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The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

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Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#261

Post by JohnMakin »

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume.

In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web.

Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect children and not create the surveillance state nightmare scenario we all know is going to happen (using protecting children as the guise, which is ironic, because often these systems are completely ineffective at doing so anyway) - then give parents strong monitoring and restriction tools and empower them to protect their children. They are in a much better and informed position to do so than a creepy surveillance nanny state.

That is, after all, the primary responsibility of a parent to begin with.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#262

Post by alt227 »

bondarchuk wrote: post #6
malfist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Famously children can only access internet from wifi paid for by their parents. I'm not for these draconian age verification nonsense, but this isn't a valid argument.

It is a valid alternative avenue towards a legal implementation of "child safeguarding" IMO. Someone pays for the internet, that person is responsible for what minors do on their connection. If they have trouble doing that we can use normal societal mechanisms like idk social services, education, and government messaging. This is the way it works with e.g. alcohol and cigarettes, most places. Famously kids can just g…

This will never work.

I regularly talk to other parents at the school gates who have no idea that permissions on mobiles even exist, let alone that they can choose what they let each app have access to.

The general public people just dont care.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#263

Post by armchairhacker »

cromka wrote: post #192
armchairhacker wrote: post #55

Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account. If that's criminalized (like alcohol), it will happen too often to prosecute (much more frequently than alcohol, which is rarely prosecuted anyways). I don't see a solution that isn't a fundamental culture shift. If there's a fundamental culture shift, there's an eas…

This is Nirvana/Perfect Solution fallacy. That's like saying limiting smoking to 18 y/o was futile because teenagers could always have some other adult buy them cigs, or use fake IDs. Ridiculous take.

I'm saying that, in today's culture, age-gating the internet is likely to be much less effective than age-gating alcohol or tobacco. Most kids spend an appalling amount of time on social media (think, 5 hours/day*); most kids didn't spend this much time or invest this much of their lives into drugs.

* according to this survey from over 2 years ago: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/teen-social-use-mental-h...

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#264

Post by alt227 »

zobzu wrote: post #86
sidewndr46 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unless your kid never goes to public school that isn't true

or goes outside at all. free wifi is everywhere

Free wifi generally is everywhere, however it is often heavily filtered and firewalled to stop being doing things the internet owner wouldnt approve of.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#265

Post by swolios »

illumanaughty wrote: post #48
bondarchuk wrote: post #34

It's kind of weird to me how every article on this topic here has people rushing to comment within a couple minutes with some generic "yes I too support ID checks for internet use!". Has the vibe really shifted so much among tech-literate people?

There's a high chance the government is attempting to influence public opinion by using botted comments, which is easier than ever to pull off.

Seems like these articles and the subsequent top replies saying

"use a token from the device so the ID never leaves, this is way better right!"

This is the true objective. They actually want DEVICE based ID.

I want LESS things that are tied to me financially and legally to be stolen when(not if) these services and my device are compromised.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#266

Post by barbazoo »

varenc wrote: post #166
agentultra wrote: post #101

There are alternatives to ID verification if the goal is protecting children. You could, for example, make it illegal to target children with targeted advertising campaigns and addictive content. Then throw the executives who authorized such programs in jail. Punish the people causing the harm.

If targeting children with advertising got corporate execs thrown in jail, wouldn't the companies just roll out age verification for users like they do now? How would this rule change their behavior? They have to know who the children are to not target them. Stronger punishment creates more of an incentive to age verify. Which is basically why it's happening now.

At least then it wouldn't be the government requiring it, is what people may think I imagine.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#267

Post by ibejoeb »

cjs_ac wrote: post #116
giancarlostoro wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't support ID for internet use, only for adult content specifically. There's things on Discord that would shock you to your core if you saw some of it, I don't think children should be blindly exposed to any of it. Specifically porn. Tumblr almost got kicked out of the app store over porn, they went the route of banning it and killing what to me felt like a dying social media platform as things stood. Do you thi…

The difference is that at the strip club, you show your ID to the bouncer, who makes sure its valid and that the photo matches your face, and then forgets all about it. Online, that data is stored forever. The principle of online ID checks is completely sound; the implementation is not.

That's pretty much over, too. PatronScan and others collect and share data as a first-class feature, e.g., to broadly 86 people.

https://www.sacbee.com/food-drink/article231580393.html

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#268

Post by Aurornis »

armchairhacker wrote: post #55

Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account. If that's criminalized (like alcohol), it will happen too often to prosecute (much more frequently than alcohol, which is rarely prosecuted anyways). I don't see a solution that isn't a fundamental culture shift. If there's a fundamental culture shift, there's an eas…

> Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account

More simply: If ID checks are fully anonymous (as many here propose when the topic comes up) then every kid will just have their friends’ older sibling ID verify their account one afternoon. Or they’ll steal their parents’ ID when they’re not looking.

Discussions about kids and technology on HN are very weird to me these days because so many commenters have seemingly forgotten what it’s like to be a kid with technology. Before this current wave of ID check discussions it was common to proudly share stories of evading content controls or restrictions as a kid. Yet once the ID check topic comes up we’re supposed to imagine kids will just give up and go with the law? Yeah right.

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#269

Post by aleph_minus_one »

hawk_ wrote: post #223
armchairhacker wrote: post #55

Age verification is very hard, because parents will give their children their unlocked account, and children will steal their parents' unlocked account. If that's criminalized (like alcohol), it will happen too often to prosecute (much more frequently than alcohol, which is rarely prosecuted anyways). I don't see a solution that isn't a fundamental culture shift. If there's a fundamental culture shift, there's an eas…

> If there's a fundamental culture shift, You mean this culture shift is needed for the masses but I don't think that's the case. In my widest social circle I am not aware of anyone giving alcohol to young kids (yes by the time they are 16ish yes but even that's rare). Most guardians would willingly do similar with locked devices. The real problem is that the governments/companies won't get to spy on you if locked de…

> Most guardians would willingly do similar with locked devices.

Considering the echo chamber in which I was at school, my friends would have simply used some Raspberry Pi (or a similar device) to circumvent any restriction the parents imposed on the "normal" devices.

Oh yes: in my generation pupils

- were very knowledgeable in technology (much more than their parents and teachers) - at least the nerds who were actually interested in computers (if they hadn't been knowledgeable, they wouldn't have been capable of running DOS games),

- had a lot of time (no internet means lots of time and being very bored),

- were willing to invest this time into finding ways to circumvent technological restrictions imposed upon them (e.g. in the school network).

Re: The Age Verification Trap: Verifying age undermines everyone's data protection

#270

Post by lenerdenator »

JohnMakin wrote: post #261

We'll try everything, it seems, other than holding parents accountable for what their children consume. In the United States, you can get in trouble if you recklessly leave around or provide alcohol/guns/cigarettes for a minor to start using, yet somehow, the same social responsibility seems thrown out the window for parents and the web. Yes, children are clever - I was one once. If you want to actually protect child…

The thing is, what are the parents to do beyond restricting things? You find out some creep has been talking to Junior; do you talk to your local police department, state agency, or to the feds?

We've never properly acted upon reports of predators grooming children by investigating them, charging them, holding trials, and handing down sentences on any sort of large scale. There's a patchwork of LEOs that have to handle things and they have to do it right. Once the packets are sent over state lines, we have to involve the feds, and that's another layer.

Previously, I would have said it's up to platforms like Discord to organize internal resources to make sure that the proper authorities received reports, because it felt like there were instances of people being reported and nothing happening on the platform's side. Now, given recent developments, I'm not sure we can count upon authorities to actually do the job.

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