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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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. An…

There is quite a difference between say having to hold a driver's license when driving or having to show the cashier your ID when buying beer, and having something attached to your body, for years, for the crime of simply having been born.

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

#372
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?

Suspicious? Maybe. Benjamin Netanyahuha repeatedly voiced concerns Israel is becoming increasingly unpopular amoung the youth because of social media.

His words: “the most important purchase going on right now (Tiktok)” alleging its control could be “consequential.” [1]

When kids have alternative news your pointless religious wars or fake democratic freedom wars cannot be fought. [2]

[1] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in September "We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged. And the most important ones are on social media. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is TikTok. Number one. Number one.". Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti‑Defamation League, warned last year: “TikTok, if you will, is the 24/7 news channel of so many of our young people, and it’s like Al‑Jazeera on steroids. It’s amplifying and intensifying the antisemitism and the anti‑Zionism with no repercussions.”

[2] "There’s an eighth front," he said, describing a struggle "for the hearts and minds of people, especially young people in the West, and for me especially in the United States.

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parental controls are extremely weak on all the major platforms. Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. they all have them so they can check the box but they are not good and certainly not a solution. That said, it is better than nothing, but that’s about it.

> Parental controls are extremely weak on all the major platforms. So pass laws and enact regulations that require them to be made strong. Not only does this moot the demands for capture of photo ID, beefing up the parental controls that already exist in every major OS means that -say- adults caring for their dementia-damaged parents can restrict those adults' access to things that could be very dangerous to them and…

> So pass laws and enact regulations that require them to be made strong.

No, please dont. More regulation is not the answer. Any more restriction which is imposed on kids becomes the thing they focus on getting around.

Just dont buy your kids phones until they are older, and send them outside to play. Thats all the parental restriction you need on phones.

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels more like a joint effort given the way the world is going with AI. Likely, everyone who has access to the internet will require a passport to authenticate and access all websites, including AI bots. That way, any illegitimate activity from AI bots can be traced back to individuals.

If there was to be a small silver lining out of all this, then a way to verify human comments would be nice. But it's not worth the privacy impacts and chilling of free speech.

Maybe zk proof of government documents.

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

#375

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

> The internet was never a danger to children’s mental health

I dont think thats entirely true. There were always horror stories about kids getting seriously troubled by watching beheadings on rotten dot com, 4chan bullying and suicides have been happening for decades etc. It was just easier to ignore when it was a few young freaks that we could label as reclusive anyway. Now its just compounded more because its mainstream and the entire population engages.

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

#376

Isn’t this already a thing because it requires an adult and a payment method to get a connection to your house. I’ve already stated who I am when I paid.

It really should be as simple as that, which proves all these regulations are really there for something else.

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

#377
post #367
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These parents will do age check themselves on kids devices. Why? To not be bothered or to elevate the kid in peer group.

No system is going to fix "unresponsble" parents until we end up with a state completely replacing parent like in Brave New World.

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

#378
post #367
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The problem is that not all parents are "concerned parents"

Unfortunately, this doesn't address that problem.

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

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. An…

There is quite a difference between say having to hold a driver's license when driving or having to show the cashier your ID when buying beer, and having something attached to your body, for years, for the crime of simply having been born.

I abhore the idea of having something attached to ones body. I wanted to show, that we already have systems in place that work and do not need such a horrible intrusive way of marking children.

Sorry for being not more clear.

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

#380
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?

Protect them from what? The known associates of trafficking associated with Maxwel & Epstein have not been fully exposed or prosecuted, instead their names are hidden. Nothing is happening. This is an attempt to force identity in all things. It should be stopped.
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