Refusing the age-gate protects you from the ID demand, but that is a different threat model from being reidentified after the fact. Even on GrapheneOS with no account, a model can infer location, employer, and writing style from public posts. A 2026 study matched 67% of forum users to their real profiles at 90% precision. Forced disclosure and silent inference are two problems, and hardening against one does little for the other.
Refusing the age-gate protects you from the ID demand, but that is a different threat model from being reidentified after the fact. Even on GrapheneOS with no account, a model can infer location, employer, and writing style from public posts. A 2026 study matched 67% of forum users to their real profiles at 90% precision. Forced disclosure and silent inference are two problems, and hardening against one does little for the other.