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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

#551

Post by ars »

gib444 wrote: post #385
ars wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. If you give your kid WhatsApp access because that's how 95% of their peers text each other, then your kid has access to a hidden chat that can only be revealed by typing a secret code in the search bar. Tell me how a parent is supposed to parent their kid when they can do that? Locking down WhatsApp is no solution because then they can't talk to anyone. (Other countries do not use SMS as much as…

I don't have kids but I do wonder if maybe the downsides of WhatsApp etc outweigh the benefits? Lack of practice with face to face communication, near inability to talk on the phone, less quality connection with people in general, craned necks, myopia, hidden bullying, privacy violations, dependency on a US company etc And what do you mean by "can't talk to anyone"?

In places where WhatsApp is highly used you basically can't function without it, school events are posted there, friends organize activities on it, teachers communicate to both parents and kids on it.

Giving a highschool kid a phone is basically mandatory or they will be cut off from activities, and/or rely on a friend to relay messages. In some places even middleschoolers need it.

There are definitely downsides (not to mention WhatsApp is a really badly engineering program), but the network effect is too strong to fight.

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

#552

Post by ars »

saghm wrote: post #411
ars wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. If you give your kid WhatsApp access because that's how 95% of their peers text each other, then your kid has access to a hidden chat that can only be revealed by typing a secret code in the search bar. Tell me how a parent is supposed to parent their kid when they can do that? Locking down WhatsApp is no solution because then they can't talk to anyone. (Other countries do not use SMS as much as…

> If you give your kid WhatsApp access because that's how 95% of their peers text each other, then your kid has access to a hidden chat that can only be revealed by typing a secret code in the search bar. So the solution to parents deciding to give their kids access to stuff is to make me flash my ID every time I go online on one of my devices that I use in my childless household? And you're confident that there won'…

That's an argument you made, I was simply responding to this idea that parents don't want to parent. It's not true, they do, they just can't.

A solution is needed, and I think age verification is a good start - divide apps into kid apps, and adult apps. Kid apps will be made such that parents have full access to them, and they are blocked from social networks, only individual messages, and pre-planned groups.

Other solutions might also work - I'm not stuck on any particular one. But they all start by making it impossible for kids to access the adult internet (and I don't mean porn, I mean unrestricted communication).

Do you have a solution? And again, don't say "just parent the kid", because we've established that as impossible with modern devices.

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

#553

Post by ars »

Amezarak wrote: post #395
ars wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it weird? Social media has existed for around the same amount of time for all western countries, and people have noticed the harm at around the same time everywhere. Why do you require some special interest? Ordinary people are seeing the harm and demanding help. Tech companies did themselves no favors by locking down phones and accounts to the point that it's impossible for parents to police and/or check thei…

I've yet to meet an ordinary person who supports any of this, though they might agree if vaguely prompted about it without detail. They certainly aren't lobbying their politicians about it. This is top down, not bottom up. > So now that parents have been blocked from parenting, who else is going to do it? I'm a parent. Nobody has been blocked from parenting by tech companies.

We are in different circles, because everyone in my circle is desperate for a solution to unrestricted phone use by kids.

> I'm a parent. Nobody has been blocked from parenting by tech companies.

What age? Because they absolutely have. Wait till your kid has instragram and snapchat and WhatsApp and they can talk to random adults, or get bullied and you have no way to know. Wait till they lock their phone, and you have no way to check it. Wait till they get addicted to content that basically blocks them from doing any part of normal life and all they want to do all day is sit and watch a phone.

It's really bad out there. This is the first generation to test as less intelligent than their parents. Read some of the articles on how kids are cheating with AI, and it's not just that AI is available, I think the kids simply can't do the work, and that's because they spend most of their time on the phone.

This doesn't bode well for the future, and something to restrict kids from phone is desperately needed. What it should look like, I'm not sure. I don't care about proving a specific ID for anything, just an age range is enough: Either your above 18, or what's your age when under 18, nothing more is needed.

Then apps can tailor themselves accordingly.

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

#554

Post by HDBaseT »

nonethewiser wrote: post #527
HDBaseT wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids need private spaces. If we overprotect them in the real world, and overprotect them in the digital world children will fail to explore all sorts of things.

By definition everyone agrees we should't overprotect kids online. It's in the word "overprotected." The claim I'm making is that they are underprotected online. I think you are concerned about the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction but I don't think I said anything that suggests that should happen. Unless perhaps you think the current amount of protection is already the maximal amount that is useful?

