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An age verification provider is potentially leaking information about people visiting pornographic websites
We observed that, despite claiming to offer “double anonymity” options (intended to hide user traffic), AgeGO collects the URL of the video the user attempts to watch … when users select the “Selfie” verification method, their webcam stream is transmitted directly to Amazon Web Services. Finally, through an unskippable page, AgeGO forces users to disclose
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Say these things sequentially: 1/ we want to protect users 2/ we want to force user data to proliferate amongst more companies
The Online Safety Act is bonkers. Forcing a sell-off of Chrome would be bonkers. Anupam Chandler:
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Age verification legislation is tanking traffic to sites that comply, and rewarding those that don’t | PC Gamer
Quelle: The Washington Post looked at the 90 most visited porn sites based on UK visitor data from Similarweb. Of the 90 total sites, 14 hadn’t yet deployed ‘scan your face’ age checks. The publication found that while traffic from British IP addresses to sites requiring age verification had cratered, the 14 sites without age
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House of Lords Business, 15 September @ 1430h : “WHY WON’T THE BRITISH PEOPLE LET US KEEP THEM SAFE FROM BAD THINGS ONLINE?” | @TimClementJone1
Lord Clement-Jones to ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the increased use of virtual private networks since the implementation of age verification requirements for access to primary priority content under the Online Safety Act 2023. https://lordsbusiness.parliament.uk/Documents/Download?documentId=6375&filename=HLBIZ%2020250901%28rev%29.pdf
age verification censorship free speech online safety online safety act surveillance totalitarianism VPNFediverse reactions
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‘Ten Martini’ Proof Uses Number Theory to Explain Quantum Fractals | Quanta Magazine
If you are into recreational mathematics you may like this… https://www.quantamagazine.org/ten-martini-proof-uses-number-theory-to-explain-quantum-fractals-20250825/
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Shout out to @CBeebiesHQ for the CBeebies GetCreative app!
Our preschooler until a few weeks ago didn’t really have much in the way of digital/tablet skills — there was a big confidence challenge along the lines of: “I don’t know how to do this so I’m going to say that I can’t do this”. Just a few sessions with CBeebies Get Creative… Just a
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How The Martian was written, with Andy Weir
We all need a break from the lunacy of the online safety act implementation, so here is a 8-year-old abridged video of Andy Weir talking about how The Martian was written, published, and turned into a movie:
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Taylor Lorenz & Eric Goldman: age verification will kill free speech online | …from June 2025, so it’s not like any of this was a surprise
If you’re an age verification nerd and you are not reading Eric Goldman’s blog then you ought to be, but it’s nice to see him in a video for once:
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Preston Byrne: “Protip: the Online Safety Act and the Digital Services Act are both censorship laws”
This is both (a) true, and (b) something which will not land well with the about 40% of British digital rights civil society which has spent the last 15 years screaming about capitalism and monopoly.
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Amazing: somehow school attendance & bad behaviour of school children are within the gift of parents to fix, but not matters of appropriate internet use, adult content & consent
Parents must help tackle schoolchildren’s bad behaviour, education secretary says – as figures show ‘entrenched class divide’ | UK News | Sky News https://news.sky.com/story/parents-must-help-tackle-kids-bad-behaviour-education-secretary-says-as-figures-show-entrenched-class-divide-13421918
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