Is the tremor only starting to hit other countries now?
Today I read a somewhat old magazine article, The Internet Wants to Check Your I.D.. Published in The New Yorker in 2025, it honestly surprised me. The UK, after the Tea app's data breach involving women, realized the importance of online identity verification. Many foreign platforms, such as Reddit and X, have started age verification, requiring ID uploads and platform verification for certain posts. This has caused a huge uproar on the British and American internet.
Eric Goldman, Associate Dean of the Law School at Santa Clara University, who has been researching online age verification, told me that these changes are eroding the last remaining foundation of the open internet. The original premise of the open internet was that anyone could access almost any content. He said:
We are witnessing the destruction of the internet we know in real time.
This new wave of security regulations is eroding the "relative anonymity" we used to tacitly accept online, even as social media has blurred the lines between real and digital life. Some users will undoubtedly feel that sacrificing privacy for access to certain online content isn't worthwhile. Consequently, those who might otherwise benefit from sensitive online spaces, such as participants in anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous communities, will ultimately find it harder to access these spaces. As Goldman stated:
Mandatory age verification will shrink the internet for adults.
The criticism of the "Cybersecurity Law" in Western media stems primarily from the erosion of "online anonymity." For adults, the internet may be a space away from society, a place to express themselves without masks, but with security laws, the internet has become another society, subject to strict content censorship—something Western internet users find unacceptable.
Foreign countries treat it as a new rule; we've long considered it an environment.
For example, what you watch, what communities you join, what you search for, and what you express can all be linked to a verifiable identity. Chinese users are, in some ways, more familiar with this kind of risk than their Western counterparts. In the UK and US, the default approach is "get online first, then discuss identity"; while we're more familiar with "identity first, then full permissions gradually unlocked." To be honest, I'd believe this magazine if you said it was published in 2015, but it really is published in 2025, and in the New Yorker no less, which demonstrates its seriousness and timeliness.
I can still remember when I was in middle school, over ten years ago. Back then, if I wanted to play CS:GO, I had to register with my real name, using my mom's ID number. In recent years, it feels like registering for software requires facial recognition or entering your ID number—it's become commonplace. Now, my input method automatically shows the last few digits of my ID number when I type 370. On the other hand, when buying things, they use virtual phone numbers. The whole world knows my name and my ID number, but I'm the only one who doesn't know what kind of virtual phone number the merchant gave me or where my package is located.
Phone numbers, payments, social media platforms, live streaming, online games, forums, ride-hailing services, food delivery, opening stores, and activating various online services all increasingly rely on real identities. While this real identity differs from the "self-disclosure" style of real-name registration in Europe and America, where people use their names as nicknames and photos as profile pictures, it still leaves you essentially exposed to platforms and regulatory systems. This superficial anonymity, which often only fools other users who are also being deceived, fosters a degree of complacency regarding the anonymity of the internet today.
The recent upheaval in Europe and America serves as a wake-up call. In an era where privacy can be easily collected and sold, worrying about information leaks is pointless. Real-name registration truly changes not just privacy, but also expression.
The Chilling Effect of the Internet
What do people actually do online these days? 90% of their time is spent on light entertainment content, including Reddit. Of course, I never participate in discussions on sensitive topics, and on Reddit, I only read content related to F1. It's easy to see that people online nowadays prioritize saying only what's safe, what's appropriate, and what won't cause trouble. This is especially evident on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). The rise of feminism, the encroachment of fandoms, and the emergence of various other ideologies mean that if a blogger wants to express their thoughts or opinions, they're immediately met with a barrage of insults in the comments section. You can only say "I like it," and you can only say things that guide those unaware of the facts to think the way I want. Any comments unfavorable to my "favorite" should be explicitly prohibited and the account should be banned. Every group on the internet has its own system of discourse, and as this group expands, the discourse system evolves accordingly.
Thus, freedom of speech in the "Xiaohongshu entertainment circle" first narrowed, then became shallow, and finally became merely a formality. And this formality is the internet we've lived in for so long; we've long since become numb to it. Even when we see foreigners shocked, do we still sarcastically laugh at them, saying, "You're so backward! Look at us [proud face]"?
Indeed, the Stockholm Syndrome is everywhere.
Kids, this isn't the internet that made Dad better anymore.
We've been surfing the internet for years, and at least we've developed some surfing skills. But today's kids, those new to the internet, may be losing more than just a single opportunity to speak; they're losing the ability to actively search, compare viewpoints, raise doubts, and think against the flow of information.
Now, the comment sections of many social media platforms like Xiaohongshu and Douyin can directly utilize AI.
What did Yuanbao's video talk about?
What is "…"?
Many people leave a question and then leave, as if they were never there. Sadly, most people seem to have lost the ability to think independently. Independent thinking is less efficient than asking netizens in the comments section, or seeing what other netizens or bloggers are saying. Hmm, that makes sense, so I'll echo that. Now, the initial form of an issue, the power to decide in your mind, is no longer in your hands. Instead, it's the blogger whose viewpoint Douyin first recommends to you that will likely influence your own perspective.
The flood of AI-generated content, the explosion of the internet, and the massive filtering of content expression. The internet is no longer just about transmitting information; it's training people on how to express themselves safely, training a new generation on how to understand the world.
My soul was born in the internet, and it will also perish in the internet.
What the internet has lost may not be anonymity, but rather spiritual autonomy.
My parents are ordinary college graduates with stable jobs. They never cared about the richness of their own inner world, but were always concerned with whether their lives were good and how their children were doing academically.
When facing various problems in life, especially those that are increasingly common in this new era and were never taught in school, I am grateful to the internet for saving me. In an era where everyone can express their opinions, I survived my early childhood and relatively bleak four years of undergraduate studies thanks to the constant debates and discussions among netizens and the sharing of philosophical thinkers.
It's fair to say that a large part of my values and sense of time comes from the internet. But now, the internet is also constantly shattering my worldview.
I was also working on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) recently. F1 is now a huge fandom. If your content is relevant to current events, you're bound to get criticized. Honestly, that feeling is unpleasant. So when you're writing, you're always thinking about how to write without getting criticized, how to benefit from the traffic of different fan groups, instead of always offending a certain group. But gradually, I realized I had lost my opinions; I could only state facts.
Even as I write this article today, all I can do is criticize Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) because I live in the internet age. My soul, along with the knowledge of those who once knew me, is slowly fading away. Perhaps the true meaning will only be deciphered in my mind many years later, after I've read this article.
In 2026, only your mind remains a black box.
As the internet becomes increasingly transparent and traceable, people lose not only anonymity, but also the courage to speak the truth, the habit of skepticism, and the space for independent judgment.