Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#421

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:36 AM UTC

TZubiri wrote: post #392

Spivak wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this analysis presumes that the initial problem is real and the concern for it is made in good faith. The senate isn't immune to concern trolling and "protecting the children" is probably the most famous and most used smokescreen for people with ulterior motives. Accepting the premise is not usually a good strategy. And we don't even have to speculate anymore what they are because the plan is out in the open.…

That's a great way to be excluded from a political conversation, pretend that the other side does not exist and that we are a strawman from a conspiracy. How about recognizing the inevitable conflict between two priorities: kid safety and online privacy? Simple thing really. Again, you don't need to do this, but you will be ignored and put in a kiddy table while the adults talk in the senate and in school boards. Mos…

It's not that we pretend the other side doesn't exist. Rather, we recognize that it's a false flag recruitment effort.

And note that I haven't noticed anyone objecting to any client-side filtering approaches--I've even suggested one. We are objecting to mandated server-side verification because we know it's a camel's nose.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#422

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:40 AM UTC

CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #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).

The problem is that you're blaming the wrong targets. The porn companies aren't interested in kids, they don't have much money or ways to spend it on their content.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#423

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:42 AM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #28

mandevil wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about a Texas Law that went before the Supreme Court recently. Texas' law, H.B. 1181, requires people visiting porn websites to prove their age by either uploading government-issued identification or a "commercially reasonable method" such as bank information. More than a dozen other states have passed similar bills, though they are all on hold pending what the Supreme Court decides.

There's just too much money to be made selling porn to children.

Children don't exactly have a lot of money, especially in a form they can spend online. Porn companies want customers who can actually afford to buy their products!

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#424

Post by ty6853 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:45 AM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #419

ty6853 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, I entirely reject your premise. Second of all, I want to really zero in on "we don't tolerate." I want to know who we is, and how they plan on stopping me from expressing my feelings. Because last I checked we even tolerate nazis in the town square in this country, because the alternative is even worse.

How is it different? People being gay or trans is just like people being black or white. They are born that way. We just give them the tools and trust so they don't have to hide it. Having them hide it doesn't make them not gay. And it doesn't matter because there's nothing bad about that anyway. And how the non toleration works? Well through law. Discrimination and racism are a crime. Even though the white house is…

I think you're imagining a caricature of someone who gets a negative feeling from seeing homoerotic activity. Whatever it is, you're talking about someone else. I get a negative feeling, but I have no explanation for it nor any desire to stop gay people from being gay or black people from walking.

By all means, kiss whoever you like for all to see.

Good luck on you law, because it will only be struck. You're going to need a constitutional amendment.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#425

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:46 AM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #27

plasma_beam wrote: post #13

Am I missing something here? Entirely possible and likely. When I go to pornhub I have to click a button that days I’m 18. Some other sites I’ve seen actually make me enter a birthdate. Slightly more annoying but I always make one up. Is this what people are upset about? I get actual age verification with an account required or checking my ID is more invasive..but I guess I’ve not experienced this as an actual proble…

Certain US states are requiring the porn sites actually do rigorous age verification via scanned documents. I believe PornHub just opted to stay out of those states entirely hoping that their "reverse boycott" would cause enough of a backlash to get the laws changed. I'm not sure it's working. That said, as a parent to teenagers, I don't know that I believe that age verification is such a terrible idea. The reality i…

It's much better to "block" it by educating your kids rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#426

Post by dragonwriter » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:46 AM UTC

9283409232 wrote: post #55

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just too much money to be made selling porn to children.

No, there isn't. Almost all porn that is accessible to children is on freely available social media like instagram and twitter. Not on Pornhub.

Twitter and Instagram, then, are not businesses that make money selling content to viewers in an indirect manner where the viewer provides eyeballs to an advertiser who then provides money to the platform, right?

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#427

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:48 AM UTC

buyucu wrote: post #327

most of the ''protect the kids!'' rhetoric originates from the government who want to use it as a smoke screen to push authoritarian surveillance laws.

"Most"??

Where's the stuff that isn't a smoke screen?

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#428

Post by LorenPechtel » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:53 AM UTC

isaacremuant wrote: post #316

outer_web wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonspecific covid policies getting support from "the mainstream" is proof that HN will support authoritarianism? Huh.

Yes. That was the most clear cut case of authoritarianism I've ever seen in the post Berlin wall era. It's not hard to grasp if you read a constitution and see how right to assemble, right to work, right to bodily autonomy, right to speak, all got attacked in different degrees in different countries across the world with apparent widespread support. Of course, censorship of any alternative played a part and non compl…

If we had done as well as the places that were careful there would be about 1 million more Americans now than there actually are. But most of them were costs to society, not producers, and thus killing them was a win for the Republicans.

(Although I don't think we had a chance of doing as well because it got here earlier.)

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#429

Post by wkat4242 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:59 AM UTC

ty6853 wrote: post #424

wkat4242 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it different? People being gay or trans is just like people being black or white. They are born that way. We just give them the tools and trust so they don't have to hide it. Having them hide it doesn't make them not gay. And it doesn't matter because there's nothing bad about that anyway. And how the non toleration works? Well through law. Discrimination and racism are a crime. Even though the white house is…

I think you're imagining a caricature of someone who gets a negative feeling from seeing homoerotic activity. Whatever it is, you're talking about someone else. I get a negative feeling, but I have no explanation for it nor any desire to stop gay people from being gay or black people from walking. By all means, kiss whoever you like for all to see. Good luck on you law, because it will only be struck. You're going to…

Perhaps you are not desiring to do so but the people in the whitehouse surely are. Many of their supporters do too.

> By all means, kiss whoever you like for all to see.

Ok thanks! :)

> Good luck on you law, because it will only be struck. You're going to need a constitutional amendment.

I'm not in the US, luckily. Here in the Netherlands racist slurs are already illegal, as is discrimination during hiring. Our constitution doesn't work like the one in the US, it actually has less influence than normal law (for example, a judge can't use the constitution in a verdict).

Re: Age Verification Laws: A Backdoor to Surveillance

#430

Post by Spivak » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:01 AM UTC

TZubiri wrote: post #392

Spivak wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this analysis presumes that the initial problem is real and the concern for it is made in good faith. The senate isn't immune to concern trolling and "protecting the children" is probably the most famous and most used smokescreen for people with ulterior motives. Accepting the premise is not usually a good strategy. And we don't even have to speculate anymore what they are because the plan is out in the open.…

That's a great way to be excluded from a political conversation, pretend that the other side does not exist and that we are a strawman from a conspiracy. How about recognizing the inevitable conflict between two priorities: kid safety and online privacy? Simple thing really. Again, you don't need to do this, but you will be ignored and put in a kiddy table while the adults talk in the senate and in school boards. Mos…

If your philosophy on how to best protect the children under your care is to install monitoring and filtering software on devices you own and require id verification to bypass (such as teacher's overrides) then that is your right.

That being said if I a parent at such a school I would assist my child in every way possible to make sure that their own browsing is exempted or shielded from such systems because I do think it's a violation of their privacy and that's my right as a parent but I digress.

If that same philosophy requires everyone to be subject to such a monitoring and filtering system by law then that's where I take issue. Because having teacher's credentials by virtue of being an adult isn't enough. I'm still being monitored and identified.

Do you really not see the difference between an opt-in filtering system controlled by the responsible party for specific children and a global mandatory filtering system controlled by literally the worst human beings alive? That have an explicitly adversarial relationship to you and control the global definition of child appropriate to suit their agenda?