this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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Finally it seems the end of Reddit is near.

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[–] leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Meh, just upload a dick pic.

Greedy little pigboy.

[–] forkDestroyer@infosec.pub 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'll never forget how he changed users' text without them knowing it before the 2016 election. Reddit was going downhill before, but that was a turning point.

[–] DerisionConsulting@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

For those unaware, this isn't something like replacing a slur with removed, he edited users' comments, turning them into insults to other users.

I don't care that those original commenters were (likely) pieces of shit, and the people who he made the comments insult were definitely pieces of shit, putting words into people's mouths to make them fight each other is unforgivable. Even if you put out a shitty apology.

[–] forkDestroyer@infosec.pub 2 points 8 hours ago

Not only was the apology horrible, but for any user on that platform for YEARS: obviously puts the thought in their head that spez could be changing their words by directly editing the db, and getting them put on a list for wrong-speak. Sure, that's possible with any DB, but he proved it was actually something being done on that site. Given his role, a major red flag, as this type of action would normally result in someone being fired.

Reddit has since IPOd and is going to probably do well as a stock because of all the information it harvests from users.

[–] RedFrank24@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Hm, I'm going to need some software engineers to critique an idea I have that could at least partially solve the fears people have about their personal details being tied to their porn habits.

The system will be called the Adult Content Verification System (or Wank Card if you want to be funny). It's a physical card, printed by the government with a unique key printed on it. Those cards are then sold by any shop that has an alcohol license (premises or personal). You go in, show your ID to the clerk, buy the card. That card is proof that you're over 18, but it is not directly tied to you, you just have to be over 18 to buy it. The punishment for selling a Wank Card to someone under the age of 18 is the same as if you sold alcohol to someone under 18.

When you go to the porn site, they check if you're from the UK, they check if you have a key associated with your account. If not, they ask for one, you provide the key to the site, the site does an API call to https://wankcard.gov.uk/api/verify with the site's API key (freely generated, but you could even make the api public if you want) and the key on the card, gets a response saying "Yep! This is a valid key!" and hey presto, free to wank and nobody knows it's you! If you don't have an account, the verification would have to be tied to a cookie or something that disappears after a while for all you anonymous people.

As a result, you can both prove that you're over 18 (because you have the card) and some company over in San Francisco doesn't get your personal data, because you never actually record it anywhere. All you have is keys, and while yes, the government could record "Oh this key was used to verify on this site", they'd have to know which shop the key was bought from, who sold it, and who bought it, which is a lot more difficult to do unless the shopkeeper keeps records of everyone he's ever sold to.

So... Good idea? Bad idea? Better than the current approach anyway, I think.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This would be better than most of the crap being proposed or implemented.

But, since the keys are presumably reusable, they'll presumably get borrowed shared by and among minors almost immediately.

There could be some "Netflix account sharing" style work to deter that, of course.

[–] RedFrank24@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I did consider that people are going to share keys, but people are going to share accounts too so that's always going to happen. The best thing you can do is stick some safeguards on the keys where if a key is found online, it can be deactivated and potentially investigated since you can tell which shop sold the key. If there's a shop out there just giving cards away to minors, well they're in for a world of trouble.

Under the Licensing Act of 2003, it's illegal to sell alcohol to an adult if you reasonably suspect that they will be then giving that alcohol to a minor. You can assume the same will apply to people selling Wank Cards.

[–] tym@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

people are going to share keys,

get ahead of it and sell discounted bukkakeys

you could probably even have a bundle called the "family plan" for the real sickos

I should get into masturbation regulation marketing!

Hungry for Adams Apples? Try our limp biscuits!

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

I'm a security dev and this is a good idea!

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I'm a UK citizen, fuck everything about this law. I'm so sick of the current authoritarian trend amongst some western countries. The UK is one of the worst offenders.

It's not even about protecting kids. It's about control and appeasing puritanical elements in society. We're the 6th richest economy in the world and we can't even offer some of the poorest kids food security. But at least they can't see a pair of tits on Reddit.

[–] genevieve@sh.itjust.works 369 points 4 days ago (8 children)

“Reddit has stressed that this system is only to verify users' age, and it has no interest in your identity. Lee further stated that Persona won't know what subreddits you visit, and has promised it won't keep users' uploaded images more than seven days.”

Press X to doubt.

[–] dugmeup@lemmy.world 143 points 4 days ago (4 children)
[–] blackn1ght@feddit.uk 100 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Under the new UK law, lemmynsfw would also need to have some kind of age verification for UK users.

[–] donuts@lemmy.world 128 points 4 days ago (2 children)

This. Can't believe we're seeing "lol Reddit sucks" when this is a country-wide implementation and has nothing to do with Reddit in particular.

