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Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

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Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#171

Post by bluegatty »

dv_dt wrote: post #115
bluegatty wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your local library has age and ID requirements. Your local 'town square' has 'some rules'. Parents are entirely able to overcome any of this if they so choose - including feeding their kids alcohol, guns etc. - and so the freedom does materially exist. Social Media isn't a place for free expression - it's mostly toxic - like exposing your children to the most vile, inauthentic people. The more genteel places, frankly…

My local librarian did not restrict my books to the kids section when I was a kid. Also librarians have fought civil legal battles to keep reading activities anonymous. Libraries are unlike the restrictions and risks of the proposed legislation being discussed for social media

?

--> Your local library fought for your right to read literature of some kind.

---> They did not fight for your right to gang up on others and call them the n-word, to spread lies and slander about people, to harass children and expose them to creeps and pedophiles, to inundate children with hyper-targeted advertising, or 'Andrew Tate 'how to beat women' seminars'.

Nobody is pushing for a ban on social media so that the kids will be stopped from reading 'Judy Bloom' stories about a girl's 'first period'.

It's disingenuous to suggest that this has anything to do with the causes your librarians stand for.

Literally the opposite - your librarians are creating essentially 'safe spaces' for kids so they can read and be civil.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#172

Post by pibaker »

zarzavat wrote: post #40
pibaker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when federal agents kick down your front door because you ran a free range mom and pop BBS that did not comply with latest ID verification requirements? Big companies will benefit the most from these regulations. It's just good ol regulatory capture. They will have the most resources to comply with the laws. They have a captive audience that will be more willing to give up their personal info when asked…

It seems unlikely that running a website without age verification will be illegal across the entire planet.

So if you want to run a BBS for say vintage motorcycle owners, you have to move to a country without such laws and make sure to never set foot in any country that does?

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#173

Post by ball_of_lint »

stymaar wrote: post #100
onion2k wrote: post #10

If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…

“Age verification” isn't a problem in itself, the problem is how it's done. They could issue a physical id card with a cryptographic chip and do the age verification in a zero-knowledge fashion and it would be perfectly fine. The problem is the lack of thinking about the solution and just handwaving “age verification” as a political posture, which is why we end up with half-baked systems.

I strongly disagree.

You're framing this as some desirable thing that could be good except that a bad implementation erodes privacy. That's wrong at every step. These bills originate from big tech such as Meta that literally profit from collecting as much personal info from you as possible. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1rsn1tm/it_a...

But even beyond their tainted origins, you can't implement your way out of something badly formed in the first place. You handwave "zero knowledge" but that doesn't do for your privacy what you're hoping it will. That id card will still have a serial number and CCTV of you purchasing it and you will de facto end up trusting some government binary blob to implement this cryptography correctly without backdoors. Snowden was a decade ago. This will have a backdoor. This will be used for surveillance, tomorrow even if by some miracle not today.

And finally, this makes the internet worse. There will be a section of people who are, for one reason or another, not able to pass this bar. Much of the goodness of the internet comes from being able to interact with anyone on it.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#174

Post by pibaker »

h4kunamata wrote: post #153

Age verification is an excuse to hide the fact that parents have become useless and should have their rights of becoming parents revoked. If you ask any millenial, none of this bs existed during our time, parents wouldn't think twice to educate you, if you know you know haha That statement is weird in itself because said parents are yesterday's millenial. Add to that how companies and governments are trying to become…

> should have their rights of becoming parents revoked.

Ok. So what does it mean to revoke the right for someone to become parents? Be honest and be specific.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#175

Post by matheusmoreira »

RachelF wrote: post #41

Age verification is just one part of this crackdown. Device attestation is another - making sure you're using an unmodified government approved operating system and apps linked to your ID.

One day we'll need remote attestation to even get an internet connection. "Untrusted" devices that have been "tampered with" need not apply.

Little by little, everything I hold dear is getting destroyed. Computers of our own, that we control, that we can freely hack on. Everything the word "hacker" stands for. How I wish I could turn back the clock...

