@julian yes! We had a room full of about 30 people go through an 8-step onboarding. It worked really well!

Matrix still works even if the server that originally created the room goes down. You might have trouble joining the room but people in the room on other servers can still chat without any issues.

Unfortunately, most laws are either worded so vaguely that it's up to the regulator's discreation (the Online Services Act in the UK for example) or explicitly apply to sites of all sizes and maybe have some handwaving language along the lines of requiring networks to deploy age verification methods that are "commercially reasonable".It's certainly not a good situation, and anxiety is very warranted, but I don't think we're necessarily doomed. In the short term, VPNs are a thing and can buy us some time (although as we're seeing in the UK, age-limiting VPNs is the next step). What I do think is that we have to mobilize to fight these kinds of bad internet bills more effectively. Here's a thread with some initial thoughts and a request for other suggestions - https://neuromatch.social/@jdp23/116967043175194824@joergi @_elena

@aral@mastodon.ar.al @evan@cosocial.ca also, in the specific case of #GazaVerified, since the users already have an account on the website, how about creating a form for them to allow them verify other handles? (Of course, with extra human vetting at least at the beginning to prevent abuse) Then insert those handles in the db and display them with a rel="me" on the website. It's still a workaround, and I'd still like the idea of a proper protocol solution for peer-to-peer verification, but in the meantime it could work.

@wjmaggos There is a problem with the Barnes and Noble analogy. Yes, if you are on mastodon.social and they ban you, you will lose your data. But if you are on hachyderm and mastodon.social blocks you, you don't lose you data (and you can still be seen by the rest of the Fedi). In the analogy, it's like the later case. As long as you trust your server provider your data is fine. It's the same for both network protocols.