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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?

#231

Post by armchairhacker »

Hugsbox wrote: post #206
armchairhacker wrote: post #146

Age verification is fine , at least in theory. It’s the implementations that are bad. More and more people agree that kids shouldn’t be on modern social media, including me. But most people also agree that mass surveillance is dangerous. The solution is to propose ways to block kids from modern social media (that actually works) without mass surveillance. Better parental controls, more parental education, and site-sp…

I don't believe children should be on social media. Some other people might not share that belief. Should be up to parents to decide what's okay for their kids, not governments or companies. Age verification will always lead to more surveillance. People need to just be more mindful of what their children are doing online, maybe stop giving them smartphones, and just be parents .

I don’t think social media is intrinsically bad, just the toxic popular social medias. Did kids in the 1990s with access to internet forums have stunted social development?

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

#232

Post by roenxi »

palata wrote: post #227
roenxi wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What political philosophies do you think lay claim to these age verification laws? There are a couple that aren't against it, but to actually implement age controls in the way they are being bought in you basically need to be an authoritarian. Otherwise, you'd be persuaded by arguments like Mullvad's that the social media companies already know how old their users are and don't need a centralised authority to tell th…

> but to actually implement age controls in the way they are being bought in you basically need to be an authoritarian I don't see how this sentence can make any sense at all in the context of ZKPs. Can you elaborate? > you'd be persuaded by arguments like Mullvad's that the social media companies already know how old their users are and don't need a centralised authority to tell them How do the social media companie…

> I don't see how this sentence can make any sense at all in the context of ZKPs. Can you elaborate?

The reason people are getting called authoritarian is because ZKP proofs are a massive and obvious improvement on what is actually being implemented. Can you point to anywhere that has implemented ZKPs? The linked article suggests that is quite hard to do.

I wouldn't be using an American IP right know if my local age verification laws required ZKPs.

> How do the social media companies already know?

They ask you your age when people sign up. That's good enough for me - I'm not an authoritarian. I'm not out to create a watertight way to stop people communicating if they want to.

> You would have to explain that. The government provides a service that allows you to prove that you are old enough without the government learning anything from you and without the service learning anything other than the fact that you are old enough, and you call that "objectively authoritarianism"?

I haven't seen anyone complaining about that. Sounds like a non-issue. Why would anyone over the age of around 18 care? You should consider reading the linked article if you don't understand what the complaints people are making are. The reason you don't see any authoritarianism is you haven't actually looked at how the schemes are being implemented.

Mullvad isn't writing this blog post because of the huge numbers of 12-16 year olds shelling out cash to them. It is because the authoritarians are making a play to destroy a sizeable chunk of the open web with a likely follow up of cracking down on free speech.

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

#233

Post by falsepositive44 »

gvkhna wrote: post #192
falsepositive44 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really connect the dots here. If you hope agents don't swarm social media, why are your working on a real browser for agents?

There are many usecases for agents having access to a real browser and many usecases for humans where work wise it's useful or for agent success in completing the task. Including any specific situations where sites may block "controlled" browsers, as well as co-working. If an agent is controlling your own browser, it can get in the way of you being able to do work as well. Additional security control, if you have con…

So, if I as a website author would like to block the LLMs scarping my content or putting extra load and cost on my infrastructure, your project helps the actors who don't respect my decision and don't give a shit about consent to circumvent that?

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

#234

Post by j1elo »

palata wrote: post #183
falkensmaize wrote: post #31

One very simple way to give parents control over what their children see and participate in without violating everyone else’s privacy is to create adult and social TLDs and require these sites to migrate to them. So instagram.com becomes instagram.social, etc. Then mandate that all consumer network equipment mfrs and internet providers provide easily accessible ways to block these TLDs. Maybe combine that with some p…

What this misses is that many parents do allow their children to access social media because kids need to conform . If all the other kids have social media access, your kid is excluded by not having access. Is it better to have TikTok AND friends, or no TikTok and no friends? Sure, the best is no TikTok and still have friends, but you can't always have it all.

At last the best option is to have the cake but not eat it too!

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

#235

Post by Bender »

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.

I would suggest that we should not conflate the internet with these corportate platforms. The internet still works fine for now. I can still stand up my own DoH resolvers, forums, chat servers, email servers, DNS servers, vpn servers, etc... Many social circles are bound to have a tech-nerd one or two layers removed. That used to be a pejorative.

The hardest part is the psychology. People think they have to be on the big platforms as that is where their friends and favorite streamers are. Willpower can bring back the old platforms onto the current fast internet. Critical and free thinking people can choose to ignore the big platforms if they wish. People can go to local stores to buy most things. There are arguments for and against all these points but I am choosing the aforementioned options and accepting the psychological challenges.

People can use old style self hosted platforms as a "fallback" and once people realize it is more private and they can speak freely amongst their friends it can get comfy real fast. Glowies are seething.

Some friends and I have private forums and chat servers. We talk shite all the time about Reddit threads yet none of us have Reddit accounts. We talk about HN threads, brain rot on Twitster and many other platforms free of censorship, free of voting brigades, people trying to force narratives, etc... Oh and most important, free of "AI".

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

#236

Post by wffurr »

Animats wrote: post #5

So, to post something in 2027: - You have to have an approved browser. - It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account. - You have to have an account on the posting platform. - You have to get past moderation on the posting platform. That's without age verification.

So don't post on Facebook or whatever. It's a waste of time anyway. Why would I want to add more garbage to the dumpster fire?

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

#238

Post by jchw »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #211
jchw wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never had to get my ID checked to be able to talk to strangers.

Did you to talk to the strangers in the night club when you were 11? Or were there several completely separate reasons for why you couldn't?

The internet has explicitly R-18 chats. Random IRC channels are not nightclubs. I am moving the goal posts back, if you touch them again we're escorting you off of the field.

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

#239

Post by tardedmeme »

thenthenthen wrote: post #196
Animats wrote: post #5

So, to post something in 2027: - You have to have an approved browser. - It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account. - You have to have an account on the posting platform. - You have to get past moderation on the posting platform. That's without age verification.

This was 2018 China. Oh jeah add id verification to that as well.

Fun fact: America invented the social credit score, long before China, and they still have it. The only difference, is the lack of the word "social" in the system's name, but it's the same system.

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

#240

Post by tardedmeme »

Animats wrote: post #116
throwawayk7h wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is remote attestation possible in a web browser already?

Mobile, yes. Not sure about desktop.

That's Google's new captcha design - they want you to scan a code on your phone to reuse your mobile's attestation on your desktop.
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