I'd like to know if I'm talking to a real sockpuppet when I'm online :D...but just for that and only share data from my "wallet id" on a strict need to know basis.