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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

#331

Post by DrScientist »

graemep wrote: post #315
DrScientist wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing the ability to bring information to people, with the ability of people to consume it. As has been mentioned elsewhere on the thread - the real issue is often there are complex 2nd and third order effects, often there are devils in the details. I'm not saying people are not capable of consuming it, I'm saying people don't have the bandwidth. Direct democracy is best when it's used for very specific p…

An alternative would be to select representatives by lot. It would get rid of a political class, would automatically be representative (so no arguments about whether women, minorities, whoever are fairly represented) and not select for people who want power and it would mean people have the same amount of time as those in the current system.

I heard this idea, or variants of it, quite a lot recently.

Some of the examples I've seen it tried - I've seen the people setting it up trying to fix the outcome by carefully choosing the question, then providing expert advice on options scoped by the question.

Framing of the question is a powerful tool to promote the outcome you want, and avoiding ever asking certain questions is another.

Not saying it doesn't have it's place - you just need to be careful that the process isn't used to try and legitimise what would otherwise be unpopular policies via concentrated persuasion on a small number of people.

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

#332

Post by microgpt »

kgwxd wrote: post #322
microgpt wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already too late for that but you can at least, by deleting now, reduce the chances they see it.

Not your HN account though. They even stopped replying to my annual emails asking if it's "possible" yet. They originally help me change the name, and scrub any replies that mentioned the original name. That's not enough though, thanks to old copies of the site data that still have my original name, linked directly to the real HN post it appears on, showing up in search results.

If you're in Europe, you can sue them under GDPR? They won't obey - HN explicitly chooses to disobey European laws - but having an arrest warrant out might be inconvenient enough for them to do it anyway.

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

#333

Post by simoncion »

Nursie wrote: post #312
simoncion wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though what they are doing is... I suppose you missed the part where I said Australia has been a shithole for a long time now. This "You must present ID to use a computer" shit is relatively new. > You're not really describing a client-side solution, you're describing legislation of something like the old Do Not Track header, which is a server-side solution... Mmm. No, there are three systems being described h…

> I suppose you missed the part where I said The part that I quoted? That would be quite a feat. Either way I think it's definitely a choice to entirely ignore what a country is doing in this area due to historical reasons, when the country you're interested in making changes to appears to be doing worse. > Mmm. No, there are three systems being described here. There are more than three options here. Here are more po…

> So you're also implicitly ignoring solution 6, which a lot of people elsewhere in this thread are arguing for, which is parents using existing parental control systems built into their devices, which work 100% client side?

I'm 100% fine with those, but people report that they're "insufficient" for vague reasons. That's why I suggest we beef them up. Also...

> Why? Parental controls at the moment are patchy, poorly understood and certainly don't operate in the way you're proposing they should in future.

you seem to agree with the reports I'm hearing. That's why I suggest beefing them up.

> The part that I quoted? That would be quite a feat.

One that you managed, somehow. Gratz.

> ...they dismiss the entire thing as a conspiracy

Unless you're using the "Two or more people get together to plan something" definition of the word "conspiracy" -which happens to neatly cover planning to go to lunch-, I don't consider this to be a conspiracy. [0]

> There are more than three options here.

I was only discussing three, and I'm sure we can come up with way more than five in total, but sure, let's go.

> 4. Service providers make an informed guess...

That's happening now and has been for a while now. We all see how willing the larger operators are to rely on their guesses rather than relying on the judgment of a third-party. Having said that... when last I checked, 4chan was one of the operators who are doing the noble thing in the face of all this hysteria. [1] It sure is something when 4chan is on the right side of an issue and the big guys aren't.

> 5. Anonymous credentials systems...

They're absolutely not going to be anonymous in practice. As I mentioned earlier:

   ...the private company that is contracted to implement and run a server-side implementation will cut every corner to improve their profit margins.
> That's age verification of a sort by the guardian...

Absolutely not. Do explain where the restricted account has either its age, documents that contain its user's age, or documents that can be used to look up its user's age entered into it. A helpful hint is to ask yourself how you'd distinguish between the content restrictions set for a precocious eleven-year-old and those set for an adult suffering from both PTSD and advanced dementia who needs to be protected from both scammers and graphic depictions of sex and violence.

[0] Yes, I read ahead to the end of the sentence I quoted. The statement to which this footnote is attached is included for completeness' sake.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko>

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

#334

Post by raxxorraxor »

TFNA wrote: post #202
dv_dt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

My supposedly modern government has problems with all kinds of speech and this is a lazy excuse. Government needs really hard boundaries and not being able to identify someone who perhaps said something controversial is a pretty good one.

You are right about the public square. That is pretty much what governments want to enforce. To silence everyone not in line, like in medieval towns.

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

#335

Post by raxxorraxor »

petcat wrote: post #321
raxxorraxor wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not everyone exploits that. But those that reject these controls are often ridiculed because the thought about any side effect is too alien. Yet I don't think age verification will work with national IDs for that matter. I generally use social media sites that won't implement it. But yes, the normal insta/tiktok user will be affected and not think too much about it. Others will have true freedom of speech.

> I generally use social media sites that won't implement it. Which social media sites won't implement it?

Most of them are more insignificant than Twitter, Insta, TikTok. And while they do employ advertising here and there, profit is only interesting for keeping up with server costs.

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

#336

Post by echelon »

gherkinnn wrote: post #211
matheusmoreira wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

And always have that phone on you at all times please. This goes way beyond any notion of a "hacker tweaking his electronics". With ID checks, device attestation and a device required for any transaction, and all this data piped in to a central brain (none of which are far fetched), we're all pretty much buggered. It is a matter of time until advertising companies claw their way in, insurances calculate individual pr…

Just wait for the brain scan tech to pan out.

They'll call you in for a routine scan of your thoughts to make sure you haven't been up to any wrongthink.

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

#337

Post by remus »

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…

> 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.

I think there is more to it. A large part of democracy is delegating decision making to people with time and expertise to investigate issues more thoroughly than most individuals can or want to.

I have some broad opinions about the environment etc. but I am by no means an expert in the details, so I am happy to delegate day to day decision making to someone with more expertise who's opinions broadly align with my own.

I'd agree that referendums do make more sense on "issues of conscience" though, like whether to have a death penalty, voting reform etc.

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

#338

Post by pc86 »

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…

The problem is that "the authoritarians" (read: almost every politician at every level of government, but a drastically increasing percentage the higher you go) only need to get something passed once then it is there forever.

Every law should have an automatic sunset period of 1-10 years that requires it to pass the entire legislative process again, or at least both full chambers + signing.

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

#339

Post by cdrini »

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 think there are many arguments for and against this type of regulation. Good arguments on both sides take into account nth-order effects. But both sides have different priorities, and have different weighing of the trade-offs. Calling one side effectively "thick" isn't really taking part in the debate.

(And cause and effect are taught pretty early on in school; not sure you need to learn "systems thinking" to understand nth-order effects.)

What are the nth-order effects that you think are not being considered or weighted accordingly by proponents of this regulation?

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

#340

Post by Rebuff5007 »

usrnm wrote: post #232
Rebuff5007 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are those things naturally "whats next"? We allow bars and car companies to verify age before conducting business. Does that in itself lead to racial discrimination? I think not.

The issue is the scale and centralization of information. Let's imagine that every bar has to not only check the id of every customer but do it automatically: every time you enter a bar anywhere in the country you must have your id scanned by a government-issued system. Are you still ok with it?

Sure why not. How is that any different that what already happens at airports?
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