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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

#361

Post by kerridge0 »

kulahan wrote: post #341
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?

A lot of studies came out kinda at the same time showing how harmful it is and people aren’t coming up with alternatives. What else can you do?

I had an idea the other day that children could have some kind of jewellery that they can't remove like a curfew device. Probably impractical but at least it matches - children=limited rights and need protection. Once of age, no need, come of age, can remove.

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

#362

Post by interloxia »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #255
GeekyBear wrote: post #201

Parents already have the ability to lock down Android or iOS devices for their own children, if they choose to do so.

If we expect the behavior of parents to change we must change their incentives. Providing access to social media must be met with the same punishment as offering heroin to children. The monopoly on violence must be brought to bear on parents who neglect parental responsibilities.

That's how we end up with stolen generations of kids taken from parents.

It was bad and suggesting state violence for lack of compliance with your world view is bad.

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

#363

Post by pibaker »

kerridge0 wrote: post #361
kulahan wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of studies came out kinda at the same time showing how harmful it is and people aren’t coming up with alternatives. What else can you do?

I had an idea the other day that children could have some kind of jewellery that they can't remove like a curfew device. Probably impractical but at least it matches - children=limited rights and need protection. Once of age, no need, come of age, can remove.

The idea that the state should get to tag some subset human as undeserving of rights is not something we should let ourselves get accustomed to.

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

#364

Post by rockskon »

sph wrote: post #346
jeroenhd wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has been documented for sponsoring these bills in the USA. But we also have years of research about how social media and other internet phenomena are ruining kids' lives. I don't disagree with the principle of a lot of these laws, but many implementations are too flawed to be a mistake.

That Facebook story is an AI generated attempt at astroturf that has gone viral, but we shouldn’t probably continue perpetuating it. It is not Meta working across the globe because they’re too lazy to implement age verification. Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48708278

Meta is publicly posting ads in Europe promoting age verification, so yes Meta is a part of the problem.

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

#365

Post by isolli »

fivetenpen wrote: post #355
kulahan wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of studies came out kinda at the same time showing how harmful it is and people aren’t coming up with alternatives. What else can you do?

The internet was never a danger to children’s mental health until social media engagement algorithms. The real solution is to ban any and all engagement algorithms that are designed to get people addicted. Age checks, aka identity checks, are just another blatant attempt to siphon more personal data by linking your real identity to all of your web activity

It would benefit adults too...

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

#366

Post by CalRobert »

kerridge0 wrote: post #361
kulahan wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of studies came out kinda at the same time showing how harmful it is and people aren’t coming up with alternatives. What else can you do?

I had an idea the other day that children could have some kind of jewellery that they can't remove like a curfew device. Probably impractical but at least it matches - children=limited rights and need protection. Once of age, no need, come of age, can remove.

"Once of age, no need, come of age, can remove."

This seems very naive to me, to be honest.

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

#367

Post by djaro »

wcarss wrote: post #353
kulahan wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of studies came out kinda at the same time showing how harmful it is and people aren’t coming up with alternatives. What else can you do?

Attestation of age should suffice; no one in a building somewhere needs to verify my age. If I tell you to treat me like a minor, you do it. Operating systems and browsers can work together to send this as a header. If you're a concerned parent: set your children's ages in their device accounts. Done. This alternative solves the whole problem and it's been brought up a million times, but it doesn't matter, because th…

The problem is that not all parents are "concerned parents" and children dont deserve to be taken advantage of by trillion dollar corporations for the crime of having bad parents.

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

#368

Post by nyanmatt »

nullbio wrote: post #349

This has nothing to do with children and everything to do with AI. And to be fair to them, I don't really know of a better solution for what is coming... As much as I hate it. How else do we stop the web becoming a wasteland of deceptive AI bots? Do you use the web to research products, look at reviews? Do you use analytics on your website or products to improve them? When we cannot tell the difference between a huma…

If it has nothing to do with children, then why is it named the KIDS Act? Are we being bamboozled? And you are IN SUPPORT OF that? Am I taking crazy pills?

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

#369

Post by sdoering »

pibaker wrote: post #363
kerridge0 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an idea the other day that children could have some kind of jewellery that they can't remove like a curfew device. Probably impractical but at least it matches - children=limited rights and need protection. Once of age, no need, come of age, can remove.

The idea that the state should get to tag some subset human as undeserving of rights is not something we should let ourselves get accustomed to.

Children already have less rights. Like voting rights missing, the right to buy alcohol (at least here in Germany), not allowed to drive a car, Forced to go to school, not allowed to watch quite a lot of movies - just to name a few, but also special protections. As they can't be held responsible below the age of 14 (so not court cases and prison time for kids So we already treat kids quite differently from adults. And tht is - imho - fine. Because kids are not just "small grown ups", they are just growing up.

I just do not think, that KYC/age verification is the right way to go - or even feasible in how it is being approached. I am for denying Meta, TikTok and the others the opportunity to exploit kids. But I would rather much have them regulated in a way that just forbidds them their predatory ways overall, then to give them even more data in the form of verified idetities and the knowledge that this account is within a specific age range ad also a "real human being", making that data even more valuable for advertisers.

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

#370

Post by alt227 »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #356
michaelt wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> almost every kid who commits suicide will have recently used social media. Sound reasoning lol some really hysterical folk on here. if you actually believed it were that dangerous you wouldn't be literally on social media posting about this would you?

Are you inferring that HN is social media?
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