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So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

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141–150 of 306 posts

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#141

I'm honestly a bit mixed on this... I don't think that (especially young) children should have access to explicit, graphic sexual content, especially kink. If you as a parent want your kids to have access, so be it... but then the onus should be on the parent. On similar lines, I think that something between an unrestricted smart phone and the classic dumb phone is a market segment that is needed.

Phone’s have these settings already. I don’t know if people know how or bother to use them.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#142
post #65

I’ve noticed that many people struggle to simply let things go. Take a hypothetical case where HN requires ID verification. I'd just stop using HN, even if that meant giving up checking tech news. Sometimes things end, and that's fine. I used to watch good soccer matches on public TV. When services like DAZN appeared, only one major match was available each weekend on public TV. Later, none were free to watch unless…

Many people don’t struggle to let privacy go.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve noticed that many people struggle to simply let things go Because it's not always about their entertainment. I know churches that post info about events only on WhatsApp groups, if you don't use it - you're screwed. I know kindergardens which use Facebook Messenger groups to send announcements to their parents' children - if you don't use it, you will miss important info. For most people, letting go such thing…

People need to be more comfortable being the problem more often. Even if people actually use these solutions, they're almost always suboptimal anyway. We shouldn't be relying on them the way we do.

Or to flip it on its head, be the solution. If a church or some other activity is requiring Whatsapp, then come up with a better alternative that does more than Whatsapp ever could.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> combined with studies showing there is zero safe threshold without brain damage markers in the blood? Are you saying that there's zero safe threshold of choking, or for viewing porn? (To be clear, choking someone without consent is assault and unacceptable, whether a blood test shows damage or not.)

A. There is zero safe threshold for choking. B. Choking is inherently, obviously, dangerous. C. Pornography has caused choking behaviors among youth to go from negligible to over 38%. D. Brain damage is measurable in anyone who has been choked. E. As such, pornography does, in fact, have blame for encouraging this kind of experimentation. F. If "fighting words" and "misinformation" shouldn't be free speech, who is to…

>and "misinformation" shouldn't be free speech

That worked so well during covid, right?

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#145
post #61

My kid has recently just quit playing Roblox because of the sketchy facial age check process. She said that her and all her friends know not to ever upload a picture of themselves to the Internet (good job, fellow Other Parents!!) so they're either moving on to other games or just downloading stock photos of people from the internet and uploading those (which apparently works). What a total joke. These companies need…

One aspect of this normalization of photo uploading is that, if a platform allows user-generated content that can splash a modal to kids, a bad actor can do things like say “you need to re-verify or you’ll lose all your in-game currency, go here” and then collect photo identification without even needing to compromise identity verification providers! I truly fear the harm that will be done before legislators realize…

I'm optimistic actually. I think "Gen Alpha" is gonna be alright and sufficiently wary of Internet sharing and privacy. Unlike the previous few generations, esp. Milleneals and to a somewhat lesser extent Gen Z and Boomers, who have massively over-shared and are now reaping some of the horrible harvest that comes from that oversharing. Today's teens and tweens seem to finally be getting the message.

I also actually think AI might be a savior here. The ability to fake realistic 18+ year old selfies might help put the nail in the coffin of these idiotic "share a photo with the Internet" verification methods.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#146

I'm honestly a bit mixed on this... I don't think that (especially young) children should have access to explicit, graphic sexual content, especially kink. If you as a parent want your kids to have access, so be it... but then the onus should be on the parent. On similar lines, I think that something between an unrestricted smart phone and the classic dumb phone is a market segment that is needed.

Phone’s have these settings already. I don’t know if people know how or bother to use them. https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121

Does that include a whitelist of allowed for children websites?

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#147

My kid has recently just quit playing Roblox because of the sketchy facial age check process. She said that her and all her friends know not to ever upload a picture of themselves to the Internet (good job, fellow Other Parents!!) so they're either moving on to other games or just downloading stock photos of people from the internet and uploading those (which apparently works). What a total joke. These companies need…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#148
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One aspect of this normalization of photo uploading is that, if a platform allows user-generated content that can splash a modal to kids, a bad actor can do things like say “you need to re-verify or you’ll lose all your in-game currency, go here” and then collect photo identification without even needing to compromise identity verification providers! I truly fear the harm that will be done before legislators realize…

The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? Is the harm done significant enough to warrant providing parents with a technical solution for giving them control over which sites their X-aged child signs up, and a solution that like actually works? Obviously pinky-swear "over 13?" checkboxes don't work, so this currently does…

It's never been about porn. By marking certain part of the internet "adult-only" you imply that the rest is "family-friendly" and parents can feel less bad about themselves leaving their children with iPads rather than actually parenting them, which is exactly what Big Tech wants for obvious reasons. If I had a child I'd rather have it watch porn than Cocomelon, which has been scientifically developed so that it turns your child's brain into seedless raspberry jam. Yet nobody's talking about the dangers of that, because everyone's occupied with titties.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#149
Estonia basically got this completely right in 2002 with their e-ID. I'm kinda shocked nobody else has figured it out yet. Age verification could be simple, secure, robust, and require only the disclosure of your age, nothing more.

Instead, the rest of us have systems that are both far more vulnerable to privacy beaches, and far easier to circumvent anyway.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. There were attempts to do something like this with porn sites via the .xxx TLD I believe, but that inverts the problem. Don't force the public to go to a dark alley for their guilty pleasures. Instead, the sites that want to target kids need to be allowlisted. That is much more practical and palatable.

Yeah.. the opposition was just a bad take IMO... "but it will create a virtual red light district" which is EXACTLY what you want online, unlike a physical city, you aren't going to accidentally take a wrong turn, and if you're blocking *.xxx then it's even easier to avoid. Then require all nudity to be on a .edu, .art or .xxx, problem mostly solved.

> Then require all nudity to be on a .edu, .art or .xxx, problem mostly solved.

Who's doing the requiring here? Sounds like yet another path to censorship dystopia.

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