41–50 of 175 posts
About 2 million adults in the UK don't have government-issued photo ID. Certainly many 16-17 year olds will have trouble verifying their age. They're blocking huge sectors of the UK population from being able to use the internet normally.
Really they should just torch the lot.
About 2 million adults in the UK don't have government-issued photo ID. Certainly many 16-17 year olds will have trouble verifying their age. They're blocking huge sectors of the UK population from being able to use the internet normally.
This article addresses the technological flaws in age verification, then says “but even if there were, broad restrictions on social media will inevitably limit access to lawful speech, and valuable online communities, and arts and culture.”
If the EFF care about freedom above all else (a reasonable position) muddying the waters with half-baked age verification isn’t perfect arguments is just sloppy.
Why does the freedom matter above all else? That’s what voters need to be convinced of.
If governments want to set up online age gates, they should be responsible for providing an electronic ID system and enable privacy preserving age verification (zero knowledge proofs)
The reason all of these improvised ID check systems require you to do things like submit a video of you moving your face around (which has its own problems) is because they want to get closer to proving that the ID you submit is actually the ID of the person holding the phone, not just some ID (or zero knowledge proof) you copied from the internet.
There's no defending social media, not for adults, not for kids, ever. It's a toxic trap which will do absolutely nothing good for and to its users. Keep the kids away from it, doesn't take an Einstein reincarnate to realize that.
Sure, is HN social media?
Am I right in thinking that the EFF doesn't launch any legal campaigns inside the UK (but they offer support to those who do) Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US.
The technical incoherence doesn’t matter. What matters is being able to say “you can’t use Snapchat” and then they say “my friend xxx uses it” you can say “xxx’s parent are delinquent”
This isn’t about blocking as much as setting societal expectations.
The whole idea of this is broken, since so much of our collective knowledge is locked away in YouTube/Reddit. It's making a law against children in libraries because there are adult books in it.
There is nothing stopping people reposting stuff on platforms without social media elements and with proper curation and publisher responsibilities.
Most big YouTubers would love this to happen I’m sure.
Am I right in thinking that the EFF doesn't launch any legal campaigns inside the UK (but they offer support to those who do) Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US.
It’s overwhelmingly supported action. The technical incoherence doesn’t matter. What matters is being able to say “you can’t use Snapchat” and then they say “my friend xxx uses it” you can say “xxx’s parent are delinquent” This isn’t about blocking as much as setting societal expectations.
If governments want to set up online age gates, they should be responsible for providing an electronic ID system and enable privacy preserving age verification (zero knowledge proofs)