Submitted 1 hour ago by nerdhd@lemmy.world to [deleted]
I’m asking because I just had to verify my age thanks to YouTube requiring me to watch a video that was age restricted.
Hasn’t yet.
Is becoming, yes. There are still plenty of opportunities to stop it provided that the democratic process remains somewhat functional and governments have not gone into “we are the rulers, we decide whatever we want, screw the will of the people” mode yet.
I don’t have the answer on how far on the path toward that aforementioned mode we are. :(
I don’t use services that ask me to prove my age, beyond a drop-down date picker.
I always pick Jan 1 1970
On April 20, right ?
Try using GrayJay or some other frontend to avoid restrictions. The more resistance, the more clear it becomes that the people don’t want this until politicians are forced to compromise (if they don’t want to get hanged)
For YouTube, use a VPN that terminates in Albania. Like magic, no more forced sign ins, or ads, or age checks.
It is funny, a few years ago my YT account got flagged, for 17+ years it worked fine, but suddenly I could not watch age restricted videos, they wanted my ID to verify my age.
However, most videos I watched was not restricted, so I ignored it, and realized something, I just had to wait a month or two and then my YT account was 18, and I suspected they would lift the block at that time.
And, indeed they did, I never sent in any ID or verified in any other way, and it has worked fine for years since then
It doesn’t have to be. While the real issue is like all surveillance, it will get pushed back against and then repackaged later as a “new” idea again.
We’ve been doing this song and dance since the Clipper Chips.
Why are you not using a VPN?
But don’t you still have to pass various websites’ internal checks in order to access their protected NSFW content?
A VPN far as I know is useful for avoiding regional restrictions when it comes to content viewing.
Depends on how the site implements things. Age verification can be regardless of region, or it can just be for specific regions. This holds true for pretty much any feature.
No. Just exit to a country/state that doesn’t require age checks. Porn sites are not wasting any more effort than they have to checking IDs in places that don’t require it
YouTube pretty reliably blocks VPNs. The solution is to either not use their service, or accept the fact you can’t view some videos, and move on.
I’ve never had youtube block my VPN. Is they just something they only do on chrome or have I just been lucky so far?
Not really. At least with Proton, I can just change the exit and it’ll work.
That said, I can’t be bothered to do that most of the time. I’m not missing anything by not watching YouTube videos.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
you just did your part to normalize it.