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

mullvad.net

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

#101

Post by idle_zealot »

nodrog3000 wrote: post #95
Gigachad wrote: post #94

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?

It's the State's responsibility once something affects enough people. That's why a law like this makes sense but should exempt OSes under some number of users. It's not great that we have such a harsh divide between "do whatever you want so long as not too many people are bothered" and "alright now the people have spoken and it's a State/national law," but it's the system we have and better than the people only getting a say with their wallets.

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

#102

Post by idle_zealot »

j45 wrote: post #97
Gigachad wrote: post #94

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.

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

I think the part that's the issue is the one where they mandate age verification. They're going to try that either way, the worst thing this could do is get people accustomed to the idea, but in practice the operating system they use already asked their age.

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

#103

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

asjgGa6 wrote: 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.

>Maybe we need an alternative set of root servers for a free Internet.

Can't even do that. We'd need (ultra?) stable IP addresses, and the entities in charge of those don't hand them out anymore. We've sort of been cut out of the basic infrastructure to let us build stuff a second time.

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

#104

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #66

[flagged]

This won't down the bot population. There are hundreds of millions of people in poverty who have this digital identity issued by their government that is mostly worthless to them. They'll sell it for $50, and there will be a bot running around with their name.

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

#105

Post by jpc0 »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #80
IAmGraydon wrote: post #65

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 relationship was established decades ago and they accept money and direct deposit still with no KYC.

Having just gone through the annual KYC checks required by my bank/s I don't think this opinion stands universally.

Can also confirm to open an account I need to provide a live selfie and verifiable government ID.

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

#106

Post by ares623 »

If (big if) governments really wanted to help parents and children in any meaningful way, they would ban the actual hardware used to give constant access to these platforms.

The ability to seamlessly record, upload, comment, react on _everything_, _everwhere_, _all the time_ is not natural, and not necessary.

Let them keep the devices, whatever, but remove the internet access.

Or keep the internet access, but remove the display/audio/camera.

It's more enforceable in public than trying to enforce whatever age verification solution they come up with.

And it gives parents the ability to appeal to authority when they ask their children, and the parents of their child's friends, to stop giving kids access to such devices. Right now a lone parent trying to push for better/healthier online activity to their friend group looks like a crazy person.

But of course we know they aren't really interested in helping parents and children. They want the surveillance capabilities.

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

#107

Post by nocman »

Gigachad wrote: post #96
nodrog3000 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I don't think it is overreach since its fairly simple to implement and non obtrusive

Those two things have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Something being easy to implement is completely unrelated to whether forcing its implementation is overreach.

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

#108

Post by drivebyhooting »

ethmarks wrote: post #89
drivebyhooting wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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! Unauthorized deposits aren't nearly as much of a concern as unauthorized withdrawals, right? I'd imagine that there are far fewer malicious actors that try to deposit money into random bank accounts than there are ones that try to withdraw money from random bank accounts. > And there’s no option…

It used to be that you could expect to not have your likeness captured and transmitted to third parties for their AI model training and who knows what other nefarious purposes.

It seems like all expectation of privacy and anonymity evaporated in the last 5 years.

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

#109

Post by bryan_w »

nodrog3000 wrote: post #95
Gigachad wrote: post #94

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?

The state requires things sold to meet a bare minimum of safety. Cars sold require seat belts, movies/games sold require ratings. Devices sold have a meaningful parental controls flow.

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

#110

Post by gvkhna »

Interesting that no one is talking about identity verification likely coming anyway. I’m working on clawchrome.com, a real browser for agents. It can access any website because it’s the real browser.

I sure hope agents don’t swarm social media. But at the same time I think identity verification companies have a tougher problem, ai can produce real looking videos and documents. There’s probably no real way to verify someone purely through the internet at this point.

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