What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance

>One wrinkle in your argument - If the costs could be taken from parents, that would be great, however one group of bad actors in these situations is adults. So as a class, there is some case that could conceivably be made for adults to bear that cost.

"Bad actors"? I see three separate subsets of people, different unions of which would yield possible interpretations of "bad actors":

* Adults targeting children with the intent to commit illegal acts. E.g. groomers.

* Adults targeting children with the intent to commit legal but harmful acts. E.g. adults marketing lootboxes to children.

* Adults engaging exclusively with other adults in legal interactions that would be harmful (and possibly illegal) if a child were to be involved. E.g. adults trading pornography and banning minors on sight.

(Let me emphasize that these are mere examples, not necessarily representative of their set.)

I don't think it's in dispute that all three sets currently exist on the Internet. I would not say that the third one is a bad actor, though. Yet it by itself would be argument enough to either remove children from the Internet or to cordon them off to their own exclusive corner. So if the third set was the only one that was non-null we would have a situation where there are no bad actors, yet all adults are still bearing the cost of this system.

Now let's suppose that only the first set is non-null. If there's a bunch of criminals targeting children, that seems like a police matter. Why are law-abiding citizens getting roped in? En masse, at that.

For the second set, legislate until it becomes the first set.

> I have personally had to remove NCII for teens and young adults. Grooming is a thing, self harm communities are a thing, as is sextortion.All of it at internet scale.

And even 100% effective age verification will not make a dent.

> And this ignores the parts where the platforms released features they knew from their own tests, were harmful to teens.

Those features are also harmful to adults.

> It is convenient to dismiss them, because it makes it easier to hold positions that depend on them being minor harms.

It's convenient to blow things out of proportion if it helps you implement other changes you want like mass-scale tracking.

I am terrified because the majority of discussions are not treating Problems #3 or #4 seriously.

Problem #1: Verify ages for adult-appropriate content.

Problem #2: Do not create a new surveillance system for the government.

Problem #3: Do not create a --dynamic-- per-user internet-access permissioning/control/denial system for the government. This would be madness.

Problem #4: Do not create a --general-- per-user internet-access permissioning/control/denial system for the government.

Problems #3 & 4 are very very serious. Any age-verification system, or generalized control-system, will become a pervasive requirement for a large percentage of internet sites, simply by being convenient for risk-adverse sites to adopt. Which means, this will be (not could be: will be) a pervasive government managed system of per-user internet control/denial.

We need zero knowledge proofs. Or similar. Minimum.

Form of solution:

• Any third-party institution meeting publically-defined government requirements, can be an attestor.

• Attestors provide persistent age-verification tokens per user-device, on user request/verification: Using actual identification and one-off-anonymized device identifiers.

• Sites are given one-off, device and user-identity anonymous, attestation tokens, derived from the device token, on request.*

Maximum anonymization is necessary so:

• Governments can't identify your devices.

• Sites can't identify your devices or you.

• Government and sites cannot collude to remove anonymity (via this system), enabling a new surveillance system.

Attestation tokens need to be persistent so:

• The government is not being given dynamic control of our internet use.

Age-attestation tokens, must be provided independent from any other types of attestation, so:

• We didn't just invite the government to link multiple permissioning systems together, which will inevitably be used in coordination. And so failure to supply age-attestation tokens is a clear documentatable act.

Unrestricted (other than by public standards), third-party attesters:

• So users can choose an attester they trust. So there are multiple points of attestation. So there is individual accountability, natural documentation, and reputation risk for any denial of attestation.

Anything less anonymized, independent, persistent or available than this is a nightmare situation. Really.

I am terrified because the majority of discussions are not treating Problems #3 and #4 seriously.

But don’t bring it to school and use it in class! A teacher may confiscate this under the existing system. And of course parents can pick up the confiscated device.

I agree that schools don’t provide enough challenge to students, so a student could be using the device to actually learn without an alternative, thus confiscating it would be wrong. But I think that would be rare, because I believe most schools today have Chromebooks which can access more than a lifetime’s worth of online resources in any subject, so the student can save whatever they need a thinkpad for at home. And it should be solved by giving those students Chromebooks, not letting other students use their phones during class (if a school confiscates phones but allow thinkpads I think that would also work well enough).

> Too often the adults in charge turn to Instagram or whatever social media app for the group communication. Now, unfortunately, your kid needs an IG account.

Maybe this needs to be outlawed/discouraged instead and not just for communication targeting kids but anything that someone is "required" to participate in.

Publicly funded schools should not encourage people to use private communication platforms and that includes extracurricular activities.