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#176

Post by ball_of_lint »

stymaar wrote: post #157
MaKey wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes good faith, which doesn't match reality. It's about control, not protecting children. Also age verification is still a problem in itself. Given your idea of a physical card, kids will find a way to use the card of their parents. Even if the card couldn't be misused by others - you give platforms the knowledge of whom is a minor, which means they can be targeted better.

> This assumes good faith, which doesn't match reality. It's about control, not protecting children. “ Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. ” > Given your idea of a physical card, kids will find a way to use the card of their parents. Sure there are kids who have access to their parents credit card with the PIN, but how frequent is that? In every system, fraud will exist, but tha…

I linked it in my direct reply, but - we don't need to guess at why these bills are being introduced or who by. We have evidence. It's malice. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1rsn1tm/it_a...

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#177

Post by SwellJoe »

It's also a huge gift to the very surveillance capitalists they're pretending to protect children from. It de-anonymizes everyone, including children, and with the first exploit and dump of of the database (which will absolutely happen), all those children's real identities will be known to every predator in the world in addition to the social media companies who've already shown they can't be trusted with personal data or the ability to track people across the internet.

It is a catastrophically dangerous idea, and it's exactly what the abusive social media companies want.

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#178

Post by m0unta1ntube »

jimbob45 wrote: post #103

What would you say to someone who is afraid that a bad actor will find their kids on Discord/Minecraft/4chan and encourage them to commit suicide or shoot up their school?

Listen to your children, give them attention, they are your responsibility, don't give them internet access if you find it unsafe

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#179

Post by lelandbatey »

friendzis wrote: post #166
roenxi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, the evidence is that people already pretty firmly against things like chat control and the will to push it through tends to come from the political circles more than popular belief it is a good idea. I expect that if the measure itself went to a general vote, the majority would be against it once they have to deal with a specific proposal. It takes repeated pushes by the authoritarians looking for an opp…

When you think about it, the idea of a representative democracy is rooted in the technical difficulties of implementing a direct democracy: both spread of information/discussion to the masses and organizing the votes. In this day and age, probably with a relatively tiny investment into public access points, we could very reasonably have a technically functional direct democracy. The legislative cycle is already authe…

Is there such a thing as "unbiased public opinion" at all though? The memetic effects of language and communication means propaganda and similar tools of rhetoric and leveraged communication will always work, with or without an internet. There's no "solution", only "good enoughs".

Direct democracy is cool, but also impractical. I do not want to vote on every counties appropriations for road maintenance. So what's a level of direct democracy that's "good enough"? How do we make sure we're directly voting in things relevant to our lives? What if "relevant to our lives" is unrelated to our geographic location and is very interests based? If anyone can vote for anything, but most folks don't ever vote for most things, how do you prevent brigading of votes via coordination by groups who see that their group alone can swing what would be a small local vote whatever way they want by virtue of sheer numbers? How do you prevent trolls from going through every vote and just voting no on every "community center paper-and-ink budget" across the entire country?

There are so many questions I have about direct democracy systems! Do you have more information?

Re: Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

#180

Post by gigatexal »

roenxi wrote: post #29
onion2k wrote: post #10

If we taught systems thinking in schools things like internet age verification would never get past being an idea on the back of a napkin. People struggle to consider the second-, third-, and nth-order effects of anything so asking them to consider what else might happen if we bring in laws and technical mechanisms to 'protect the children' is unfortunately too a big leap for a lot of them. Most people are bad at spo…

In fairness, the evidence is that people already pretty firmly against things like chat control and the will to push it through tends to come from the political circles more than popular belief it is a good idea. I expect that if the measure itself went to a general vote, the majority would be against it once they have to deal with a specific proposal. It takes repeated pushes by the authoritarians looking for an opp…

But it’s not about critical thinking or governing well it’s about getting re-elected.

So the argument will go to “think of the children” which is a guise for more control and then pretty soon we are living in the dystopian future of 1984 or the UK where the film V for Vendetta took place.

This same kind of thinking gets idiots like Trump elected because people don’t have any sense of the commons and become single issue voters (sic). “Oh just reduce my taxes on my carried interest… reduce my taxes… I’m a xenophobe I hate immigrants let’s not do anything systematic let’s just hard close the border or the world is flat America only exists we don’t need allies or trading partners (JD Vance) … and so on”

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