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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

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Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#21

Post by himata4113 »

cosmos0072 wrote: post #5
jwr wrote: post #2

I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

Yes! This is the way, give parents the ABILITY to advertise the users age to browsers, apps and everything in between. Only target cooperations, do not target open source projects. Fine websites for not using this API (ex: porn sites). Assume an adult if not present.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#22

Post by pjc50 »

axegon_ wrote: post #9
jwr wrote: post #2

I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.

Though the EU is at large keeping it's composure with this. My only criticism towards the EU as an EU citizen is how slow and bureaucratic the EU is and that decisions that should be made on the fly are dragged on forever. That said, government agencies have been doing a terrible job at keeping the private information of citizens safe. But it is nowhere nearly as bad as the US. My best childhood friend died in very q…

The critical thing is not so much "Americans" as "big money". Big Russian money is also a threat. Big Chinese money .. well, there's a bit of that about, but it doesn't seem to have shown up at the legislation influencing layer.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#23

Post by lotsofpulp »

c0balt wrote: post #20
lotsofpulp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious why Meta would benefit. Meta seems wholly unnecessary, the verification can be done at the OS level, completely in the hands of Apple/Alphabet and maybe Microsoft. If anything, Meta’s utility would seem to shrink if the OS handles proof of being a real person.

Regulatory capture through a higher barrier to entry. Any social media platform that wants to compete with Meta's portfolio will now also need to have an age-verification system in place (which is guaranteed to introduce higher costs). Meta can likely afford to eat the costs here as a tradeoff for the higher impact on smaller players. It also gives them more information on users as a bonus. Further, verification with…

I would think the barrier to entry gets lower because Apple/Alphabet handle age verification, and they let apps/websites use that verification.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#24

Post by mrob »

jwr wrote: post #2

I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.

Zero-knowledge proofs are unworkable for age verification because they can't prevent use of somebody else's credentials.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#25

Post by anymouse123456 »

Every single Linux kernel currently operating within the borders of any of these states should turn itself off and refuse to boot until an update is installed after these bills are rolled back.

We should also update all FOSS license terms to explicitly exclude Meta or any affilites from using any software licensed under them.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#26

Post by sidewndr46 »

turbinemonkey wrote: post #6

Compare this to what the EU built. The EU Digital Identity Wallet under eIDAS 2.0 is open-source, self-hostable, and uses zero-knowledge proofs. You can prove you're over 18 without revealing your birth date, your name, or anything else. No per-check fees, no proprietary SDKs, no data going to a vendor's cloud. The EU's Digital Services Act puts age verification obligations on Very Large Online Platforms (45M+ monthl…

Isn't eIDAS the same technology stack that would put the government in total control of what websites you can view & what ones you can't?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_website_authenticati...

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#27

Post by Markoff »

tasuki wrote: post #12
cosmos0072 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

> My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online As a parent, sure, that is my stance as well. What... what other stances are there even? How would they work?

ignore parent, outsource parenting to gov verification authority

TBH many parents done exactly that by giving phones/tablet already to kids in strollers

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#28

Post by choo-t »

jwr wrote: post #2

I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.

Even with ZKP this is still highly problematic, it create difficulty for undocumented people to access the web, create ton of phishing opportunity, reinforce censorship on most site (as they will now all need to be minor compliant or need age verification), reinforce the chilling effect and make the web even less crawlable/archivable (or you need to give a valid citizen ID to your crawler/archiver).

With no proof it will protect anyone from proven harm.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#29

Post by bluescrn »

Terr_ wrote: post #4

Oh look, the Heritage Foundation, the ones who wrote up the "Project 2025" agenda for most of the corruption and authoritarianism that has plagued America in the last year. The very last people you should trust when it comes to "protecting the children."

To me it feels that the age verfication (adult de-anonymisation) push, at least in Europe, is coming more from the increasingly-authoritarian left as a reaction to the rise of the online right and Musk's Twitter.

(Maybe some unspoken element of concern over social media bots, too - as they evolve from spamming copy+pasted comments to being near-indistinguisable from actual human accounts?)

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#30

Post by axegon_ »

pjc50 wrote: post #22
axegon_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though the EU is at large keeping it's composure with this. My only criticism towards the EU as an EU citizen is how slow and bureaucratic the EU is and that decisions that should be made on the fly are dragged on forever. That said, government agencies have been doing a terrible job at keeping the private information of citizens safe. But it is nowhere nearly as bad as the US. My best childhood friend died in very q…

The critical thing is not so much "Americans" as "big money". Big Russian money is also a threat. Big Chinese money .. well, there's a bit of that about, but it doesn't seem to have shown up at the legislation influencing layer.

Oh, that's a different topic: as someone from and living in eastern Europe, there's not a single doubt in my mind that the biggest threat to any civilization is russia by a long shot. The alarming part is that the current US administration hasn't got a single clue of history, suffers from chronic incompetence and the whole superiority complex and fanboying russia as a consequence - those pose a threat. In the context of the conversation, the incompetence is arguably the biggest facepalm moment.
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