Just wondering… is some sort of age verification likely to become a requirement on the knitting help forum?
I was forced to use my phone while my computer was down. (Got it fixed this morning for a fair and reasonable price. 
) I already have to use the browser on my phone since apps are starting to require age verification and my phone won’t do it. I fear I may lose most of what the internet does for me. I didn’t try the KH app, just came here via Firefox. I hope the answer to your question is ‘no’ but don’t really understand what’s involved. It might not be anything the apps makers have any control over. I think I might be forced to use checks and go to my bank when all is said and done here in the US. I’m sure I’m not the only one who will refuse to comply as long as possible. The post office might sell more stamps. It all makes me think of being taken over by the Borg and it won’t protect kids. I wish they’d just be honest and say they want total control.
I’m chomping at the bit to buy a privacy oriented tablet but if I won’t be able to use it … I’ll wait awhile and see what shakes out.
ETA As I understand it age verification happens first when you boot up a computer and want to use it. Here it will be somehow proving your age. It’s a system level process. Evil, pure and simple.
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We’ve always tried to be cognizant that there are users of all ages on the forum. There have certainly been teens or perhaps younger as forum members in the past. However, there’s no upper age limit as far a I know.
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I appreciate so much that KH is in reality family/child/everyone friendly. I can think of at least one site that isn’t so much.
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Aside from not wanting to have my face captured for age verification by an AI machine (my face data being captured and stored, ready to be leaked, misused, whatever…) I’m worried that, if it were to be enforced on this site by law (world wide, or individual states and countries) where would the funds come from to pay for all those verifications?
I’m hearing here (England) that small, free forums, run by volunteers, are closing down for good due to the high cost of running age verification. Even if people are happy to comply with face data capture, each verification has to be paid for (someone is making a tidy profit) which is a budgeting cost that smaller, free to join forums, just don’t have the money for. By ‘smaller’ I don’t mean that KH is ‘small’ exactly, there are a lot of members, but it’s not big tech size like facebook instagram tictoc snapchat etc.
I’m worried KH will disappear!
KH is kept so well, the mods and admin elves do a fabulous job, it is certainly cleaner than most sites children and teens end up on, but will it be enough to have a clean site if age verifiaction laws are enforced?
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I understand your concern. It would be a real shame if forums like KH were affected by costs that are much easier for large tech companies to absorb than volunteer-run communities.That said, I hope any future regulations take the size and nature of different websites into account. KH has always seemed like a well-moderated, welcoming community, and it would be unfortunate if a site like this struggled because of compliance costs rather than any actual safety issues.I’m hopeful that, if new rules are introduced, there will be practical exemptions or affordable solutions for smaller, community-run forums so they can continue to exist.
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What I’m hopeful about is the fact that not every single country on Earth can possibly pass insane laws, and the EU is doing quite decently so far when it comes to protecting users, so worse case scenario would be to use a platform that depends on the laws of more reasonnable countries and use a VPN if you can’t readily access it… And if anything fails, piracy will always be around I guess.
That being said, I kinda see this debate as a good news. As far as I’ve heard buying out Twitter and Reddit was a huge loss of money, and I know many people ran away from centralized social media because of the data privacy issues (I certainly did), so corporations and fascist governments trying to obtain user data in other ways means that those other platforms must not have panned out as well as they’d hoped…
I’m also hopeful when I see older generations here. Elders are much more vulnerable against AI, so seeing them on a platform like this one that’s more resilient to AI warms my heart.
And finally, I’m hopeful seeing people discussing how to retain privacy, and not why anymore! It’s a lot easier to discuss lock options for the bathroom door when people understand that pooping behind closed doors doesn’t mean illegal activities 
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What a great analogy!
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