Consider for example what might have happened if there was no anonymity available back when the official party line was that covid couldn't possibly have come from a lab accident and that Hunter Biden's laptop was a plant. People could have been prevented from sharing links to articles that disagreed with the official truth!
This topic really brings out the crazy conspiracy theories.
No, politicians are not using Discord age verification to track constituents' porn habits and blackmail them with it later.
It's a few years too late to call it just a theory when it's already happening. There have loads of "hacks" where nudes and dating profiles with photos are somehow leaked. There's a zero percent chance they somehow decide Discord or specific porn sites are safe, don't worry, just upload those full face and ID scans bro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEXINT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexpionage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vassall
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/how-no...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/nsa-tracking-online-po...
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/echoing-dirty-pa...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/nsa-files-live...
It's such a successful strategy, even Bitcoin scammers use it:
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/extortion-spam/25070/
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/asia/south-korea-telegram...
For years, email spammers have claimed to have tracked victims' porn habits to try to extort them. That's a far cry from actually doing so. (And no, they aren't actually doing it.)
Being condescending doesn't help your case.
Link-bombing me with stories about Bitcoin scammers and South Korean telegram scams has nothing to do with your claim that politicians are using Discord to blackmail people about their porn habits.
If state-level spy agencies wanted to spy on someone's porn habits, they do not need to kindly ask Discord to collect that person's ID.
The first time I ever had a conversation about privacy concerns with anyone was around 1999. I've been hearing this kind of argument ever since then. Meanwhile, the erosion of privacy since back then has been nothing short of staggering.
We're at the point where we have government using Palantir to target the people, yet somehow privacy concerns keep falling on deaf ears and keep producing the same old "government doesn't need this latest privacy-eroding change" knee-jerk non-argument.
No, they might not need it, strictly speaking, but it sure as hell comes in handy, not to mention that it shifts the Overton window and serves as a stepping stone for the next invasion of privacy.
The only sexual habits people should be ashamed of are non-consensual sex and anything underage of course.
But the conservative values are the very reason many people can be blackmailed in the first place.
At best, pornography is akin to alcohol and cigarettes. We regulate the ability of minors to access these things for obvious reasons. I see no reason why internet pornography is different.
1. A way for politicians and the state to track porn habits to US citizens and use that information against them in the future. Blackmail for the future politicians, business leaders, and wealthy to coerce them into doing what those in power want.
2. A way for conservatives to tighten the noose around non-chaste materials and begin to purge them from the internet. And if that works, that's hardly the last thing that will go. Next will be LGBT content, women's rights content, atheist content, pro-labor content, and more. (Or if you're on the other side of the political spectrum, consider that the powers could be used to remove Christian content, 2nd Amendment content, etc. It doesn't really matter what is being removed, just that the mechanisms are in place and that powers can put a lid on the populace.)
We aren't screaming loudly enough.
Do not try to sugar coat this with a pedantic mistake.
This is far worse.
It's a first step down a path the Big Brother state wants.
Yell.
Scream.
Protest.