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 53 points 4 days ago (5 children)
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[–] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 68 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Real talk - or what? If LemmyNSFW isn't based in the UK, what can they do?

Block it? I'd rather have that than deal with processing users face data.

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[–] themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It is not just that, I don't trust Persona security, if a malicious actor installed a silent program that monitors users and sends it to a command and control center they probably won't know for months or even years. Cyber security is very bad in most companies.

https://xcancel.com/H4ckmanac

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[–] StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

I keep thinking about some of RPs I've done in my life. Hot, vile, smutty text based RPs. I think about them and wonder if there will ever be a time when those words would be considered illegal and I would be arrested for posting them. This doesn't just protect minors. It tags deviance. Some of you may know the darker corners of Reddit. Imagine if an AI flagged your subs. The delete-rebuild cycle doesn't work anymore. Reddit will always know. If the law asks for suspects for newly illegal thought crime, Reddit will be able to point to all the users on those dark corners. We are moving into a future where privacy doesn't matter and I fear what that means for the kinky among us.

[–] octobob@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago

I'm nowhere near as worried about this for kink stuff as I am about us LGBTQ living in the US.

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[–] ageek@lemmy.world 106 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Next in the news: "500k Usernames, Passwords and biometric data leaked in the latest hack"

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[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 78 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Yeah, fuck all that.

Guess we're transitioning into a VPN only future.

We have the opportunity to head into a utopic or dystopic future and we're absolutely choosing the dystopic one.

[–] plz1@lemmy.world 48 points 4 days ago (6 children)

They'll criminalize personal VPN users for non-work purposes, next.

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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago

A VPN future? Haha. Not if they don't want to. There are many ways to prevent VPN from operating when you're a government.

You can just plain ban encryption, which sounds really crazy, but yeah, they're trying to.

You can just say "it's illegal to use a VPN". It'll technically still work, but if there's a trace of trafic from your house to a known VPN endpoint, you're it! Great!

They can force custom proprietary spying software on your devices. Sounds equally crazy as the thing above, right? But rest assured they're ALSO trying to do that. Multiple times, even. And in some places… they did. Of course, nothing forces you to have such software on your device. Especially if your devices are not supported; it also turns into a "you have to buy this or that big name device, everything else's de-facto illegal! Fuck you, we're the government!". And if you get caught for whatever, and your phone, PC, or anything isn't "compliant"? Bam. Guilty.

Plenty of option. All of them completely stupid and would weaken both privacy, individuals, and governments at large. It never stopped legislation from being pushed forward.

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[–] genevieve@sh.itjust.works 168 points 4 days ago (9 children)

The “won’t somebody please think of the children” rhetorical tactic is always just a pretext for authoritarianism, mass surveillance and data privacy intrusion. Always. It’s the perfect motte-and-bailey: when you attack the actual motives, the motte becomes, “So you don’t care about children?”

[–] Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 72 points 4 days ago

UK is full blown authoritarian now. They have been arresting journalists who are covering the genocide in Gaza and designated a direct action protest group as a terrorist organisation.

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[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 123 points 4 days ago (4 children)

This is a combination of terrible legislation in the UK meets awful social media site.

The Online Safety Act is an abomination, compromising the privacy and freedom of the vast majority of the UK in the name of "protecting children".

I'm of the view parents are responsible for protecting their children. I know it's hard but the Online Safety Act is not a solution.

All it will.do is compromise the privacy and security of law abiding adults while kids will still access porn and all the other really bad stuff on the Internet will actually be unaffected. The dark illegal shit on the Internet is not happening on Pornhub or Reddit.

The UK is gradually sliding further and further into censorship, and authoritarianism and all the in the name of do gooders. It's scary to watch.

[–] SippyCup@feddit.nl 62 points 4 days ago

The online safety act isn't actually about protecting children. That's a smoke screen for a surveillance bill. They want to eliminate anonymity online.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 50 points 4 days ago (18 children)

The solution to all of this “think of the children” stuff is that devices owned/used by children should have to be registered as a child’s device, which would enable certain content blockers.

Forcing adults to verify their identity, rather than simply activating some broad based restrictions on devices being purchased for child use, is a waste of time. Kids will still find workarounds. Adult privacy will be compromised.

Its also an easily enforceable policy to require registration of children’s devices. You can hold the parents to compliance. You can hold the carriers to compliance. Its truly the simplest way to keep kids from accessing porn without having to mess with adult use of the internet whatsoever

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[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 28 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Keeping the age verifier seperate from the content host is good. Destroying the files used for verification is good. On paper it's not too a bad system for age verification, but it really hinges on if you can trust them. Given the track record of basically almost every company and government ever...

