Technology

The whole point of the 'Real Name' and 'Location' fields was so that people could physically locate you.

They've been part of Linux since the 1960s without any horrible outcomes. birthDate is even less identifying than 'Real Name' and even less dangerous than 'Location'.

Not that it matters because they are all optional fields that nobody uses unless they want to.

It's not just porn though.

A lot of countries want to restrict children's access to social media - not just Facebook, etc., but also in games like Minecraft, Roblox and so on, as these also serve as social platforms.

Which is actually fine and I agree with the restriction - kids shouldn't be on Facebook, Snapchat, or even Roblox without supervision. Emphasis on supervision. Why? Because paedos are proven to be using these platforms as hunting grounds for grooming. Look at Roblox - even if you manage to set up parental controls (which is almost like if it's intentionally made hard to do so), paedos can get around it by using items like signs, that allow free text entry, to communicate with kids. Rule #1: kids (and paedos) will always try to find a way around restrictions, so you want those to be as transparent (read: invisible) as possible.

The problem is, these platforms are intentionally making it impossible for parents to supervise their children's activities. Most parental controls are done in a "we had to do it so we did the bare minimum work and implemented every possible malicious tactic to deter people from using it" manner instead of actual parental protection being in mind.

Then these very same companies go to governments and plead that the current methods aren't working, parents aren't using the tools, and you can't push this level of moderation onto them - Meta execs literally admit in internal memos that at this point, they just have to accept that children will be hurt, because doing anything would affect bottom lines. Their solution?

Make everyone identify themselves. But that's not actually for protecting children - it's to continue mining even more data, because simply said, data miners have already gotten everything from everyone they could, and the only way this can be tied together even more is by adding your real identity to all that data. Oh and all your adult related browsing too, of course.

And the sentiment won't change until one of these "super duper secure, totally unhackable, totally not collecting your PII with all the rest of your data" companies gets hacked, exposed for data mining to extremes, all through dumping a bunch of politicians' and powerful people's porn habits. You think Noem's husband being revealed as a crossdresser was damaging? Imagine top politicians - especially conservatives - being outed as trans- or bestiality porn watching "degenerates" (putting it in quotes because in my opinion only the latter is problematic, but to conservacucks...), or that they're a prolific CSAM fanfic writer, and so on.

In my opinion, everyone should have the privacy to browse the kind of (legal) porn they want, without it being shouted out to the world. Or abused by corporations. Privacy is a key element of our lives, and it should be up to each person to decide how much they reveal to anyone. This entire ID enforcement can only end badly. Kids will find a way around it - they already do in the UK, I mean a simple VPN gets around it, and luckily not all governments want to implement this crap - and all it does is expose those who abide by the law, to even more data breaches and such.

The only way to do this that protects privacy is to accept that, but also parents of young children can just not give them root.