Hard Fork Age-Gating the Internet + Cloudflare Takes On A.I. Scrapers + HatGPT
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Aug 1, 2025 
Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, dives into the impact of the UK’s age-verification law and its potential to disrupt online freedoms. He discusses Cloudflare's innovative strategies to protect publishers from A.I. scrapers and the need for a marketplace to ensure fair compensation for content creators. The conversation also highlights the challenges posed by A.I. on web traffic dynamics and privacy concerns. Listeners will gain insights into the delicate balance between safeguarding minors and upholding adult freedoms in the digital age.
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UK's Age-Gating Fragments Internet
- The UK's Online Safety Act mandates rigorous age verification that impacts many websites, not just adult content.
- This causes privacy concerns and fragments internet experiences by age, leading to significant public backlash and workarounds.
Advocate Device-Level Age Verification
- Use device-level age verification, like Apple's upcoming API, to verify age without sharing personal data with every website.
- This method shifts responsibility from websites to device makers and parents, improving privacy and security.
AI Scraping Threatens Web Content
- AI chatbots scraping content disrupt the traditional web traffic model, making it drastically harder for publishers to get visits.
- This threatens content creation since AI engines consume derivatives, not originals, lowering creators' incentives and revenue.