493
Canada wants to join the age verification bandwagon and censor the internet with Bill C-34
(ca.news.yahoo.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2026
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What can we do to stop this?
My plan is to just never submit to an age verification. Change servers or self host if necessary. Worse comes to worse, we log off.
That's the spirit.
I'll watch the system burn to the ground before I agree to privacy invasion.
But it won't burn, it will be content to leave you behind.
And so what? Many of us left Reddit because it killed 3rd party apps to force us onto its shitty mobile app. Did it burn without us? No, I doubt they even noticed. Does that make our departure meaningless? Also no, we built something better here.
So it isn't a choice between privacy invasion or watching it burn. It's a choice between privacy invasion and being left behind.
Left behind? If you've deemed a system to be so necessary that refusing to abandon your privacy at its behest means you are condemned to live in obsolescence, then you're only reinforcing the idea that we must surrender our rights for the benefits of the system.
I'm old enough to have lived in a world without the internet and if it's going in a direction that demands I surrender my right to privacy then I'll return to a life without the internet. I won't be alone and just like Lemmy I'm confident we'll build an alternative that aligns with our values.
I have serious doubts that returning to a ludite existence is truly feasible anymore. These companies, along with governments, seem intent on making it a necessity to be online and to do so without privacy.
The CEO of nvidea outright said their plans for the future involve AI agents accessing your financials and PCs being replaced with AI boxes as our interface. If they force AI into enough stuff before the bubble bursts, it won't be a choice. The way the net works will be built for AI, not for users to manually interface with. If the infrastructure is rebuilt for AI, it won't be a choice. With governments all pushing for OS level Id, Microsoft trying to record all user action, the push to ban VPNs, it seems like you will be making that choice sooner than you want.
I hope it works out for you but anyone who remembers a pre-internet life is middle age now and isn't the target market for emerging tech anymore. If AI proves to be significantly advantageous, not being online to sue it will be like refusing to use computers was to the boomers. You'll be outcompeted and lose track of how the world is changing.
You are missing the most important part - no matter who says what, people are still here.
We build the web, we make the food, we build houses. That doesn't go away.
Sure but we build them on the orders of whoever signs our paychecks so we can stay alive. People fuck each other over at their jobs every single day by helping companies succeed at their ambitions. Theoretically we have power in numbers but we rarely even actually use that power.
Sounds like you're trying your hardest to convince yourself that it's worth selling your soul for whatever they're offering. If that's the case then they've already won and it's only a matter of time before your freedoms are stripped away and you willfully become a virtual slave for fear of missing out on whatever prosperity is being promised.
These are the challenges we face, it doesn't serve anything to pretend they don't exist.
What are you even talking about? If anybody is denying the existence of a challenge, it's you through your insistence that there is no future worth living without the unrelenting integration and consumption of technology.
Don't get me wrong, I rely on these technologies as much as the next. In fact, as a software engineer, it's my livelihood and I'm going to support any means to keep it aligned with my own values.
But I also recognize that I am a small fish in a vast ocean and that my most reliable weapon against tyranny is my own free will. If push comes to shove then I can and will simply refuse to follow society into the techno-feudalist hellscape we're moving towards.
You call it being left behind; I call it liberation.
I wish I was lucky enough to grow up in those times. Recently a mother almost lost custody of her kid because he was outside on his own.
TBH this is just how it goes in general I think. A small group of people build something neat, and if it attracts enough people then the corporations and money come in, they attract more people and it all goes to shit, then a small amount of people from that group leave and start a new thing. reddit was the neat little alternative thing once.
I suspect eventually we'll probably have to build a second internet lol
Oh I left Reddit because they permabanned me for something that wasn’t even violent and the platform is built specifically to make it hard to appeal and they don’t even give you warning like “take this down or we’ll ban you” you just comment and a few minutes later your account is lost to the ether.
God I hate that place so much.
They did you a favor. It happened to me maybe a month ago and I'm not missing it. I was pretty much down to using one sub only by the time it happened, though, so YMMV I suppose.
Yeah the only problem I have is that there are very few posts here and the communities have far fewer people. Reddit isn’t like TikTok how it can be pretty much replaced by IG reels or YT shorts, since it’s really unique with its content and community.
That said, every Reddit moderator is a fatass with a kink for how their own armpits smell
Leave us behind? Where is it going?
And what do you do when its a requirement to buy food, submit tax returns, get healthcare?
This is the problem people don’t understand. We have the same issue now in the UK. People think a voluntary system is easy ro just ignore until everything you rely and need forces you to starve or submit.
And its not going to stop at just age verification, it’ll continue until all you get to enjoy is maybe a loaf of bread, and some pond water! 🤦♂️
I might be mistaken, but I don't think a government can force it's citizens to have a phone. There has to be a way to pay your taxes, buy stuff, etc that doesn't rely on you having a phone. Paper money still exists after all.
It might be possible to live disconnected rather than giving away your privacy. You'll have to say goodbye to social media, but I don't see it as a bad thing.
It really amazes me that people don’t understand this when governments have done it time and time again but hey ho, hopefully I’m old enough that I might at least die before the worst hits because clearly people are to ignorant to do anything to stop it! 😳
Why wouldn't it be able to? That's just a matter of which laws are enacted. And considering government is responsible for proposing and enacting laws, well..
May I introduce you to: the Flock camera
I’m planning on phoning and irritating people. I make it as awkward as possible. Sorry I have a dumb phone….no worries our staff can process your info…asks 50 questions about privacy….i see them getting pissed off. Ensures to give them my details and I will be making sure they wipe them afterwards due to eu laws.
The impact that may have on navigating life seems significant. Have you even considered how that would actually work? Practically.
Vote.
For who? Where? I'm what?
Start with local elections, then move up to provincial and finally national elections. Vote the people in that won’t do this.
Take it a step further and run for election yourself.
Voting won't do shit, the majority of people don't even see the problem with these bills.
And that defeatist mentality is the reason shit doesn’t change.
Not a defeatist mentality. You should strive to change the vote for everyone instead of mindlessly voting yourself.
Vous avez beau ne pas vous occuper de politique, la politique s'occupe de vous tout de même
(You might not care about politics, politics will take care of you nonetheless)
End capitalism. It's no coincidence all these countries are pushing this in lockstep.
End goal is the death of online freedom.
Get angry, get involved in your local politics to bring democracy to the workplace and the economy.
It's not gonna get better otherwise.
Its unlikely that we will, too many people want this and the elites have created a system that has disempowered people completely. You work around it, with VPNs and use other sites.
Stop voting “strategically” and stop whining about largely made-up NDP critiques. People will voluntarily eat shit just because they heard that the cake on offer doesn’t have any icing.