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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

It looks like in the future, we’re gonna verify our identities. Social media for the masses will be done with Identity verification. That’ll be the way to tell bots and people apart, stripping anonymity in the process.

Word that Mastodon is talking of age verification, we will definitely see instances adopt it. All is pointless if federating with an instance without age verification, and that makes me wonder if the Fediverse might split apart under that pressure.

It’s pure speculation, but we might see a verification tag, for those who did verify their identity, and those without are left without any tag, same as bot accounts. If the majority of people do eventually verify, that’ll cast doubt onto accounts who lack the tag. Instances could also go full whitelist mode, and all of those instances force you to verify to join. If that is to be the case, we either verify to talk to people, or we don’t and face the overwhelming bots.

But what do you think, how will the Fediverse navigate a dying internet?

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[-] alonsohmtz@feddit.uk 1 points 4 hours ago

I won't require identification on my instance.

[-] shaggyb@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

It's a non-issue. They try to verify us, we leave. That's the extent of the conversation.

[-] jimmy90@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

P2P will be back back BACK

the original fediverse

[-] tacosomuch@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

Read about the first person project! It is litterally aiming to solve personhood credentials and privacy. UX/adoption will be a problem, but it solves some hard issues in a privacy preserving way : https://www.firstperson.network/ - the first user will be the Linux Foundation.

[-] regdog@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Are you sure that this project is about trusting people? One of the first news articles that are linked on this site has this to say:

[-] tacosomuch@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Yes - this is about having AI agents that can be traced back to a human, and knowing if a persona is a true persona or an AI agent working on behalf of a person with proof of personhood. I urge you to read the whitepaper. AI is part of the reason why this kind of technology is important right now.

[-] FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 4 points 16 hours ago

In a way I feel this might give us new freedom. I’ve ditched a lot of online stuff over privacy and the amount of time and freedom in your head you get in return is amazing.

Don’t get me wrong the fediverse is a lifesaver when it comes to staying up to date about the stuff that matters to us (privacy, politics, Linux, ssh,…) so there will have to be some solution.

But in the bigger picture, fuck it. Read a book.

[-] SolarBoy@slrpnk.net 2 points 16 hours ago

Move the fediverse to the gemini protocol?

[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 31 points 1 day ago

Lemmy is going to navigate it by being too small to care about.

[-] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago

Hell yeah 💪

[-] j4k3@lemmy.world 69 points 2 days ago

I will disconnect from anything with age verification. My post history and content are more than adequate to prove who I am. I will leave the internet entirely out of ethical disgust. I despise this world of lazy cowards and exploitive criminals. I want nothing to do with it. I will not shrug my shoulders when people come to steal my citizenship, rights, and liberty. Pathetic slaves that roll over to this shit are no better.

[-] porcoesphino@mander.xyz 7 points 2 days ago

A lot of likes when this part is less and less true and at best more and more intensive to verify on:

My post history and content are more than adequate to prove who I am

[-] callyral@pawb.social 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Oh, I won't be verifying my identity, ever. It's basically self-doxxing.

Or I'll host my own server and mark myself as verified. I mean, does one even verify if an ID check was actually conducted? Who would be bothered to check?

[-] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 13 points 2 days ago

To host an instance you basically have to dox yourself anyways. I had to put my information into my domain register because my shit could get nuked otherwise, they do redact that shit in who.is but still, either way you give your info to someone.

[-] roserose56@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Yea, but for domain, you can pay and totally hide it as far as I know.

[-] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 3 points 1 day ago

Yes you can, it varies from domain to even the domain registers. Ensure when registering you enable Whois privacy and leave your organization field blank or Whois sites will show your real contact info and address. I imagine someone powerful enough could get this still if they wanted to.

[-] alonsohmtz@feddit.uk 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Yes, the domain name is an obvious point of failure when trying to maintain anonymity. It's not enough to get WHOIS protection if the company you register the domain name with knows your identity.

It looks like njal.la allows anonymous domain name registrations, but they seem expensive and I've read reviews saying njal.la will revoke access without clear violations of their policies.

[-] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 2 days ago

I will never verify my identity for any social platform. Period.

So if the fediverse enforces as a whole such measures its future would be one without me in it.

[-] OwOarchist@pawb.social 6 points 2 days ago

Time to start a new dark web social media network that can only be accessed through TOR.

[-] Trilogy3452@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Does Urbit help with that? Heard it's some way to communicate p2p or something

[-] Trilogy3452@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Can instances be hosted abroad instead? Or are host admins liable as long as they're in an age verification required jurisdiction

I quit Reddit years ago and moved on to the Fediverse. I am deleting my Discord account by the end of this week while moving on to Stoat & Fluxer. Social media is not of any interest to me. When ever a platform becomes unbearable for me to use, I leave and do not look back.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 10 points 2 days ago

I quit Reddit years ago and moved on to the Fediverse...Social media is not of any interest to me.

