Live data from Hacker News

Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

mullvad.net

91–100 of 561 posts

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#91
post #21

There isn't much left of the free Internet anyway. Search engines no longer work, all discussion forums are ranked/censored by interest groups, mail delivery is between large entities. Maybe we need an alternative set of root servers for a free Internet.

Outbound mail gets harder every year as opaque reputation systems flag mailer daemons as false spam positives.

Inbound mail on the other hand — notably, the OG form of Internet identification — is very achievable for a stick in the mud to set up.

Losing one’s Gmail account would likely have very little impact on one’s ability to send mail, but no longer being able to receive mail at a given address can be devastating. Set up your own domain!

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#92
post #2

Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification. I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if…

Do you believe people should be able to traverse the internet anonymously?

Why should you be able to traverse the internet anonymously? You cannot traverse real life society with the same expectations. Majority of the people traversing anonymously are doing so because they are routine troublemakers and do not want to bare consequences for their malicious actions. The ones fighting for this complete anonymity but not doing crime are naively just sweeping for bad actors.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#93
The article says that California "will require identity verification at the operating system level starting in January 2027", but that isn't true. The bill [0] only requires that operating systems collect age information on account setup and then provide which of four buckets the age falls into. It's not requiring any kind of identity verification by the OS. It's just a box you fill in when you set up the computer.

I think that this is actually a reasonable approach. It minimizes the information shared and doesn't create any identity tracking regime.

[0] https://media.reclaimthenet.org/docs/california-ab-1043-digi...

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#94

The article says that California "will require identity verification at the operating system level starting in January 2027", but that isn't true. The bill [0] only requires that operating systems collect age information on account setup and then provide which of four buckets the age falls into. It's not requiring any kind of identity verification by the OS. It's just a box you fill in when you set up the computer. I…

This put the power in the parents hands. They can set up their kids computer with a kids account and then all software and web services can just ask the OS if the user is an adult rather than all requiring their own ID verification.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#95

The article says that California "will require identity verification at the operating system level starting in January 2027", but that isn't true. The bill [0] only requires that operating systems collect age information on account setup and then provide which of four buckets the age falls into. It's not requiring any kind of identity verification by the OS. It's just a box you fill in when you set up the computer. I…

This put the power in the parents hands. They can set up their kids computer with a kids account and then all software and web services can just ask the OS if the user is an adult rather than all requiring their own ID verification.

Forcing all OS to do this is a bit of overreach though no?

If you want to keep your kids safe get an OS that supports it?

Why is it the state’s responsibility?

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This put the power in the parents hands. They can set up their kids computer with a kids account and then all software and web services can just ask the OS if the user is an adult rather than all requiring their own ID verification.

Forcing all OS to do this is a bit of overreach though no? If you want to keep your kids safe get an OS that supports it? Why is it the state’s responsibility?

I don't think it is overreach since its fairly simple to implement and non obtrusive. We have had multiple decades of failure from tech companies already to prove that they won't act on their own.

If you are putting individual parents up against Meta, Google, etc, the big tech companies easily win. As we have seen already.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#97

The article says that California "will require identity verification at the operating system level starting in January 2027", but that isn't true. The bill [0] only requires that operating systems collect age information on account setup and then provide which of four buckets the age falls into. It's not requiring any kind of identity verification by the OS. It's just a box you fill in when you set up the computer. I…

This put the power in the parents hands. They can set up their kids computer with a kids account and then all software and web services can just ask the OS if the user is an adult rather than all requiring their own ID verification.

The issue is it's a few incremental steps away from nto being that way and the first step is really the issue.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#98
post #61

If you deleted all your social media and AI platform accounts today you would wake up tomorrow and be no worse off.

I would call github a social media platform. So yes that would be a problem, even if my own projects are somewhere else.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This put the power in the parents hands. They can set up their kids computer with a kids account and then all software and web services can just ask the OS if the user is an adult rather than all requiring their own ID verification.

Forcing all OS to do this is a bit of overreach though no? If you want to keep your kids safe get an OS that supports it? Why is it the state’s responsibility?

Its the responsibility of legislators to reflect the legislative will of the people.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You find it to be a negative that banks require identity verification to drain an account? Personally, I would refuse to keep my money with a bank that doesn’t do this.

The relationship was established decades ago and they accept money and direct deposit still with no KYC. But to get the money out? Oh no! We need a picture of your face! And there’s no option for going in person.

The option for going in person involves a balaclava.
Post reply on HN