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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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're engaging with the wrong argument. "Think of the children" is meant to confuse and diffuse discourse around what is happening. The argument which actually reflects the true intention of your politicians and lobbyists with respect to this issue is an argument of free access to information by anyone, including children. I was raised in am extremely oppressive and abusive religious household. I would not be who I…

I don’t disagree with what you are saying but it isn’t a solution to the problem. And the problem is about the children. Without trying to offend you, but you are arguing this as: we don’t need to regulate alcohol or drugs because experiences, for everyone, will be better in the end…

If free speech is a drug, it’s a tonic against dictators and tyrants.

Terribly ironic that this is up for a vote at the time of the United State's 250th birthday.

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

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh I must admit that while I observe my children, any message on social media (especially Whatsapp) attracts so much attention, they are unable to continue with their normal chores. On the other hand I remember myself procrastinating while watching the TV in their age, which no longer happens as we have no TV. The difference is that anything watched on TV was public, you would need to eject your parents from home so…

> now you can just take your private tv to the other room, and watch horrible things. .... Is this trolling? Banning social media won't stop them accessing "horrible things", you'd need to disconnect the internet entirely from them, have you done that? Why do you think social media is bad but somehow regular websites aren't horrible?

> Why do you think social media is bad but somehow regular websites aren't horrible?

But this is the level 2 argument to enforce identity verification everywhere. You are reaching ahead.

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

#473
post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

granular control over push notifications would be great see: recent article about Snap sending pushes to kids during school hours

Screen Time let's you turn off notifications. I have all notifications on my phone off, except for phone calls

yeah of course, it's all or nothing though. i have a 14 year old who is supposedly in a "no phones allowed" school, but they're on them all the time anyway (this is a separate issue)

being able to setup a schedule with only approved apps being able to deliver pushes during a particular time period would be great

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

#474
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Meta get out of enacting mass surveillance of the entire Western world (not even for their personal benefit)? That they can avoid spending 6 months implementing ID checks like porn sites have done? Also can I see an example of those ads? Google isn’t surfacing anything relevant

Answering this point directly, not the full argument. If Meta bans young people from their platforms, young people will just go to a different platform, and then Meta loses a generation of customers. But if the age blocking affects all platforms, then the playing field is kept equal with respect to age blocking.

Which other platforms? Age verification affects everyone equally. Any alternative platform that caters to young people that grows large enough will get the ban hammer, unless somehow someone manages to run a Facebook alternative out of Russia for people (kids?) to flock to.

I still don’t think that is the case.

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

#475
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?

It’s not for the kids. That’s just the excuse. In order to validate kids, they really need to identify everyone. That’s the real play.

> It’s not for the kids. That’s just the excuse.

Is is an excuse for some, sure. But we will fail at pushing back if we ignore that there are a meaningful number of concerned parents who support solutions like this because they have become aware of the danger that social media presents. For many of them, self-attestation of age at the OS account level is likely sufficient, not to mention much simpler to implement and use.

But others are working hard to shift the narrative away from age attestation towards age verification or even identity verification. Government officials (on both the right and left) want to be able to police speech based on what is acceptable to those who are currently in power. Companies want to verify humans for advertising and training purposes. And some privacy advocates intentionally conflate age attestation (like California AB 1043) with age verification because it is an easier strawman to attack.

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

#476
post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are plenty of alternatives if we're willing to shift these costs and responsibility to ISPs, which could separate the internet into two networks, one for children and the other for the rest of us. This is technically just as feasible, and probably cheaper than requiring every website to process (and probably retain) personally identifiable information.. significantly safer too. But that wouldn't come with baked…

> if we're willing to shift these costs and responsibility to ISPs, which could separate the internet into two networks, one for children and the other for the rest of us. This is technically just as feasible, and probably cheaper than requiring every website to process It really wouldn't be. Do that at OSI layer 3, every routed packet would have to have an "was this sent by a kid's device" flag. Higher levels aren't…

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

#477
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?

It’s not for the kids. That’s just the excuse. In order to validate kids, they really need to identify everyone. That’s the real play.

the effort is being driven by a handful of tech and social media companies who have suddenly realized they cannot close the pandoras box of AI.

without a meaningful headcount of real users, advertisers will begin to push back on cost or even reduce and eliminate spending on social media altogether.

by proactively identifying real humans, you prevent the collapse of major social media outlets. by tracking their age and location directly, you restore that which AI took away from advertisers in the first place.

age verification makes sure surveillance capitalism continues to function.

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

#479

One could implement this at browser account level or even at OS-level, but no, let's just ask all the websites to implement a new service for ID check. Or let's ask all the websites to spam users with the never-read cookie usage request. We are such a smart species.

Or not implement it at all...
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