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Hackers Had A Live Feed Of Every ID This Verification Company Scanned. For Over A Year.
From the very beginning of this recent obsession with identifying everyone online (yes, they like to call it "age" verification, but it always ends up as identity verification), we've been pointing out that it was a huge privacy nightmare waiting to happen. Or maybe it wasn't waiting. Maybe it was already happening. This week a...
![The incident fits a broader pattern in the discourse around 'free speech' and 'cancel culture':
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whatever comes from the top down is freedom; whatever comes from the bottom up is bullying and censorship.
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When Macklemore is dropped at the behest of the billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft, it's an exercise of the freedom of businesses to 'demonstrate their values' by deciding whom to platform. But when Ed Sheeran's fans decide not to buy tickets to his performances, or even demand refunds, it's bullying, mob behaviour. Since most people are not billionaires and do not own stadiums, they can exercise meaningful power only collectively. The collective exercise of power must therefore be demonised.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k/bafkreifpdv74ajtas7sepr67o7cd5g2er47mv23tpoll2ddie7ri44wjge)
