The internet anonymity fight is escalating
A thread on the UK's push for digital ID requirements spreading to the US got a strong response. The framing in the comments was direct: 'child safety' rhetoric is being used as cover for surveillance infrastructure, and the Flock Safety story (multiple major outlets publishing pro-Flock articles in the same week) was cited as an example of coordinated narrative-building around surveillance tech.
The pattern here is familiar: a moral panic creates political cover, a technical solution gets institutionalized, and the surveillance capability outlasts the original justification. The UK's Online Safety Act is the template. The US version is being built through a patchwork of state-level age verification laws and federal proposals.
For builders, the concrete question is: what does 'no anonymous users' do to product design? Authentication, identity verification, and data retention requirements all change dramatically if anonymity is restricted. The comments were broadly skeptical of the stated rationale, but the regulatory direction seems clear.
So what?
If you're building any consumer product with user accounts, age verification requirements are coming and they will require integrating with identity verification providers. Start thinking now about what your architecture looks like when 'anonymous sign-up' is no longer legally available in certain jurisdictions. The EU already has precedent; the US is catching up faster than most people expect.