De 14-jarige Mads Tigchelaar voelt zich als stadionspeaker helemaal thuis in Het Kasteel in Rotterdam-West. Hij is volledig blind en heeft in het dagelijks leven veel hulpmiddelen nodig. Maar als zijn stem door het stadion galmt, is daar even niets van te merken: "Ik kan eigenlijk gewoon alles."

The European Commission "proposed on Thursday banning children under 13 from social media, with parent-supervised accounts until 15," reports Reuters.

"Enforcement would rely on a tool Brussels built itself" — a free, open-source age verification smartphone app "that tells a platform whether a user meets an age threshold without revealing their identity..."

If passed, the proposed Kids Act would create the world's largest social media access restriction, covering 450 million people across 27 countries... [The EU-built age-verification app] is being rolled out through member states, with seven pilot countries: Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain. The Commission expects EU-wide availability by the end of 2026.

It will also be used to prove users are over 18 when accessing adult sites, a restriction already implemented under the Digital Services Act...

[T]he system itself is decentralised. Member states run it through issuers they designate, and the proofs live on the user's phone. There is no central EU database of ages or of who verified whom... A user proves their age once to a nationally designated issuer — a body vetted by the member state, which can be a digital ID provider, a bank or a post office. At a restricted site, the app certifies that the user is above the required age threshold. The platform receives only a yes-or-no response. Issuance and verification are handled by separate entities. The proof provider is not told which service the proof was used for. Each proof works only once, preventing cross-service tracking. No identity documents or biometric data are retained. The code is open-source, allowing independent scrutiny.

The significance of the EU approach is that it provides a common age-verification mechanism rather than leaving individual platforms to develop and enforce their own systems.
"Online platforms can easily rely on our age verification app. So there are no more excuses," [EU Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen said...

The proposal must be approved by EU member states and the European Parliament before becoming law.

Non-compliance would risk fines of up to 6% of a tech company's global annual sales, plus supervisory fees, Reuters reported earlier.

The EU's plan follows similar initiatives in Australia, Britain, China, India, Turkey and several European Union countries.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Action against Ofcom comes as social media companies are being accused of using courts to slow down implementation

Meta has launched a fresh legal challenge against Britain’s media regulator in the latest of a slew of actions by social media companies who are accused of using the courts to slow down implementation of the Online Safety Act.

Lawyers for the parent company of Facebook served notice during the week in an appeal against placing WhatsApp and Instagram, which are also owned by Meta, in a category that subjects them to additional duties.

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Baritone with an appealing tonal quality who was an enterprising explorer of song and more than 70 roles in opera

The Scottish baritone Henry Herford, who has died aged 79, was notable for the breadth of his repertoire – offering sterling performances of often neglected works – and his warm, appealing tonal quality.

He began his career in the Glyndebourne Opera Chorus (1977-78). In those years he also impressed in small solo roles, as a well-projected, spontaneous Forester in Cunning Little Vixen and the Speaker in Magic Flute. He returned to Glyndebourne in 1981 as a fiery Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and with a powerfully delivered Boris Pasternak (a key figure who narrates the action) in Nigel Osborne’s Electrification of the Soviet Union (1987-88).

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If ever a stadium can be rocked by silence, this was the moment. With no visiting fans allowed at any of this season’s Glasgow derbies, Ryan Naderi’s winning goal was met with nothing but the banging of fists of the clear plastic of the Rangers bench and the shouting of the broadcast commentators. A screaming void of apathy and atrophy, the sound of a beckoning abyss, of three straight Celtic defeats and a title race blowing open.

In the coming three weeks, as club football dissolves for the international break, noises and voices will pour into the void: some helpful and some not. This, of course, is a familiar feeling for any club of Celtic’s size, and naturally the temptation will be to block out the noise, stay the course. This would be a grave mistake. If last season’s double illustrated the way this club can still rise above adversity, there can no longer be any hiding place, no equivocation with the alarming drop in standards that was evident here.

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• Updates from 4.30pm (BST) kickoff at Craven Cottage

• Get in touch: email Taha about the game

We’re four league games in and I’m getting spammy emails about how Michael Carrick is 5/2 to get sacked before Christmas. It’s all a bit silly but a reminder of how intense his position is, the game changing now he doesn’t have that interim tag. So how does a visit to Craven Cottage sound? On the one hand, Fulham are bottom of the league, with Alvaro Arbeloa feeling some heat, too. On the other, slip up here and my inbox will probably get a whole lot louder. Let’s get stuck into it: kick-off’s at 4.30pm BST.

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japanimfokus has added a photo to the pool:

Fischer-Z

BERLIJN (ANP/DPA) - De opkomst bij de regionale verkiezingen in Berlijn lijkt hoger te liggen dan bij de vorige stembusgang, zo blijkt uit cijfers halverwege de dag. Duitsers stemmen deze zondag in twee deelstaatverkiezingen - in Berlijn en Mecklenburg-Voor-Pommeren - die gevolgen kunnen hebben voor de politieke toekomst van bondskanselier Friedrich Merz.

De opkomst in Berlijn bedroeg om 12.00 uur 27,9 procent, een stijging van 4,5 procent ten opzichte van de verkiezingen in 2023, aldus de Berlijnse kiescommissie. De stembureaus blijven open tot 18.00 uur.

Merz' christendemocraten (CDU) zijn verwikkeld in een nek-aan-nekrace met Die Linke om het burgemeesterschap van Berlijn. In de noordoostelijke deelstaat Mecklenburg-Voor-Pommeren duiden peilingen op mogelijk het slechtste resultaat voor de CDU bij deelstaatverkiezingen sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog.

De populariteit van Merz lijdt onder onvrede over de haperende economie en zijn onvermogen om de opkomst van de radicaal-rechtse AfD te stuiten. De uitslagen van zondag kunnen de druk op zijn partij opvoeren om hem te vervangen.