I’ve been thinking. Every mainstream social media is age verificated now. But sites such as SomethingAwful, 4chan and the Fediverse weren’t. So why are we trying to populate it if the Fedi’ was popular too, we would ALSO be verificated and spywared (made up this word for this post’s sake)?
Yeah, well, you know, that question has been around for almost as long as the WWW: Which laws apply on the Internet, and how do you enforce them if they do?
Lots of politicians would like the answer to be: My country’s laws apply to all websites that can be accessed in my country. If they violate them, my country’s government should be able to fine them, order ISPs to block access to them, arrest people associated with them, maybe even more…
But if that’s the case, then cannot countries like the PRC, Thailand, Iran, North Korea, etc. also do those things? Can we claim they are doing something illegitimate when they do, when self-described liberal democratic republics do them too? Can the Internet even work at all if everyone constantly has to comply with all countries’ laws, most of which they don’t know about?
The business model of mainstream social media companies is that they are ultimately part of the advertising industry. They need some kind of legal presence everywhere that they have customers (advertisers). That legal presence can be fined like any other company, and that is how most laws are currently enforced against them. But those that don’t can do this https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko or even this https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/05/when-trolls-take-on-tyrants-4chan-and-kiwi-farms-sue-the-uk-over-extraterritorial-censorship/ and then what do governments do?