Computer needs practice to get program right.

no way to verify it isn’t beyond “trust me bro” and I don’t trust them

If the verification service is structured like oauth, then the request could be passed through the browser as signed plaintext. You could verify that the requesting site is only passing a minimum age request to the service. That would be as straightforward as viewing the interaction in your browser’s debug tooling.

If you say that you don’t trust the signature, and that it could be used to smuggle identifying information across, there’s a couple of ways to deal with that: open source and audited provider governed by legislation; information theory that would show personally identifying information wouldn’t fit into a field of that size; and “personal auditing” where you can try throwing data at the service to see if you can trick it into accepting invalid input (that really goes with the previous point, because the only field you can usefully vary is the signature).

I can’t speak to Germany’s system, but there’s no need for a site to tell the verification service its identity. If it just asks “is the current session authenticated to someone over 16” and gets an answer back. Identity of both parties remains secret.

With a 70% non-compliance rate, that isn’t entirely surprising.

Platforms are even less likely to implement real reforms that the author alludes to.

The platforms aren’t complying with the law:

Of the parents who reported their child had an account on each platform prior to 10 December 2025, around 7 in 10 reported that their child still had an account on Facebook (63.6%), Instagram (69.1%), Snapchat (69.4%), and TikTok (69.3%). Around 3 in 10 reported that their child no longer had an account. One in two of these parents (48.5%) reported that their child still had an account on YouTube following the age restrictions coming into effect.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-03/SocialMediaMinimumAgeComplianceUpdateMarch2026.pdf

That only works if you rarely see the error. If the software pukes often, it gets grating.

Years ago I had to work with a Java library that had the same kind of cutesy errors. I think it was jxta. It was terrible. It would collapse if I looked at it funny.

The first time I got an error like that, I thought how random and cute the devs were.

The second, I thought they were just like me.

The third, I was a little annoyed that they seemed to put more effort into their error messages than their software.

The fourth, I was annoyed that i had to read past their drek to find the error.

The fifth, I hated them.

The sixth, I wanted to find and punch them.

The seventh+, I swore I would never deal with their shit again if I could avoid it.

And here we are, fifteen years later.

Props!

It took a few listens for me to realize how creepy Every Breath You Take is.

“well known” for this, or something else?

Isn’t that Android?

Lemmy does not like this opinion

precaratized? Now that’s a word you don’t hear every day.

😂

It’s so grey.