Today we're sharing the first in a series of three posts from our leadership team, starting with @mellifluousbox discussing our mission, and priorities for 2026.

@benroyce @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic

1. Mastodon's code already includes a setting which server admins can enable to set a minimum age for their server, which will ask for a date of birth to be entered during sign-up. The date of birth is not stored, only checked once. This has been part of Mastodon's code since multiple months now: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/34150

2. What they say in the blog is that they will audit the GmbH's own servers, which probably includes an audit of this feature.

3. The interesting stuff is what that "working group" will come up with.

@nitrml @benroyce @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic Age verification won't, of course, stop someone from setting up their own server.

... which, at least regarding the federation choices this little node will be making... Is enough of its own age-gating process that we will welcome all nodes regardless of age of their admins.

@mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic

which is great of you, thank you

...and your stance is dependent upon the legalities of your jurisdiction

so people who do enable the age verification are not assholes, they just don't want their govt coming after them

and your own govt may change its mind, then you have to think about it

the problem is govt

not mastodon admins

@meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

My understanding is that they will be making the software updates available to other servers that are also forced to comply or get shut down. Is my understanding wrong? It could be

@mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic

which is great of you, thank you

...and your stance is dependent upon the legalities of your jurisdiction

so people who do enable the age verification are not assholes, they just don't want their govt coming after them

and your own govt may change its mind, then you have to think about it

the problem is govt

not mastodon admins

@benroyce @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

I for one will not remain on any server that asks for ID, treating such a thing as being a shutdown.If I have to move everything to the darknet I can and I will.

Single-user Mastodon servers hosted at home could make age verification useless.Torified federation if supoortes could prevent ISP blocking, as can mesh networking in built-up areas.

Even if this goes all the way to shuting down things like Signal, Matrix and other decentralozed altetnatives will be very hard to shut down.

Then there is Diaspora: I don't know a whole lot about it but it's supposed to work like Facebook UI wise but with distributee hosting on the backend

@mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic

which is great of you, thank you

...and your stance is dependent upon the legalities of your jurisdiction

so people who do enable the age verification are not assholes, they just don't want their govt coming after them

and your own govt may change its mind, then you have to think about it

the problem is govt

not mastodon admins

@benroyce @mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic Shutting down is also an option. I could not in good conscience run anything that asks for ID. If I owned a store I would refuse to carry age restriced products for the same reason.

@LukefromDC @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

which is all fine and good, because you're talking tactics not emotional grand standing

what you won't do therefore is attack some admin of a server of thousands or more for doing what they *have* to do so the govt doesn't knock on their door

@LukefromDC @mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic

what do you think about my post above asking for a credit card?

it achieves the same effect, and no one is getting a credit card without id. no server is getting your id and the security hassle with that, and you're not revealing your id anymore than it already has been

the big benefit: with your cc already attached to your profile, donating to your server becomes a breeze. and more people should be doing that

@benroyce @mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic The PR only adds an option to ask age, not to use a 3ed party AI verificstion "service" or read an ID. By itsrlf that's a nothingburger but I would still turn it off legal or otherwise on any server I ran.

Note that birthdays are dangerous in the hands of an atacker, so never enter your real one for any account anywhere. Let the account go if challenged

@benroyce @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

No, I would attack the government and steer people to servers out of their reach. An admin hassled one too many times by cops might even need to move their own account to one if the cops go after their hosting

@Mastodon @mellifluousbox If Mastodon implements age verification, we leave.

@benroyce @mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic Some do not have or want credit cards and will simply use other servers.

There is no way any regime can shut down access to every non-agr verification compliant server. Limits on federation woulf just split the fediverse into two networks which would inevitanly be bridged back together.

FL cannot even stop Pornhub: they just block conmections from FL IP addresses and gladly take Tor and VPN traffic

@LukefromDC @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

again that's all fine and good

but if you're asking a server to shut down with thousands of accounts when people can just enter a fake birthday it's far too dramatic

effective resistance is not about purity

@benroyce @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron Some servers are much smaller and can provide their users wirh migration tips.

This is what blackblogs.org did when running a US based anarchist wordpress hosting server got too dangerous: they shut doen, and steered people like myself to noblogs.org and other non-US alternatives, plus guides to moving content over. I didn't lose any content at all

@LukefromDC @mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic

you mean tor and VPN providers that spy on the people who use it because anyone using that it is flagging their activity as sensitive?

tor was started at the us naval research laboratory for dissidents in countries unfriendly to the usa

you think they don't have enough exit nodes to see what is going on?

and mastodon needs support

i'd almost (i said almost) support the idea of mandatory ccs on sign up with or without id laws

@benroyce @mark @nitrml @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic .onion access bypasses exit nodes enrirely. If Tor gets compromised dozens of nations find their intelligence services lose covert communication except by direct radio or sattelite. If civilian traffic is blocked or driven off, spy traffic then instantly stands out.

Too many armies need Tor to kill it

@LukefromDC @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

great

would you characterize yourself as the average mastodon user? or more broadly, the average social media user?

most people want to sign onto a server, browse, and post

that's it

you can't go after them for that, people don't have the bandwidth or time for the hassles

and we can't become a tiny whisper of a cryptic fringe to adhere to some unnecessary purity test

@benroyce @meowki @iju @ariarhythmic @mellifluousbox @Mastodon @MastodonEngineering @Gargron

That means they will find servers that fit their needs, just as folks in my position find servers that fit our needs. Mastodon is NOT like Twitter or FB wirh a single server farm and one set of rules for all.