Just one of the many sympthoms of an empire in decline.

Good point. Have no elegant solution for that at the ready.

I wonder why such discussions are always framed as an all or nothing propositions. Zero knowledge systems are a decades old invention. Just very briefly: based on some ID a site issues cryptographycally signed tokens claiming some fact, e.g. the requester being an actual real person, adulthood, etc. Such a token could be presented by an otherwise anonymous user to a 2nd site with their own signature as proof of said property in order to consume their service. Tokens could even be single use.

A requirement to prove someone is, in fact, a human is not unreasonable. Banning bots or bad actors could be a solution to a lot of the problems on social media etc...

There is naturally a major shortcoming of this scheme, authoritarians could not track people...

Besides the critique towards the person have you any insights as to which of his statements could be biased?

I'm just going to leave this here for reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

This is a ridiculus statement coming from a government official. Can't imagine any other motivation than a clickbait equivalent intended to sling the topic in the public limelight.

Given enough effort and time all software can be reverse engineered. So "jailbreaking" is plausible. But that is just one piece of this puzzel. Here is a more informed version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X9ww6FtUhE

It is simple: nowadays security awareness is drilled in for most of the online population. If presented with a choice people can't oversee, the default safest option is not to chose. I mean, how many new Mastodon users know any of these servers?

So, as couter-intuitive or even ironic it may seem, the "problem" is choice. People need to learn that social media is no longer a single entity, but more like email or choosing a bank.

Off-topic, but...

it occurred to me the other day that Tesla (the actual person) has been exploited by Edison in real life. A century later his name is exploited yet again by another "genius inventor". I just feel bad for the guy.

Man, this photo sure looks like some weird ai shit... or the burn victim filter?

With respect to Mr. Bunny, this is not saying much. Think about it, how many random picks would it take to find someone who better embodies those values than the orange baboon?

So I keep hearing... Yet, I'm having a hard time believing that most people are even aware of those fancy features, let alone use any of them.

I accept that there are important models implemented as excel sheets. Reimplementing or even attempting to migrate away is viewed as risk. But this is a different argument.

Convincing CEOs is not our job. In general they have neither the obligation nor the habbit to take anything else other than their KPIs into consideration. Convincing elected polititians to legistlate is our job.

Some know already, some will bow to reason, many will do whatever keeps them elected. People will need to re-learn to play the long game.

For Android user I can recommend Newpipe. For the desktop I use FreeTube

Both have occassional issues when YT rolls out their latest enshittification features, but the devs are quite responsive.

Regardless, YT is a loosing battle, so prepare for the day when Google will win this arms race. That is why alternatives like PeerTube are important.