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Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

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Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#81

Post by trashb »

> system akin to film classification age ratings

I am pretty sure that most parents let their kids watch movies that are rated for a higher age group then their current age.

For example a lot of marvel movies, harry potter or pirates of the caribbean are usually in this category.

My conclusion the parents are not lazy they care to be breaking the age restriction. A lot of parents even go out of their way or get aggressive to make sure they can age rated movies to their kids as they think the age ratings are bullshit.

I would suspect age verification to have similar effects in practice, and there is the additional hurtful factors as well leading to a net negative. Not just for minors but also for adults that now have to deal with this crap.

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#82

Post by looperhacks »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #49

"Think of the children!" - Say the 40-year-old millennials who were exposed to the Wild West of internet content as children and are still fine. "We can't censor the internet on their devices!" - There's a $2.5B market in parental censorship software. You can censor their devices. "Our child will become a pariah without the internet!" - In what way, exactly? They still go to school, still play sports, still go to che…

Before I respond, I want to point out that I'm against age verification as well.

> "Think of the children!" - Say the 40-year-old millennials who were exposed to the Wild West of internet content as children and are still fine.

While I'm not 40 yet: I was exposed to "the Wild West" and I was certainly not fine. And even then, I'd argue that today's social media is even more damaging for the psyche than everything I was exposed to.

> "Our child will become a pariah without the internet!" - In what way, exactly? They still go to school, still play sports, still go to chess club/band/theater/etc, still ride bikes around the neighborhood, still hang out at friends' houses, etc. All the kids will not hate them because their parents refused to give them a smartphone. (How do I know? I know a kid who grew up without one. Has plenty of friends.)

Not all communities are like this, but I have certainly seen it:

- They still go to school: Sure, but they will miss out on class group chats that, depending on the school, might be important. Or, even worse, will miss information from teachers. - still play sports/go to chess clubs/etc: Sure, unless all club communication happens over chat apps/social media and is required to join. - All the kids will not hate them because their parents refused to give them a smartphone: Maybe not. Maybe they will be because they are the odd one out (How do I know? I was the kid who grew up without the back-then equivalent)

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#83

Post by triceratops »

twiclo wrote: post #60
monooso wrote: post #56

Disclaimer: not a parent, as will soon become apparent. Several people have made the argument that individual parents can't simply cut their children off from social media, as said offspring may be ostracised (or simply look at their friends' phones, assuming they still have any). That argument makes sense to me, to an extent. What I don't quite understand is the conclusion that this leaves parents with only two (equ…

Parents will get their kids phones worrying that they're missing out. The more parents do that the more the kids without phones are actually being left out. If the government puts restriction on these things than parents are much less likely to worry. I've heard of parents of children for a certain grade getting together and all signing a pact that the kids won't have phones until a certain point, say 16. It only goe…

What about a "no social media accounts" pact?

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#84

Post by jmyeet »

trumpdong wrote: post #74
jmyeet wrote: post #39

I believe we could solve a lot of these problems by making it illegal to advertise to minors. I'm reminded of the settlement with Facebook where it was illegally allowing racial targeting in ads for housing, which is illegal [1]. If platforms were suddenly liable for allowing or failing to stop the targeting of minors, they'd suddenly have a lot of incentive to figure this out. The beauty of this is that they already…

How would you know if someone was a minor? Facebook knows even if you don't tell them, but I don't. Would it be combined with the California-style OS age header?

Google, as one example, uses a bunch of information including profile information and behavioural data in sophiticated ML to imply demographics [1]. This is what I mean when I said they already do it.

The suggestion I'm talking about doesn't "solve" the adult content issue. It's more targeted at social media, which I think is the bigger problem. If it's illegal to show minors ads and advertisers can't target minors then you've just removed the economic incentives.

Youtube tends to be included in age verification legislation. Personally, I would be happy if you simply limited advertising and (IMHO) you dind't show commetns.

Roblox I think is on the right path here, at least in theory. Roblox segments users such that you can only interact with people one segment above or below you. The issue with social media (again, IMHO) is in big part that minors can interact with adults and vice versa. Really you want more of a sandbox so people can't prety on children.

[1]: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2580383?hl=en

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#85

Post by brigandish »

jraby3 wrote: post #63
knome wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a parent. Be the bad guy if you feel it's right. Wanting the government to levy a society-wide information tracking system because you don't want your child to be upset at you is incredibly selfish.

Your response is incredibly ignorant. You force your kid to be excluded if they don't have a phone. They're disconnected from friends, group chat, and common experiences. You don't have a problem with age verification for drivers license, or buying a gun, or buying alcohol. Why is social media so different?

> Why is social media so different?

Because of what that ban entails that the others don't.

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#86

Post by fc417fc802 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #31
fc417fc802 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the browsers would need to reject the sites unconditionally since no one is going to enable parental controls if it breaks everything. Otherwise I expect the current situation of parental controls not working and thus everyone avoiding them and complaining would continue. Recall that this is exactly what happened with TLS. When browsers started gating all new features behind TLS being active suddenly all the main…

Sounds good to me. Why didn't Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and the porn industry do this 15 years ago? Why did they pretend to have no responsibility for the content they were publishing? Why did they think clicking "Yes" on an "I am 18 years of age" popup was sufficient?

TBF porn is the only thing I can recall people really getting up in arms about previously and the major sites for that have been sending the RTA header since forever. Otherwise I think the "I am 18 years of age" fig leaf was just a nod to the law in a world where none of the legislatures had bothered to formalize compliance requirements. Really the internet of 20 let alone 30 years ago was just such a different place. I don't recall any gacha games (let alone targeted at children) or opaque recommendation algorithms that would push extremist content.

Keep in mind that for a long time online retailers in the US weren't even collecting sales tax properly and then for a while there was disagreement about which state the sales tax should go to. It seems like a computer and the network enter the mix and suddenly the IQ of everyone involved mysteriously drops to room temperature.

My impression is that the latest push involves parents wanting to do "something" but not being sure what that "something" ought to be. The legislators in turn are either in league with lobbyists who have a vested interest in online ID for one reason or another or alternatively they merely feel similarly to the parents that "something" ought to be done but they don't really have any good options. It's unfortunate but I don't think it's realistic to expect legislators to go out and have a usable web standard drawn up when one doesn't already exist.

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#88

Post by shevy-java »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #27

"with nine out of 10 parents saying they are in favour of a ban in response to a government consultation" I wonder why those 90% of parents don't cut their children off from social media right now. They have the power to do it.

Most parents probably don't think, and just say an automatic yes when it comes to governmental restrictions. I am not sure why that is so - they are probably happy with their assumptions about how the world works, so they are fine with governments being restrictive in general.

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#89

Post by delusional »

tombot wrote: post #53
akramachamarei wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumbphones are still a thing

I really don’t know why there isn’t a brand that’s capitalising on this. Messaging, calls, maps, notes but no way to take or view images. Marketed simply from a global brand.

Because of the ostracization problem. Kids are ruthless, and failure to conform is swiftly punished.

Re: Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

#90

Post by delusional »

szszrk wrote: post #43
bluGill wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really because nearly every adult has a phone with unlimited calling, and will allow you to make a call from their phone. I don't want my kids to be someplace where there are not some responsible adults around (drunk adults are not responsible) Note that I agree with your point overall. My kids have phones for times when they are away and might need to contact me. I'm just saying it isn't as bad as it sounds.

> Not really because nearly every adult has a phone with unlimited calling, and will allow you to make a call from their phone. that's not even true for adults. Why would you assume it's true for kids?

Which part is untrue?
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