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Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech

nonogra.ph

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

#201

Post by ball_of_lint »

delusional wrote: post #145
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…

I know systems thinking, and am in favor of a version of these types of legislation. Give me your best argument from systems thinking, and I'll give you a thoughtful reply.

A significant part of the cultural value of the internet comes from free anonymous expression. As a key example, look at 4chan - anonymity taken to it's extreme has resulted in on one hand yes a lot of disgusting stuff, but also a cultural hotbed.

Age verification is de facto identity verification. Eff says it well:

> But no matter the method, every system demands users hand over sensitive and immutable personal information that links their offline identity to their online activity. https://www.eff.org/issues/age-verification

Tying every action taken online to the user's real identity will have a deep and catastrophic chilling effect, destroying those very places that are creating our culture.

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

#202

Post by TFNA »

dv_dt wrote: post #78
bluegatty wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we have any number of social constructs around 'age and responsibility' - driving, alcohol, pubs, porn, excessive violence and so much more. It's bereft to suggest that we wouldn't nominally have those in the digital world. And, people are concerned about nth order effects, it's a huge point of debate. Yes - there is a huge slippery slope argument to be made, but it's an argument ... to be made. There are all sor…

Social media age verification is like none of those - social media is the modern public square and age verification is asking everybody to show their papers before participating in free speech in the public. It will have a chilling effect on free speech and will be a tool for authoritarian control

The public square was in communities small enough where townspeople knew each other, and so speech was not anonymous besides those who penned (but not those who distributed) unattributed pamphlets. Moreover, if the speech you were pronouncing was beyond the pale of the community’s values, you could face retribution for it, whether judicial or extra-judicial like tarring and feathering. Even in the nascent USA whose political elite was high on Lockean ideas of natural rights and freedom of speech, the public square was never a free-for-all.

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

#203

Post by jay_kyburz »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #98
btbuildem wrote: post #33

This is a reminder to curate and prune all your past social media contribution, because when this goes thru, you KNOW they will apply it retroactively. You'd loathe to lose your cushy job over a moment of lucid honesty back in 2011.

I've been posting under my real name for over 20 years because this was always going to be the case. Using my real name is a constant reminder to not to post things I might later regret.

sigh, another typo on my permanent record.

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

#204

Post by jonathanstrange »

MaKey wrote: post #143
stymaar wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

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.

Kids will simply find a way to circumvent it without any extra steps. To make age verification useful for protecting kids, you'd need to lock down every software on every operating system and put it under tight government control. We're talking about things like every programming language with a networking library, wget, curl, every web browser that was ever developed, etc.

All kinds of tools and software would need to be locked down or criminalized. Otherwise, some smart kid is guaranteed to get around the restriction and give that method to others, and if it's at school on a USB stick.

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

#205

Post by xinayder »

lelandbatey wrote: post #179
friendzis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

The Swiss succeeded in this, maybe we should look at their model and improve.

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

#206

Post by KaiserPro »

Point number 2 doesn't take that long and is largely automated.

This is the thing that so upsetting with the discourse. Privacy is already eroded, its just by private companies, not the state. All social networks have a gateway for law enforcement that allows getting extra details about users.

There is another gateway with ISPs to correlate IPs with end users.

In the USA you can just buy most of that info through brokers.

Sure, people who takes precautions it takes extra work, but for dave on facebook, its pretty automatic.

I really wish people would foccus on that bit, because the way to get privacy back is to get a handle on social media companies(and google). They are the ones who've eroded our privacy, and if we just say "Oooo age gating is bad mmkay" without a viable alternative, then we'll all get something worse.

The solution is to limit what social media companies can profit from, so _they_ can regulate what shit they put in front of kids eyes. They can totally do it (after all how much porn is actually hosted on youtube? its really really hard, because they put in place systems to stop it.)

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

#207

Post by gherkinnn »

dv_dt wrote: post #78
bluegatty wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we have any number of social constructs around 'age and responsibility' - driving, alcohol, pubs, porn, excessive violence and so much more. It's bereft to suggest that we wouldn't nominally have those in the digital world. And, people are concerned about nth order effects, it's a huge point of debate. Yes - there is a huge slippery slope argument to be made, but it's an argument ... to be made. There are all sor…

Social media age verification is like none of those - social media is the modern public square and age verification is asking everybody to show their papers before participating in free speech in the public. It will have a chilling effect on free speech and will be a tool for authoritarian control

Social media, as we have it today, has nothing to do with a public square.

A public square does not have trolls and bots from across the globe teleporting in and out. A public square does not amplify the most divisive comments and drown out your friends's holiday photos because the former makes the ad space more profitable.

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

#208

Post by tancop »

dguest wrote: post #191
lelandbatey wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I think everyone can agree that having O(100M) people vote on every local initiative is absurd. But a lot of countries are somewhere on the "direct" vs "representative" spectrum. The US actually abnormally lacking in direct mechanisms, for example. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_by_country

> The US actually abnormally lacking in direct mechanisms

only on a federal level. states like california or texas are more direct than a lot of western europe in some ways. like the fact that ballot props are binding law or sheriffs and state attorneys are elected.

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

#209

Post by ShinyLeftPad »

monssooon wrote: post #148
beezlewax wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emailed my local TD minister in Ireland about the inherent dangers of chat control. They had some lacky respond with an email that framed the conversation in a way that made it look like I was interested in the illegal content and not privacy/control or nefarious future governments.

This is what I fear the most. It is gas lighting and just manipulation. The idea of privacy will become associated with crime. Further down the line technical solutions that are private will become illegal and in general not being pro survailance will get you in trouble

Do you acknowledge that for many people and practically e2ee and crime are connected? e2ee is a very useful tool for crime and combined with crypto useful tool for monetizing crime. Criminals used to speak in code, meet clandestine, use burner phones and websites were easy to shut down. Now they don't need to.

The solution to privacy problem is not to shout while closing your ears but to make it clear that you see their side, how new tech create new problems, and help solve it in least privacy invasive ways.

Otherwise you will always be seen as somebody who has shady agenda. It's just reality. Ordinary people do not care about e2ee. Gotta read the room.

But chat control and age verification are different things.

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

#210

Post by rockskon »

fyredge wrote: post #187
rockskon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such spaces will never scale if there's widespread legal prohibitions. It is foolish to assume we can innovate our way around the law as opposed to talking with lawmakers to oppose the law before it gets on the books.

And they absolutely should not scale. Scaling is the root cause of all social media ills. If all you see are the 100 people nearest to you, the village idiot will not be able to spread his gospel so easily

The social media you don't want will continue to scale.
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