HN is blocked in mainland China, so stats of visitors from China are likely to be low. HN is similarly blocked in Russia. Users from these locations would come via VPN.
Unfettered linking of the latest Rust AIs, sharing of random peoples' purchases of Framework laptops, heat over GPLv2 vs. AGPL vs. BSD, and discussion of whether nixOS's use of *nix was or was not prior to Unix's use or Shakespeare's use, is clearly too much for some censors.
Surely attempts to block archive.is are more likely to be Kremlin based as that would stop dissemination of journalistic information in favour of more easily manipulated YouTube and Tiktok video.
Do not expect this from the UK. That fight despite millions of signatures was batted down:
The UK is introducing passed legislation that citizens' digital IDs are owned by a Google or Apple smartphone.
The UK already have such laws active and in force that company directors must submit their information through an app available only from Google or Apple. It is clear 'digital IDs' will go the same way.
It's not about age or attribute verification. It's about tracking. Which Google excel at, the only alternative Apple and their opt-in.
Governments are quite happy making citizens have megacorps track their lives.
It also plays into the hands of the Chinese government to flatten the concept of ethnicity, culture, nationality and border into one.
That way, the mainland government, as the main party justify and legitimise themselves as the inheritors of Qin Shi Huang's 'unified China' legacy [1]. This shows up constantly and throughout the mainland domestic media, education system and narrative of the CCP bringing development, celebrating (a one-sided Confucian centric) culture and protecting borders from the century and millenia old concept of 'harmful external forces'.
A 'Chinese AI' model or ecosystem isolationist narrative promotes the Party domestically as the maternal incubator force of such: of development the domestic population is constantly reminded would not have been possible after the ashes of WWII without the Party. While externally gives fodder for protecting Chinese (its self declared protectorate) against such subducation it itself fosters. In doing so closes the circle of the increasingly isolationist policy of the past decade+.
I have no astigmatism. If something is on dark mode with no easily discovered option to switch it at the top of the screen I am more than likely to close the website or remove the app.
While I don't use Facebook, my YouTube feed is similar.
I don't subscribe to anything in YouTube and nor do I log in. All I watch is a few music videos a week, 80s electronic. The front page that seeks to identify me via fingerprinting and darkpatterning my browser rarely if ever has any music videos let alone the stuff I watch, instead it has exactly as posted by OP with less young women and almost everything hate - fake or real crimes clipped to incense, video jockeys obsessed with race.
The algorithm is actively creating a hateful, fearful populace.
What service needs a solution to verify identity that doesn't already exist?
Banks do KYC now. Employers already need a National Insurance number to employ someone. Benefits get paid to a named payee. Emergency healthcare needs no insurance and waiting lists come via a GP who indeed knows me.
What service needs a further centralised deposit of power over identity?
But did it show as a list or an ordered collection of folders? And the second time you opened the folder did it rearrange into a haphazard scattering with items off the edge of the window?