I'm not sold on the idea they are underprotected online either though.

The onus is on the parents though, they need to monitor (to some degree) what their children are doing online. This seems trivial to me using modern Family controls on iOS or Android + maybe DNS filtering at the router level.

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

#555

Post by _AzMoo »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #513
_AzMoo wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, the government has certified OAuth2 Identity Providers which act as a broker between social media sites and a provider that can verify your age, such as a bank. This allows age to be verified by a provider, with the social media provider having no access to your identity. If the social media companies chose to support this, they would be complying with the legislation. It's not the government forcing yo…

This gives the identity brokers full insight into what sites you are visiting. Worse yet, it consolidates the information in one, easily leaned-on place: If I provide an ID to 3 non-Australian companies, sure, those companies know who I am, but the government or other companies would need to extract that information from each one. With an OAuth scheme, all that information is in one convenient place for the surveilla…

https://connectid.com.au/

They're brokering the negotiation, they're not actually the identity provider. The broker has no knowledge of your actual identity. So in this case, the identity provider (such as your bank) knows that you've been referred by the broker and that you wish to provide your verified age and only that age. The social media company knows that you've chosen to use the specific broker to verify your age, but not who the actual identity provider is. The broker knows that a request with your metadata (IP addr, HTTP headers, etc.) has been initiated between a specific social media site and a specific identity provider, but they don't have access to your actual identity.

Nobody in the negotiation has a complete picture. To correlate it all together, you would need logs from all 3. And at least in the Australian case, due to our data retention laws, if you've got logs from the social media provider, then you can already associate the user with a specific identity by requesting the information from the ISP which they legally must retain for 2 years, so it's really not necessary.

All this concern about social media privacy is a little ridiculous IMO. If you're using social media then you've already compromised your identity. If somebody wants to find out who you are, they already can. They don't need a verified identity, and social media companies seem to me more than willing to cooperate with governments. Law enforcement has been using this type of correlating data for years to establish identity in CSAM investigations.

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

#556

Post by none2585 »

noosphr wrote: post #547
none2585 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in your country but not in the hellhole that is the US.

An excuse to do nothing. The local dog catcher had more impact on your daily life than the president.

I'll join your revolution! Let's go bud!!!!

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

#557

Post by none2585 »

noosphr wrote: post #548
verisimi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking from experience? What legislation have you organised?

I got new bike lanes installed around the neogboirhood after I wrote to the local city representative about it, then went to a city where I did a PowerPoint presentation of all the places that you could get killed if the driver wasn't paying attention. It took a month from first letter to new bikelanes.

This sounds like exactly the gumption we need to finally get the federal government to represent the common man.

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

#558

Post by SidewaysView »

trashb wrote: post #501
SidewaysView wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

who decides what are bad/problematic/unacceptable books?

Everyone who isn't a dangerous creepy loser, as a rule. We generally call that "society."

Change isn't easy. Any particular individual won't necessarily agree with every change when they first see it. But justice and accountability aren't up to the individual - they're up to society. Our duty is only to be decent people and carry that progress forward.

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

#559

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

betadeltic wrote: post #391
jschveibinz wrote: post #182

I just listened to a radio program on my local NPR station about the topic of kids and social media. From what was presented, the research shows (longitudinal study) that there is very little evidence of social media impacting mental health--which is shocking because a majority of adults think there is a connection and the politicians are pushing that narrative. I have not personally vetted the research. Has anyone e…

A bit of an off-topic, as age checks are not solution to this, it's just the usual "think of the children" narrative. However, there are publicists like Jonathan Haidt who have observed the link between kids mental health and use of social media. (among other things) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anxious_Generation

Jonathan Haidt's book isn't taken seriously in academia. He also believes that social media turns kids transgender, and that may be part the reason that he's aggressively lobbying for bans enforced with mandatory age verification.

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

#560

Post by EmbarrassedHelp »

anjiro wrote: post #206
GeekyBear wrote: post #201

Parents already have the ability to lock down Android or iOS devices for their own children, if they choose to do so.

Super awesome as long as your kids never go anywhere they could access a non-locked-down device. And assuming that device parental controls work, which (at least on iOS) they don't [1]. 1. https://www.macworld.com/article/2305919/apple-parental-cont...

> Super awesome as long as your kids never go anywhere they could access a non-locked-down device.

We could lock every kid and adult in a padded cell to prevent kids from being harmed, so why don't we pass a law requiring that? Because its not a proportional response, just like demanding mandatory age verification for every adult is not proportional either.

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