I mean, the Fediverse is distributed rather than centralized, but being distributed doesn't make something not social media.

[-] jarvis@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

No need to nitpick. We are two humans communicating so obviously this is a social activity. A community theater is social media by the loosest definition, but the term "social media" now commonly means the big centralized commercial product platforms of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

There are worlds of difference between the manipulative ads and algorithms of social media and the activity feeds on Lemmy. It's the difference between a shopping mall and a community yard sale.

[-] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Some users will be fine with it, some won't, me included. As for me, I'll just leave any and all instances that will require verification. If all forums start to require verification, I'll just start hosting my own ~~ugly~~ marvelous HTML forum. :D

[-] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

HTML is beautiful. Its web 3.0 that is ugly.

[-] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yay crypto! Better buy now because it’ll go boom guys! It’s the next big thing bro invest!

Yeah ignore the rug right underneath, it’s decoration, don’t worry.

Finally a wholesome comment! :)

[-] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 days ago

I have no desire to attach my social media activities to my IRL identity. I've seen people attacked and get fired for having strong political beliefs. I myself will not visit businesses whose owners have been vocally supportive of certain viewpoints. So I will not participate anywhere that requires verifiable identity, and I think it will be stifling to the point of losing any value. Plus, I'll be honest, I've been around long enough that I've given voice to thoughts that were immature or ignorant or enraged and I'm damn glad I don't have to defend myself on a daily basis and even happier that they aren't associated with my IRL identity.

There are ways to establish an identity without personally identifying information, such as how Mastodon verifies that you have control over a domain. That's as far as I'm willing to go.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 13 points 2 days ago

It is very likely that smaller communities will form, based on the networks of trust. The local feed will begin to mean more, and local-only communities will proliferate.

You could still visit the rest of Fediverse, should you need something specific.

[-] leave_it_blank@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I guess it's back to good old forums, hosted in Mukibukistan on the other side of the world.

Wouldn't be such a bad thing.

[-] roofuskit@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

The people who create mastodon having a discussion about what to do about age verification laws some instances may legally be required to comply with isn't the end of the world.

[-] redsand@infosec.pub 6 points 2 days ago

Time to move servers and restructure ownership

[-] roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I think the meeting is more about what, if anything can the mastodon team do to support them. Can they offer a software solution? Do they want to? Etc...

[-] redsand@infosec.pub 3 points 2 days ago

Better Tor and I2P integration. Clients with panic buttons. Possibly integration with lockdown mode. PQC push. All of these would help.

[-] neblem@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I wouldn't mind age or "is a person" verification done with privacy protecting means, such as GNU Taler blind signed token solutions that are open source and audited by independent security teams, but that isn't getting implemented. Instead every "verification" service is a literal privacy nightmare simultaneously linking identity to speech and harvesting user data for sale.

Non-EU parts of the world should be encouraged to have better data privacy laws as part of their trade deals with the EU.

[-] itsathursday@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Probably go to IRC again, but the fediverse will be fine.

[-] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

You can hide from authority, and that's fine, but you still have to grapple with the reality that machines can make very convincing text. Your niche underground software will not shield you from this problem. We need new solutions to adapt to this reality.

[-] OwOarchist@pawb.social 2 points 2 days ago

We need new solutions to adapt to this reality.

Problem should solve itself once investor capital is no longer flooding into these AI companies and subsidizing the cost of generating that text.

Once these spammers have to pay the full cost to generate their LLM-generated spam, it will no longer be financially viable for them to do so for so little return. They're only doing it now because it's free or next to free. Having to pay what it actually costs will slow the pervasive AI slop to nearly nothing.

[-] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nah, this will never go away, even when the bubble bursts.

[-] OwOarchist@pawb.social 1 points 1 day ago

Not entirely, no. But after investor capital dries up, it will become more expensive. So it will only be economically viable if your AI slop spam gains you significant money. And you're not going to get significant money by posting slop spam to Lemmy.

[-] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 3 points 1 day ago

So maybe not as catastrophic as I might have thought. Still gonna be notable though, models are getting more efficient and we have many out there that can run on moderate hardware. Still, anyone can use AI maliciously and money ain’t always the motive.

[-] AlligatorBlizzard@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago

I'm less worried about LLMs pushing products (although finding honest reviews of products has become more difficult with AI and astroturfing), it's their use as propaganda tools for state actors and oligarchs pushing agendas that I'm most worried about. And that's not going away when the bubble pops.

[-] Zak@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Instances subject to the legal systems of jurisdictions with age verification laws probably need the feature to exist to continue operating legally.

I don't think the current structure of any of those laws would require instances to demand verification from other instances, and any instance operator who did such a thing would be socially unacceptable to the current population of the fediverse.

[-] meow@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 days ago

Die with it i suppose

[-] bizarroland@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Isn't that kind of like asking a 6 year old what they're going to do when they retire?

this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
141 points (100.0% liked)

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