Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want age verification but not at the OS level.
> I want age verification Why?
Because it's absurd to allow children to simply click "I am 18." Nowhere else works like this.
Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability Why not? Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. As far as I know, strip clubs are liable for who enters. Selling alcohol to a child carries personal criminal liability for store clerks. Assuming society decides to restrict something from children, why should online businesses be exempt? On who…
> Why not? This implies the creation of an infrastructure for the total surveillance of citizens, unlike age verification by physical businesses.
Spell it out: how do ID checks for specific services (where the laws I've read all require no records be retained with generally steep penalties) create an infrastructure for total surveillance? Can't sites just not keep records like they do in person and like the law mandates? Can't in-person businesses keep records and share that with whomever you're worried about?
How do you reconcile porn sites as a line in the sand with things like banking or online real estate transactions or applying for an apartment already performing ID checks? The verification infrastructure is already in place. It's mundane. In fact the apartment one is probably more offensive because they'll likely make you do their online thing even if you could just walk in and show ID.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#163Age verification is merely the background task to set up infrastructure for OS to provide many many other signals about who's using the device.
Age signals from the OS? Need to provide a channel of information available to applications. Applications already talk to servers with unchecked commonality.
Biometric data? Today it unlocks your private key. Tomorrow it's used to verify you are the same person that was used during sign-up -- the same that was "age-verified".
Next year, the application needs to "double-check" your identity. That missile that's coming to you? Definitely not AI-controlled, definitely not coming to destroy the "verified" person who posted a threatening comment about the AI system's god complex. Nope, it's coming to deliver freedom verification.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#164I 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…
Death certificates are public records (at least in the UK) so why shouldn't you be able to get one? I think the alternative, where people's deaths could be kept secret by the state is a far greater risk than the privacy rights of the dead (GDPR type laws generally apply to the living).
I don't know about elsewhere but in the UK anyone can apply for any death certificate going back to 1837.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option. There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws a…
> App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability Why not? Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. As far as I know, strip clubs are liable for who enters. Selling alcohol to a child carries personal criminal liability for store clerks. Assuming society decides to restrict something from children, why should online businesses be exempt? On who…
For one thing, it's fairly uncommon for children to purchase operating systems. As long as there is one major operating system with age verification, parents (or teachers) who want software restrictions on their children can simply provide that one. The existence of operating systems without age verification does not actually create a problem as long as the parents are at least somewhat aware of what is installed at device level on their child's computer, which is an awful lot easier than policing every single webpage the kid visits.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> App and website developers shouldn't be burdened with extra costly liability Why not? Physical businesses have liability if they provide age restricted items to children. As far as I know, strip clubs are liable for who enters. Selling alcohol to a child carries personal criminal liability for store clerks. Assuming society decides to restrict something from children, why should online businesses be exempt? On who…
> Physical businesses Physical businesses nominally aren't selling their items to people across state or country borders. Of course, we threw that out when we decided people could buy things online. How'd that tax loophole turn out?
But when they do, federal law requires age verification (at least with e.g. alcohol).
It turned out we pretty much closed the tax loophole. I don't remember an online purchase with no sales tax since the mid 00s.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll go further. As a human being, I am responsible for myself. I grew up in an extremely abusive, impoverished, cult-like religious home where anything not approved by White Jesus was disallowed. I owe everything about who I am today to learning how to circumvent firewalls and other forms of restriction. I would almost certainly be dead if I hadn't learned to socialize and program on the web despite it being strictl…
This is obviously where it's going to go, at least in the US. Things that are non-religious, non-Christian especially, pro-LGBT, and similar will be disproportionately pulled under "adult content" to ensure that children are not able to be exposed to unapproved ideas during formative years.
Exactly. Having lived through it already, I know what it did to me and I would never wish that upon another child. The internet saved me from being a religious, colonial, racist piece of shit like the rest of my family.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#168I 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.
"how terrible EU regulation is"
Judges in other countries (Texas) found out this kind of law was a violation of the Free Speech.
Since when Free Speech do not apply to -16y old?
Made laws are made, then killed by courts later one.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Countercounterpoint: It's privacy destruction creep and it always has been.
Countercountercounterpoint: did you actually read the California age "verification" law?
Countercountercountercounterpoint: Yes and like every other age verification scheme in the US the underlying idea is privacy erosion. With a side serving of censorship given most dev's can't be bothered to implement these age verification schemes into their software so users might just end up gated out of applications if their OS goes through with this nonsense.
Other states are even worse, creating another way to have your buddy buddy lobbyist folks fire up a new business opportunity to make money as a verification service.
Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act
#170[deleted]