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The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

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Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#291

Post by AlienRobot »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #285
antonvs wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but in practice, the vast majority of advertising-funded sites use targeted advertising, because they use standard ad networks. There are very few ads networks that don’t do targeted ads.

Right but if we could kill that business model by making platforms chose between age verification and non-targeted ads, that would be a win right? That's not so say I'm in favor of age verification, just pointing out the silver lining.

Yeah, but you could also kill that business model without any legislation by simply... not visiting those websites.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#292

Post by pdonis »

AlienRobot wrote: post #289
pdonis wrote: post #246

Would this website (HN) be a "covered platform" according to the bill? As far as I can tell, the answer is no, because it doesn't do what's described in Section 201 (E): "Uses the personal information of the user to advertise, market, or make content recommendations." Neither does, for example, my bank's website, or someone's personal blog, or many other discussion sites like this one. So from what I can see, while t…

You need to be more realist. "Uses the personal information of the user to advertise" Is 99.9% of all websites. So long as websites don't sell things, they will be having ads. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Imgur, TikTok, Twitch, Youtube, etc. I think even Steam and other game platforms would fall into this category despite the fact they make money selling products. Naturally s…

> Is 99.9% of all websites.

Not at all. You named eleven. Even if I'm generous and raise that by a couple of orders of magnitude, it's still a miniscule fraction of all websites.

Of course it's close to all big tech platforms, but that's not the same thing. And if one of the results of this whole kerfluffle is to make more people realize that the big tech platforms are not the same as "the Internet" or "the Web", that would be a good thing.

> Websites like HN are the exception, not the norm.

Which makes it even more important to ask the question of whether "exception" websites like this one can continue to survive if this bill becomes law. Sure, HN users are a tiny fraction of all Internet users. But that's supposed to be one of the things the Internet is for--to give even very small communities a place where they can be a community, and not have to worry about all the other crap that's out there, and not have to be micromanaged by politicians and lobbyists and tech giants.

> It's also disingenuous to say "a personal blog" would be exempt from this when most people don't have blogs in first place since they start microblogging instead

Not all blogging platforms use targeted ads. And if this gives more of them an incentive not to, that would be a good thing.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#293

Post by tbugrara »

microgpt wrote: post #76
stephen_g wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a TikTok fan by any means but that really does feels to me like bordering on delusion…

Why?

Because willingly throwing away your safety from the government and the oligarchs for a tale as old as time, "think of the kids", is irrational to say the least.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#294

Post by HDBaseT »

nonethewiser wrote: post #277
qball wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Young people are barely living Yeah, I wonder what caused that? The most freedom they actually get is on the Internet, that's why they all hang out there.

Overprotected in the real world, underprotected online.

Kids need private spaces. If we overprotect them in the real world, and overprotect them in the digital world children will fail to explore all sorts of things.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#295

Post by HDBaseT »

bArray wrote: post #225

Anybody else think it is weird that suddenly all Western countries suddenly want to lockdown the internet to "protect the children"? There is surely an international special interest group lobbying for this?

Oh jeez, I wonder who on Earth could be behind this mass push for surveillance?

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#296

Post by ghastmaster »

bArray wrote: post #225

Anybody else think it is weird that suddenly all Western countries suddenly want to lockdown the internet to "protect the children"? There is surely an international special interest group lobbying for this?

Politics works that way sometimes. It could be a fad. It could be the culmination of years of the intelligentsia, political, and corporate benefactors finding this to be the right time to move forward.

There has been a lot of propaganda since the mid teens targeting the social and psychological impacts of social media. It is certainly plausible that some group or the aforementioned entities had a big part of this. Regulatory capture is a real thing that makes companies or breaks companies.

This is not the first time media consumption has been labeled and targeted in a negative way and it will not be the last. We as a society have to adapt to changing landscapes.

We shouldn't burn books. We shouldn't ban dungeons and dragons. Video games do not make people in general homicidal. History is repeating itself.

Anecdotally, I have not ran into a single person who has suggested we need to age-gate social media. It is on the politicians mind, but not the lay-person, as far as I can tell.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#298

Post by askvictor »

michaelt wrote: post #197
jschveibinz wrote: post #182

I just listened to a radio program on my local NPR station about the topic of kids and social media. From what was presented, the research shows (longitudinal study) that there is very little evidence of social media impacting mental health--which is shocking because a majority of adults think there is a connection and the politicians are pushing that narrative. I have not personally vetted the research. Has anyone e…

There's quite a lot of statistics saying currently teens struggle with mental health even more than is historically normal for teenagers. [1, 2] Young people are also spending less time with friends, drinking less, and having less sex than ever before. Obviously it's difficult to pin a 20-year trend on a single cause. But most parents have the sense their teens spend too much time on their phones; and with social med…

> But most parents have the sense their teens spend too much time on their phones

I've been pondering recently how much time parents are spending on phones, that, 20 years ago they might have otherwise spent engaging with their kids.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#299

Post by kelseyfrog »

Parents won't parent without a change in incentives.

That's why giving children access to social media must be punished to the same degree as giving children heroin. If it's a parent's responsibility, it must be made a parent's liability. Anything without the full threat of the government's monopoly on violence is just a pretty slogan. We should see access to social media as the neglect that it is.

Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online

#300

Post by petre »

a34729t wrote: post #268
jschveibinz wrote: post #182

I just listened to a radio program on my local NPR station about the topic of kids and social media. From what was presented, the research shows (longitudinal study) that there is very little evidence of social media impacting mental health--which is shocking because a majority of adults think there is a connection and the politicians are pushing that narrative. I have not personally vetted the research. Has anyone e…

Hmmmm that's odd, because everybody I know who has worked (or works) at a major social network (or two or three), including me, thinks it is horrible for mental health of everybody involved. I'd be very curious what kind of "research" NPR is talking about, and who funded it, because it flies in the face of what all of us at these companies have seen.

The tobacco company lobbyists probably applied their whitewashing know how to social media after being done with industrialized foods. They're also likely on Meta's payroll now.

Age checks are part if that. They will just feed the sureveillance capitalism machine and make the problem even worse.

Age checked social media is just like the parlor walls in Fahrenheit 451 and infuencers are Mildred Montag. Just another thing to keep people distracted and neutered.

I remember I used to hang out on IRC during my teens with all kinds of people: jewish lesbians from conservative families and other teens from Scandinavia who got drafted on somewhat right wing warez groups, middle aged goth rockers on music sharing channels. Quite an experience for someone who grew up in a post communist country to interact with so colorful and genuinely interesting people. In contrast to that social media is an entirely fake experience generated with bots, algorithms and AI, just like a techno feudal version of the communist propaganda riddled lalaland that I grew up in. Many a DPRK on steroids, except it herds people into getting enraged and engaged with brands in order to hopelessly buy useless junk instead of submitting to a dear supreme leader. Of course it gets people addicted, because it was designed with that in mind.

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