Its not the populace, our politicians just like in the US have gone rogue. People are voting for the nutters due to anti immigration propaganda and so increasingly getting far right. Its happening across the entire western world and its bad news for everyone.

Fascism is making a comeback, and everyone's dumb enough to believe it's an America problem, instead of a global oligarchy, class war, problem.

Been wondering myself. It's certainly part of the general right-ward trend. Societies are becoming more illiberal. It's not just the right that is moving to the right.

Obscenity laws have always been about enforcing the "correct" sexuality. Protecting minors meant preventing them from becoming "confused"; ie becoming LGBTQ.

You also have growing nationalism. In Europe, people are saying we should enforce "our laws" and "our values" against meddling foreigners (ie Big Tech). It often sounds a lot like the rants against the "globalists" that have been a staple among the US far right for decades. Age verification is part of that.

For example, Germany has long enforced age verification within its borders. It's part of the whole over-regulation thing that makes competitive tech companies almost impossible in Europe. For some reason, Europeans have trouble accepting that. You can see it here on Lemmy. The solution must be to enshittify everything to level the playing field.

Gonna guess it's outside influence with money pushing their ideology. Just like the crap with Visa and steam, itch.io, etc.

one advantage of cards over banking apps

The legal precedent for gaining the ability to ban content under the guise of preventing the dissemination of "obscenity" allows the future banning of "obscene" political opinions and "obscene" dissent.

Once the "obscene" political content is banned, the language will change to "offensive".

After "offensive" content is banned, then the language will change to "inappropriate".

After "inappropriate", the language will change to "oppositional".

If you believe this is a "slippery slope" fallacy, then as a counterpoint, I would refer to the actual history of the term "politically correct":

In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was used to describe strict adherence to a range of ideological orthodoxies within politics. In 1934, The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct".[5]

The term political correctness first appeared in Marxist–Leninist vocabulary following the Russian Revolution of 1917. At that time, it was used to describe strict adherence to the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that is, the party line.[24] Later in the United States, the phrase came to be associated with accusations of dogmatism in debates between communists and socialists. According to American educator Herbert Kohl, writing about debates in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The term "politically correct" was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the CP line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in egalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance.

— "Uncommon Differences", The Lion and the Unicorn[4]

so if I use graphene os then I can't look at porn in the eu

In addition to the other answers, I want to add that the anti-porn stuff gives them the reason they need to force you into a more monitored environment. In which, everything you do is tracked. Your instinct is right imo. They want Google monitoring your mobile device as the primary piece. It's legislative market capture and fascism at the same time. No one company has to have all the info on you, but in forcing you to confirm yourself they make it so half a dozen can report on you if your habits trigger something. Half the technology is already in place as it's been built under the guise of better ad targeting.

Sorry, do you have any sources for this? I was just thinking about getting a VPS in Switzerland today.

I use cards, I don't even have NFC on my phone, but it is nice to be able to check my bank account, lock/unlock the card, deposit checks, etc.

I may be able to do most of that on the website, idk. Guess I'm probably going to find out

Why is the EU licking america's asshole?

Just use a VPN then.

Use the old phone w generic android for banking apps. Most banking websites will still have app functionality too

'Cos it's been turning (far-)right as well in the last few years.

to hear it from any non-Americans on lemmy they're better than America.

looks like they're just as susceptible to this fascist bullshit to me though...

That Flathub app is unofficial afaik, which is why I don't use it. Normally I wouldn't care, but this seems important enough to not use a repackaged version

I can just text bal to my bank to get my balance

We invented this bullshit, of course we're susceptible.

Still better than America, though XD

European Digital identity

looks inside:

Hosted on GitHub in the US

I’m not even in the UK or EU.

We've had this shit in the US for a while now.