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[–] Cliff@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago

Just upload a picture of any politician who voted for this.

[–] jjmoldy@lemmy.world 62 points 4 days ago (8 children)

POV: You're the intern tasked with reviewing the selfies.

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[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 49 points 4 days ago (3 children)

u/spez was the lead moderator of r/jailbait, and when he was caught, he got rid of mod transparency. Ghilisaine Maxwell was likely a l lead moderator of news Reddits as well (u/MaxwellHill). Reddit has always been compromised.

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[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 69 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Parental controls exist. Use them instead. I fucking hate this.

[–] rozodru@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

tale as old as time even since I was a kid and I'm in my 40s. Reminds me of the original videogame rating system that Sega originally implemented in NA when the first Mortal Kombat came out. Parents, to this day, are still unable to manage what their kids consume.

I mean my parents never had an issue with this. Like when they'd rent movies, I wasn't allowed to watch Terminator 2 until I was like 13 and it was my Dads favourite movie. He put it on "ok, you have to leave the room now we're watching a movie" and I did.

[–] lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 69 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well, I guess i am going to be regularly updating the metadata on my most recent selfie.

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Yeah, I will definitely trust an internet stranger with my face so they can verify that I'm not underage to access content which could, in case of being leaked, damage my reputation or even destroy my life.

DEFINITELY

[–] Bot@sub.community 4 points 2 days ago

Years later, you will find many then teen’s 80yo grandmas’ photos in the leaked database

[–] bnrnrtbgd@sh.itjust.works 70 points 4 days ago (18 children)

If the UK is going to require adult verification it should be built into your internet contract. Yeah, I'm an adult. I'm paying my bills, of course I'm a fucking adult. I over pay for this garbage internet.

Uploading a selfie? The ai is going to determine if you're over 18? Can the ai determine if the selfie is also ai?

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[–] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 32 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Kier Starmer voice: “We are an island, of wankers”

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[–] minkymunkey_7_7@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago (3 children)

We thought the same thing about Netflix with the sharing password bans. Yet they retained more profit than ever the next year.

Who's to say if this is what will make Reddit end, or did they actually just got more successful after the end of 3rd party apps compared to the declaration of so many users back then?

Digital personal verification is just going to become a fact of life in the future for everyone born after about 2012. They will use online ID cards, biometrics, location metadata that is constantly uploaded by our devices, maybe even implanted RFID encrypted chips for account verification. Passwords are becoming outdated and outmoded for security as we speak here. 2FA is the minimum security for online today but that may soon become outmoded as well.

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[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 45 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Lmao when the "anonymous" online forum requires de-anonymizing, I want to hope everyone leaves

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[–] Outwit1294@lemmy.today 57 points 4 days ago (2 children)

This whole thing is a security disaster waiting to happen.

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[–] appropriateghost@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

so those scam popups that scare people by saying their webcam was hacked and took pictures of them while looking at porn is getting state sanction!

[–] jhoward@lemmy.sdf.org 51 points 4 days ago (14 children)

What's to stop uploading a random picture of a person? Or even an AI generated person? I get what they're trying to do, but seems like legislative theater more than anything.

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[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sending a dick pick. Now it's whatever is in front of these to make a though decision.

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[–] fittedsyllabi@lemmy.world 39 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They better be NSFW selfies.

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[–] IllNess@infosec.pub 31 points 4 days ago (9 children)

There's a bunch of AI face generating pictures. I wonder if you can just use those. Or maybe this is just to create a new law to arrest people of uploading fake pictures...

https://thispersonnotexist.org/

https://this-person-does-not-exist.com/en

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[–] misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

To follow compliance with the Know Your Customer Pornographic Materials Act, please use the following guidelines for your photograph:

  1. The picture must be clear, at least 720x480p.

  2. The picture must include your entire body, including your head and toes. Portrait only. *This helps us identify you better.

  3. Please remove any articles of clothing, your body must be unimpeded by any obstruction. *Burqas and other headscarves must be removed, no exceptions.

  4. If you were assigned female at birth, you will be required to rotate 180 degrees and upload another portrait photograph of your back. *Please use only your valid binary gender at birth, either male or female.

  5. Further requests for identification photos are at our discretion, our board has full authority. You may be required to upload alternative photos, such as positions bending over to help us identify your genitalia to ensure it matches your birth gender.

Thank you for using Persona. For any questions or complaints, please direct them to: BigDaddyGuns6969@aol.com. Please allow up to 14 days for an initial response, and 88 hours for subsequent replies.

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