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)?


Probably. Regulators usually care about reach, not architecture. If the Fediverse became genuinely mainstream, it would likely end up in the same political spotlight. The real difference is that federation makes compliance an instance by instance problem, not one global switch. That is much harder to enforce.
So, only the popular instance would get verification, not every one?
At present, most probably only those that appear on the regulatory radar in their own right.