Thanks for the suggestion! I was about to ask what non-Android Linux options are available.

It gives Google ultimate control over what apps you can install on “your” phone.

Only if you’re using Android, though. It makes sense to me that Google would want publishers of Android apps to be verified, since Google would face backlash if any attacker could publish Android apps anonymously.

It’s not clear how the spyware gets onto the phone, though. Typically the user needs to download something that happens to have spyware in it. Unless the USA government includes this spyware in heretofore legitimate government apps so that a significant number of people install the spyware unintentionally, I don’t see how this spyware is of practical value. Including it in government apps might be their plan, though, even though there is a high chance that the malicious app(s) would be banned. But the USA government could threaten Apple or Google into letting the app remain available for download. Dark times.

Now I’m even more confused lol. What’s the motive for media companies to promote candidates who pass laws that require age verification on websites such as porn sites? Are porn websites causing media companies to lose revenue or something?

There’s no conspiracy of collusion between parties. Any party is free to put forward candidates who favor popular policies. And if that candidates wins, but doesn’t fulfill their promises, then the voters will remember that.

Do you have evidence to support the claim that European elections are being rigged?

It is in the best interests of the parties to put forward candidates and policies who will have voter appeal, in order to prevail over competing parties.

The USA is not a healthy democracy.

Sometimes policy issues arise after an election cycle, in which case the voters didn’t have an opportunity to vote for or against the candidates based on their position on the policy issue. Was that the case with age verification in the UK?

In a healthy democracy, future elections decide the fate of these policies, which can be reverted. Even the USA’s complete prohibition on recreational alcohol, which was popular with voters at the time, and codified into the constitution itself, later became unpopular with voters, and was repealed. So as long as the democracy remains healthy, there is always an opportunity for bad policies to be repealed.

Republicans would be upset about Wikipedia being censored if they knew how to read.

The countries under discussion are democratic republics, aren’t they? If so, then age verification is what the people voted for, not an insidious plot by “they”.

That is some serious dependency inversion.