Or maybe it’s the governments dislike of VPNs being used to bypass surveillance

Gotcha. I misunderstood. I didn’t think it would be just that, because of course if they have your phone they have the contents. Signal encrypts end to end, but if they have the end device of course it isn’t encrypted.

I know about the setting. Why are you saying that information is sent to Google’s servers? As far as I have found, that information is only stored locally on your phone

Edit: If this is just about the fact it’s on the phone locally, of course if they have your actual phone they can see it. Signal is end to end encrypted, but it isn’t go to be encrypted on each end, otherwise you couldn’t read messages. Them getting your actual phone is very different from them intercepting the communication without you knowing

Source? I am not seeing anything about that. The only problem I have seen on Android is when applications use firebase for notifications, which is most play store apps to be fair, just no FDroid apps or some privacy preserving apps

You also don’t need to do this on Android unless you are concerned about random people seeing the messages on your screen. Signal on Android does not use Google’s push notification service

As I already replied om one of your other comments:

It’s not because of push notifications. the message is not sent to firebase, just a signal that the app should do a refresh.

Is is 100% because of firebase. Here is an example payload from firebases official document:

{
  "message":{
    "token":"bk3RNwTe3H0:CI2k_HHwgIpoDKCIZvvDMExUdFQ3P1...",
    "notification":{
      "title":"Portugal vs. Denmark",
      "body":"great match!"
    }
  }
}

https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/customize-messages/set-message-type

Notification history is purely local to the device. It is not sent to any servers.

It’s not because of push notifications. the message is not sent to firebase, just a signal that the app should do a refresh.

Is is 100% because of firebase. Here is an example payload from firebases official document:

{
  "message":{
    "token":"bk3RNwTe3H0:CI2k_HHwgIpoDKCIZvvDMExUdFQ3P1...",
    "notification":{
      "title":"Portugal vs. Denmark",
      "body":"great match!"
    }
  }
}

https://firebase.google.com/docs/cloud-messaging/customize-messages/set-message-type

Notification history is purely local to the device. It is not sent to any servers.

This is not always the same on Android. Any app from FDroid will not use Google’s push notification service because it is proprietary, meaning it violates the rules for FDroid. Signal does not use Google’s notification service

It’s worth noting apps can avoid this on Android: https://tuta.com/blog/google-push-alternative#alternatives-to-google-push

Any FDroid app cannot use Firebase for push notifications since it’s proprietary: https://forum.f-droid.org/t/firebase-allowed-in-fdroid-apps/7540

Not all, no. There are alternatives on Android:

The good news is that alternative methods for push notifications are available, namely SSE (Server Sent Events) and WebSockets.

Additionally, a new open source project, UnifiedPush is becoming increasingly popular. UnifiedPush is an open source, private alternative to Google for notifications.

https://tuta.com/blog/google-push-alternative#alternatives-to-google-push

Signal for android uses web sockets for notifications

The only way apple is seeing it is when the notification is displayed. It only sees the contents of the notification itself. So it would still see who sent you a message, but it wouldn’t say what it was

What about sortition as a means for items to go on a ballot

Right. And people often never even click the link, especially if the headline supports their bias

I disagree with most people saying it’s not a problem. It’s funny, because in the responses most people are saying the same thing. It’s a bit of an echo chamber in general here. I do agree with most of the echos, but I also recognize it’s an echo chamber. When I do disagree with an opinion, it is not often well recieved. It’s also not as likely to be taken seriously since I am one of the few oppsoing it. This can cause more confirmation bias, and even fear mongering to some extent. Which I always find sensationalized headlines here absurd because the truth is absurd enough. We dont need to exaggerate details to make it worse, but unfortunately those headlines get more clicks.

People are quick to comment on a headline without reading the article, as long as it supports something they already believe in. And even if something ends up not matching the headline, you get a response of “well I wouldn’t be surprised if it really did happen” without any evidence. This is human nature, but I still think it’s important to recognize.

I do expect it to change. I expect it to be standardized with zero knowledge proofs. If I am avle to communicate with you on a random internet forum from anywhere in the world using standardized protocols, we can get private and secure “I am 18+” verification. It may initially start with proving it in some form or another, but if done correctly you would essentialy have a private key that certifies you are over X age. The company would know nothing about you, other than you are not a child. I have extremely simplified it, but it is possible.

The goal isnt to herd every single cat. Just get the bulk of them. That’s how existing age regulation works. Alcohol age limit doesn’t stop underage drinking, but it does substantially reduce it. With that in mind, there are privacy respecting solutions that will do what needs to be done

Kids also get alcohol from their older siblings. It doesnt have to be 100% effective to still make a massive impact on children. Plus, kids these days could learn a thing or two about computers. Maybe byspassing restrictions will give them motivation to learn

That isn’t a problem with proper implementation. Not that it will be done properly, just that it can be done properly

Genuine question, what if the only information it hands out is that you are over 18? Would it be different if all it was able to say is you aren’t a child?

Unfortunately you do have to prove you’re intelligent