Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)
view the rest of the comments
Not being able to access a website is not a right. Being able to browse the web without being exposed to disturbing material without consent can be seen as a right, but it doesn't require age verification beyond a simple "are you over 18 years old?".
Being forced to provide an image of yourself or your ID to a website that you can't trust if you want to access a website or service, if there's also the option to do it with a zero-knowledge proof, could maybe be seen as a violation of one's privacy rights (non-functionally-necessary data must be opt-in, AFAIK). But these rights are not limited to children, and it doesn't apply to under-age them as they won't be able to access the service anyways.
Zero-knowledge proofs are cool, the german id card has such a feature, afaik. It just certifies that the user is >18 years old, and doesn't leak the actual age, your name, or other identifiable information, afaik. (I've never used it.) I can't judge what they implemented, or if one can trust that they implement what they specify, or what metadata might be involved.
Being able to access the 18+ side of the web without having to worry about privacy is an important right. It weights more than protecting children from the consequences of their own free decisions in this case, imo.
Advertisements on the internet are very disturbing...
Maybe we can restrict exposure to Christian nationalism and cishet relationships while we are at it.
The EU verification app is actually doing what you described for the German ID card, you get back a signed predicate "over 18" and that's it. It's also there for other legally meaningful ages, in a way you can you it to target the age a bit better, but you would have to issue many challenges to the user.
A lesser violation of privacy is still a violation of privacy. “It could be worse” isn’t a particularly persuasive argument
Yeah, I also wouldn't like that kind of argument. My point there was that I don't know if the implementation actually is not violating privacy.
And I still don't give a shit what your children do on the Internet. Even the hassle is more than I care to abide, even if it is somehow perfectly safe and private.
In what world does that stop any kid? Should a bartender also just ask if people are over 18 (or what your drinking age limit is) and then just believe whatever little Johnny says?
You forgot to read the sentence right before the one you quoted
I read it, I re-read it. What did I miss? Commenter seems to think that it is the children that want to be protected, when it’s the parents/government that want a more effective way of blocking children from accessing porn (and other) sites.
Of course it only stops children that want to be stopped, aka it protects them from stuff they want to be protected from.
See also my last sentence:
Of course, you can disagree here. The fundamental question is, do we want to let the subject decide by itself, or do - as the lawmaker - the decision for all subjects.
For drinking alcohol I'd prefer latter, because:
For gore and porn I don't see such points.
If you dont think people can get issues from watching things, you should look up issues people have gotten from having a job of reviewing flagged content on social media sites.
I’m a little confused at what you’re writing, as it seems like you think the children that should choose if they should access a porn (or other adult content) site. They will of cause continue to watch. Just like they would eat doughnuts as a meal all the time if they had the choice.
I do not not think this.
Yes. The website should have a warning about its content (one could also make a law that it has to put more information there, about the risks and whatnot. we have this for other things). If the child is old enough to find such content and be curious, they're probably mature enough to make their own decision.
If it's that bad that it hurts them immediately, they won't. And otherwise, it's still not like they'd get addicted, and so I do not think a short exposure would have negative enough effects to strictly enforce age verification.
Children are allowed to buy food (here in germany). They just need the money and access to a store.
I’m glad that you have well adjusted children that doesn’t have any issues and can say no to stuff like a mature person. Not all have that. A lot of pressure is applied to children today that weren’t a thing when I grew up, being constantly connected and have big corporations getting kids addicted to constant information stream. Setting the bar at, if a child is able to use a web browser as an indicator of maturity, is a very low bar.
Regarding doughnuts, then children are most of the time limited on how much money they have, have other interests that cost money, and (hopefully) parents that makes sure they don’t eat doughnuts for all their meals.
I have been focusing on porn, but age checks should also be applied to gambling, social media, and other things that can screw up people.