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Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

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Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#101

Post by plsbenice34 »

x187463 wrote: post #26

I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving? I haven't researched the topic of social media's effect on young people, but the common sentiment I encounter is that it's generally harmful, or at le…

>I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving?

Yes. The state has far, far too much involvement in everybody's lives.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#102

Post by kelseyfrog »

zevv wrote: post #12

So, what will be the proper technology to apply here? I have no problem with verification of my age (not the date of birth, just the boolean, >18yo), but I do have a problem with sending any party a picture of my face or my passport.

This is a social problem and as such cannot be solved with technology. You would have to make social media so uncool that young people didn't use it. One of the easiest ways of doing this is associating it with old people. Therefore the fastest way to get young people off discord is to get geriatric on discord and en-mass.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#103

Post by kelseyfrog »

plsbenice34 wrote: post #101
x187463 wrote: post #26

I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving? I haven't researched the topic of social media's effect on young people, but the common sentiment I encounter is that it's generally harmful, or at le…

>I see a lot of comments here arguing age requirements are overreach and these decisions should be left to the parents. To those presenting such arguments, do you think that applies to other activities as well? What about smoking/drinking/firearms? Pornography? Driving? Yes. The state has far, far too much involvement in everybody's lives.

This is a great stance to have if consequences have zero value.

Every time we shrug and say "let the parents decide," we gamble with the most vulnerable: the kids who don’t yet know how to refuse a cigarette, who don’t yet grasp the weight of a loaded weapon, who don’t yet understand that porn isn’t a harmless curiosity. We gamble with the soul of childhood—and when we lose, those children don’t get a second chance. They leave behind empty chairs at dinner tables, empty beds in houses that echo with what might have been. That’s the true cost of unfettered "parental freedom," and it’s a price that's easy to pay with someone else's life. But hey, Fuck those kids, right?

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#104

Post by KaiserPro »

roenxi wrote: post #4
jjice wrote: post #2

Aside from the privacy nightmare, what about someone who is 18 and just doesn't have the traditional adult facial features? Same thing for someone who's 15 and hit puberty early? I can imagine that on the edges, it becomes really hard to discern. If they get it wrong, are you locked out? Do you have to send an image of your ID? So many questions. Not a huge fan of these recent UK changes (looking at the Apple E2E sit…

Also, key point in the framing, when was it decided that Discord supposed to be the one enforcing this? A pop-up saying "you really should be 18+" is one thing, but this sounds like a genuine effort to lock out young people. Neither Discord nor a government ratings agency should be taking final responsibility for how children get bought up, that seems like something parents should be responsible for. This is over-rea…

When a corner shop sells cigarettes to minors, who's breaking the law?

When a TV channel broadcast porn, who gets fined?

These are accepted laws that protect kids from "harm", which are relatively uncontroversial.

Now, the privacy angle is very much the right question. But as Discord are the one that are going to get fined, they totally need to make sure kids aren't being exposed to shit they shouldn't be seeing until they are old enough. In the same way the corner shop needs to make sure they don't sell booze to 16 year olds.

Now, what is the mechanism that Discord should/could use? that's the bigger question.

Can government provide fool proof, secure, private and scalable proof of age services? How can private industry do it? (Hint: they wont because its a really good source of profile information for advertising.)

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#105

Post by KaiserPro »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #7

I suspect the endgame of this campaign is to have mandatory ID checks for social media. Police would have access to these upon court orders etc and be able to easily prosecute anyone who posts 'harmful' content online.

They already have access to this.

If you run a social media site, then you have an API that allows government access to your data.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#107

Post by KaiserPro »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #102
zevv wrote: post #12

So, what will be the proper technology to apply here? I have no problem with verification of my age (not the date of birth, just the boolean, >18yo), but I do have a problem with sending any party a picture of my face or my passport.

This is a social problem and as such cannot be solved with technology. You would have to make social media so uncool that young people didn't use it. One of the easiest ways of doing this is associating it with old people. Therefore the fastest way to get young people off discord is to get geriatric on discord and en-mass.

Underage drinking is a social problem.

The issue isn't social media is bad, the issue is that social media has no effective moderation. If an adult is hanging out at the park talking to minors, thats easy to spot and correct. there is a strong social pressure to not let that happen.

The problem is when moving to chat, not only is a mobile private to the child, there are no safe mechanisms to allow parents to "spot the nonce". Moreover the kid has no real way of knowing they are adults until it's too late.

Its a difficult problem, doing nothing is going to ruin a generation (or already has), doing it half arsed is going to undermine privacy and not solve the problem.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#108

Post by nicbou »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #98

Frankly I'm scared by governments and corporations going "papers, please" for people to be allowed to access the Internet. On top of endangering privacy by tying pseudonymous online interactions to real-life ID and biometrics, attempts to block under-18 people from finding information or interacting online will only amplify how society regards them as not having rights. This will isolate people (especially gay and tr…

To add to this, some people might be left out because companies are not financially incentivised to verify them.

In Germany, immigrants struggle to open a bank account because the banks require documents that they don't have (and that they can hardly get with a bank account). Russian, Iranian and Syrian citizens have a particularly hard time finding a bank that works for them. The most common video document verification system does not support some Indian passports, among others.

To banks, leaving these people out is a rational business decision. The same thing will happen to those deemed too risky or too much hassle by the internet's gatekeepers, but at a much bigger scale.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#109

Post by blibble »

doublerabbit wrote: post #92
MisterTea wrote: post #3

It's interesting how the "features" which many claim IRC is missing turn out to be a huge liability. Adult content is applied via image hosting, video/audio chat, etc. All things IRC lacks.

> All things IRC lacks. IRC gives you all the features of a normal client but you've got to create them yourself which itself is a dark-art that's been squandered by today's gimmicky services. Just because it doesn't have a fancy UI to present the media doesn't mean it can't. Encode to base64 and post in channel. Decode it back to normal format... IRC is excellent for large amounts of stringed text. You could even st…

sending any reasonably sized jpeg as base64 text will take you several minutes with typical server flood protection

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#110

Post by EA-3167 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #104
roenxi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, key point in the framing, when was it decided that Discord supposed to be the one enforcing this? A pop-up saying "you really should be 18+" is one thing, but this sounds like a genuine effort to lock out young people. Neither Discord nor a government ratings agency should be taking final responsibility for how children get bought up, that seems like something parents should be responsible for. This is over-rea…

When a corner shop sells cigarettes to minors, who's breaking the law? When a TV channel broadcast porn, who gets fined? These are accepted laws that protect kids from "harm", which are relatively uncontroversial. Now, the privacy angle is very much the right question. But as Discord are the one that are going to get fined, they totally need to make sure kids aren't being exposed to shit they shouldn't be seeing unti…

Cigarettes are deadly

Broadcasting porn isn't an age ID issue, it's public airwaves and they're regulated.

These aren't primarily "think of the children" arguments, the former is a major public health issue that's taken decades to begin to address, and the latter is about ownership.

I don't think that chat rooms are in the same category as either public airwaves or drugs. Besides what's the realistic outcome here? Under 18's aren't stupid, what would you have done as a kid if Discord was suddenly blocked off? Shrug and not talk to your friends again?

Or would you figure out how to bypass the checks, use a different service, or just use IRC? Telegram chats? Something even less moderated and far more open to abuse, because that's what can slip under the radar.

So no I don't think this is about protecting kids, I think it's about normalizing the loss of anonymity online.

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