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Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

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Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#211
post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

That's kind of how it has been working before all of these "child safety" laws have come into place. Pornhub admits that they spend quite a bit of money trying to educate people on how to filter.

https://www.404media.co/the-pornhub-empire-cbc-podcast/

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#212
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recognizing you have feelings isn't wrong. It's how you learn to control your actions If you’re afraid of the monster under your bed, the solution isn’t to clench you teeth—it’s to learn there’s no monster. Recognising the bias is good. We all have subconscious biases based on fear and disgust. But the solution is to learn more about the thing so it stops triggering a reptilian response.

what do you think an unbiased heterosexual man should feel stumbling upon two men kissing in public?

He should think AWOOOOGA OH OH OH HUH HIMUH AWOOOGA

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#213
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. This is exactly the opposite of the way public spaces actually work, and the way that public spaces actually work is the very justification for laws like this in the first place! You've just taken their exact rationale and imagined a world that would lead that metaphor to the opposite conclusion. In most of the real-life US, yo…

The problem with the internet is the mixing of different contexts. You can have cute cats, disney fandom, hobbies, politics, porn, extremism all on the same platform. In the real world you don't have strip clubs at disney world or children wandering about in a bar.

In my state children can wander in a bar. They can even sit at the stool in front the bar counter. It's considered better to allow it than have children neglected at home without supervision.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#214
post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

> Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended?

I would hope that the answer is yes.

This kind of reasoning (not to pick on the commenter above) is troubling. People blame cellphones and social media. But what are they going to do once they put down their cellphones, if not go out? Should they stare at the walls?

Interacting with strangers is a valuable experience. If we do not encourage children to interact with strangers, should we be surprised when they do not want to participate in civic activities as an adult?

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#215
post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

> The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. As much as I kind of agree, I want to fight so much for open access to the internet because it was so useful to me as a child, thirsty for information and starving for nourishment. I will say I think these laws are bonkers. Restrict what companies can do with child data, make it clear an account is a minors, that should be more than sufficient.

I agree with your ethos, but you must admit that the internet of 2025 is very different from the internet of 1980.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#216
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. This is exactly the opposite of the way public spaces actually work, and the way that public spaces actually work is the very justification for laws like this in the first place! You've just taken their exact rationale and imagined a world that would lead that metaphor to the opposite conclusion. In most of the real-life US, yo…

The problem with the internet is the mixing of different contexts. You can have cute cats, disney fandom, hobbies, politics, porn, extremism all on the same platform. In the real world you don't have strip clubs at disney world or children wandering about in a bar.

The problem with the internet is that it is flat. Society has hierarchies, has always had hierarchies, and the architecture (in the broadest sense) of "RL" societies reflected that.

Internet came out of military and academia and had a flat namespace. No consideraton whatsoever was given to the idea of a 'social model' for it. This was discussed way back in late '90s in a yahoo group that has since disappeared: social models for communication networks.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#217
post #71

The Internet should be Unrated and thus Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. (Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? Arguments can be made for more controlled spaces but...) Have a website and want the chance for kids to see it? Advertise in the headers that it's moderated and intended to be a given rating. Various indexers can pick that up. Complaints can be forward to relevant…

>Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended?

I know you meant this as a rhetorical question but honestly, the answer should be yes.

And if the city is too dangerous for kids to live in it now, then fix that.

Likewise for the internet. Kids are going to use it, we should make sure it’s designed around that.

That doesn’t mean we need surveillance like this though.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

correct that's why everything in california, including the air in parking garages, is labeled with P65

You know what, when I spent a summer there I do remember it being hilarious how many things had warnings.

Hilarious that we've decided to exist in a toxic environment daily? Or hilarious that California is the only state that mandates people tell you that?

Don't worry, they still can poison the water you use:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-epa-san-francisco...

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#219
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Adults Only by default. Just like public spaces. This is the attitude that led us to this problem in the first place. >Would you allow an 8 year old to wander New York City unattended? They're at much higher risk of being arrested/abducted by the police than they are anything else. This is a uniquely North American neurosis; this happens every day in every other nation. They take the subway to work/school or walk, l…

You really think a child is more likely to be abducted by police in NYC than anything else? What are you talking about?

Unless you live in a really bad ghetto where everybody has bars on their windows and people warn you to get off the streets before sundown, US police are the most likely to harm or take people without cause.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#220
Preventing kids from being exploited online is a damn good thing, whether its porn companies, Facebook, or CSAM PDFs doing the exploiting.

Maybe we can even protect adults from being exploited online one of these days too (obviously not in the current US administration, but some day).

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