CAPTCHAs and sign‑up quizzes annoy real people and barely slow down determined bots. As the fediverse grows, we need smarter, more humane defences, ones that don’t push away genuine newcomers. What creative, non‑intrusive ideas do you have? Trust‑based vouching, proof‑of‑humanity protocols, behavioural signals… what feels both effective and aligned with the open social web? I’m building a social media platform and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.


That’s a step away from showing ID. It’s not okay because your local (government owned) library does it. Even wirhout much info, it still becomes easier to dox if you have the person’s location.
It would also be insanely complicated. How many libraries would need to be contacted and taught how to use some kind of software for this. It would be a mess.
Yeah, I guess “take over” is too strong vs “provide the option of”. It shouldn’t be the only way, but would be one very good option. They don’t need to actually keep any records of who they gave an account to, and can take steps to obfuscate any privacy-violating processes. Historically, they’ve been very amenable to this, such as not handing over records about who checked out books.
That’d be a great thing IMO. More skills like that should be distributed and federated. Libraries should be community centers of learning, including learning how to run servers. Information isn’t just books anymore, and libraries need to adapt.