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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

#571

Post by efreak »

macintux wrote: post #304
kelseyfrog wrote: post #299

Parents won't parent without a change in incentives. That's why giving children access to social media must be punished to the same degree as giving children heroin. If it's a parent's responsibility, it must be made a parent's liability. Anything without the full threat of the government's monopoly on violence is just a pretty slogan. We should see access to social media as the neglect that it is.

Since the beginning of the computer age kids have found ways around parental controls. I'm very skeptical that it's a good idea to punish parents for that, especially since the kids are likely more tech-savvy than the parents. And, in many cases, "parent" singular. Putting a single mom in court, in jail, because she works 2-3 jobs and her kids are more knowledgeable than she is about computers? C'mon.

You're not putting her in jail for having kids smarter than she is. You're telling her that if she can't parent, then she can't have kids. Having kids is a responsibility, not a reward, and that responsibility is more than just having money to pay for their food. If you can't afford to take care of your kids, then you can't afford to have them.

This applies to more than just tech and money: being unable to give your kids attention because you need 3 jobs to pay for them is just as bad for the kids as being unable to give them attention because you're busy gambling or a drug addict (it does makes a difference to whether you're a disgusting person, though).

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

#572

Post by efreak »

alt227 wrote: post #375
fivetenpen wrote: post #354

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 main…

What you're describing isn't a cancer to children but a danger to _people_, children or not. Children being children, they're sometimes less able to recognize danger ahead of time, and they're also more likely to get their kicks from sending each other there (I know I did). This is also not inherent to the Internet, however. "Stranger danger" warning exists for a reason. What we need to do is teach children that just like you wouldn't follow a random stranger into their house, you also shouldn't click random links. You also have to make the safe place dedicated for kids into a place that they actually _want_ to be (think neopets in the 00s), and then you don't have to put your resources into preventing them from leaving.

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

#573

Post by kulahan »

saghm wrote: post #562
kulahan wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what point you were trying to make, but I’m pointing out that your argument works against you much better than it works for you. The last point you make is just lame whataboutism.

> I know what point you were trying to make, but I’m pointing out that your argument works against you much better than it works for you. Sure, if you go out of your way to try to ignore pretty much everything about the conversation up to that point and half of what I said. > The last point you make is just lame whataboutism. The entire point I'm trying to make is that the priorities of the people in power reflect wh…

Nope, I just have to see that the companies selling poison in both eras need to be regulated. It’s pretty simple.

I don’t want to waste time making people in power “reflect what they care about”. I care about the harm being done to children with social media.

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

#574

Post by pembrook »

Theres this new form of technology that is allowing decentralized actors to publish information without government oversight.

It’s called the Printing press. And yes, there was a giant moral panic about it at the time that basically split Europe in half.

Yet, today, we would find it absurd to ban children from reading printed words. Book bans are often the most opposed policies by all sides when polled.

The fact we’re looking to block children from the modern equivalent is the most classic example of a moral panic I’ve seen.

The “social media” millennials remember from their youth where they saw all the parties they didn’t get invited to…doesn’t even exist anymore. The social graph is dead, it’s all just short form TV now.

The stupidity of this panic narrative is tremendous. Instead of attacking/regulating the algorithms (the problem) we’re banning children from all information and creating a global surveillance dragnet for all adults.

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

#575

Post by account42 »

bArray wrote: 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?

Yes but there are also a lot of politicians excitedly going "wait, you can get away with this?"

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

#576

Post by ShadowOfThePit »

BeetleB wrote: post #502
michaelt wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a lot of statistics saying currently teens struggle with mental health even more than is historically normal for teenagers. [1, 2] Young people are also spending less time with friends, drinking less, and having less sex than ever before. Obviously it's difficult to pin a 20-year trend on a single cause. But most parents have the sense their teens spend too much time on their phones; and with social med…

> Young people are also spending less time with friends, drinking less, and having less sex than ever before. Two of those three are probably better outcomes.

(Safe) Sex is beneficial. It also goes hand in hand with relationships, which itself has many positives.

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

#577

Post by KajMagnus »

duxup wrote: post #192
kgwxd wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not a single point in history where everyone on the planet advised just one of those things simultaneously.

I don't know what that means.

I think they meant that different people can give you different and conflicting advice.

Also, check out the Goomba fallacy. (The way you wrote "the advice was... now it is...")

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

#578

Post by account42 »

rolandog wrote: post #520
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It should be written into law that they (the intermediary identity brokers) cannot sell or share any information with data brokers. They should be an independent organization funded by the government, but without its funding tied to yearly renewals (otherwise they would need to curry favor on a yearly manner to whomever is in power).

The danger here is just as much from the government going after undesirable speech as it is about commercial (mis)use of the data.

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

#579

Post by Amezarak »

ars wrote: post #553
Amezarak wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

> Because they absolutely have. Wait till your kid has instragram and snapchat and WhatsApp and they can talk to random adults

Why would they be allowed or even able to download Snapchat or WhatsApp if this is a concern?

> Wait till they lock their phone, and you have no way to check it.

OK, then their phone is taken away.

This is totally bizarre to me. You're talking about a world where parents have totally given up parenting already. There's nothing tech companies are going to be able to do to help.

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

#580

Post by account42 »

kulahan wrote: post #341
bArray wrote: 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?

A lot of studies came out kinda at the same time showing how harmful it is and people aren’t coming up with alternatives. What else can you do?

> What else can you do?

We could recognize the attention economy as inherently destructive to society and ban it altogether.

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