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The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

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Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#111

> These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously. Of course. Anyone who brings up kids is trying to manipulate you into giving up your freedom for security. Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

> Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

This makes very little sense. People sometimes appeal to the safety of children cynically, but it's very often sincere, since parents genuinely do worry a lot about their kids.

You can tell people to ignore these appeals, but it won't work, and you'll be leaving better arguments on the table.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why repeat the same argument if it clearly hasn't worked? Do you expect it to suddenly become effective? Change in behavior can only follow from change in incentives. Parents must be held legally liable if they allow their children access to social media. That means jail time for negligence.

Supposedly the incentive already exists because parents want their children saved from the harms of facebook and social media. The story is that parents are clamoring for the government to do something about it. I don't think parents really are, or where they are the expectation is that the social media companies will be forced to change their behavior, not that parents will be forced to start parenting their childre…

The incentive for parents to stop giving their children smartphones does not exist. If it did exist, it would incite parents to perform the action: ie not give their children smartphones.

Incentives incite action. No action. No incentive.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#113

Like it or not, there is a large constituency who wants to “protect the children”. By demonizing them and failing to engage with the worries over social media and pornography We have brought it on ourselves. Is it to be wondered at that many people are angry when tech companies have polluted the commons with their effluvium?

I agree with the other commenter who replied to you. I don’t think this comes from actual parents. And the article suggests this latest push is from right-leaning groups whose goals are surveillance and censorship.

That said, I’m a father of 3. I’m a millennial and tech worker. I have the digital literacy to teach my kids about the internet and its horrors in a safe way. Not every parent does, so passing this off as a “parent better” issue doesn’t solve anything either.

I dunno if you can legislate “better parental control ux”, but I’m open to similar ideas so parents can get some support without compromising on privacy.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents can stop giving kids smartphones.

Why repeat the same argument if it clearly hasn't worked? Do you expect it to suddenly become effective? Change in behavior can only follow from change in incentives. Parents must be held legally liable if they allow their children access to social media. That means jail time for negligence.

Why would we even consider jailing parents before banning social media from kids and jailing Mark Zuckerberg for pushing it on them?

The power imbalance between individual parents and big tech is immense.

How can we be mad at random parents for not defeating the most powerful and rich people in history?

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note how they always ignore parental controls, and skip straight to deanonymize everyone.

Tech people keep ignoring the fact that many people a) find the parental controls too hard to use and b) have no confidence that their kids won't find a way to circumvent them. If parents felt in control of technology they wouldn't be calling on governments to regulate it in the first place. I know a lot of tech people like to assume that government wants to control everything and these parents are fake front groups…

Well, I'm sorry parental controls are too hard to use, but all of the parents who want all other adults to sacrifice their online anonymity just to make to for it need to get their heads screwed on straight. They're screwing a) themselves b) everyone else and c) their own children when they reach adulthood.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#117

> These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously. Of course. Anyone who brings up kids is trying to manipulate you into giving up your freedom for security. Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

> Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed. This makes very little sense. People sometimes appeal to the safety of children cynically, but it's very often sincere, since parents genuinely do worry a lot about their kids . You can tell people to ignore these appeals, but it won't work, and you'll be leaving better arguments on the table.

Yes it’s normal to worry about your kids. It’s normal for family and friends to worry about your kids.

When a politician is worried about your kids, you should be worried about your rights and freedoms. Not only for your own sake but for your kids too!

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#118
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half the laws we're complaining about (e.g. California, Illinois) are literally just regulating parental controls, and I can no longer give the benefit of the doubt to people who act as if this is the same as forcing internet users to scan their ID. People who conflate these two things are paid lobbyists of Meta to make sure Meta won't have to be safe for children even when the parental controls checkbox is turned on…

Regulating parental controls by making you scan an ID to use a computer is even worse than doing it to access a website. I understand that today's laws are not doing that, but do you genuinely, truly believe in your heart of hearts that once every OS has mandatory age fields, that nobody is going to start proposing legislation to attempt to enforce its validity by ID verification + hardware attestation? You're not wi…

What law anywhere in the US is specifically forcing the physical scanning of an ID to use a computer?

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#119

> These NGOs have converged upon a unified strategy: use the rhetoric of ‘child safety’ to advocate for digital ID laws that would prevent adults from using the internet anonymously. Of course. Anyone who brings up kids is trying to manipulate you into giving up your freedom for security. Whatever argument they make should be simply ignored and dismissed.

Comes down to something I have said for a long while. Anyone that wants power, who is saying it, why are they saying it and why do people believe them.

That one can get deep really quick.

Re: The UK's war on anonymity has come to America

#120
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulating parental controls by making you scan an ID to use a computer is even worse than doing it to access a website. I understand that today's laws are not doing that, but do you genuinely, truly believe in your heart of hearts that once every OS has mandatory age fields, that nobody is going to start proposing legislation to attempt to enforce its validity by ID verification + hardware attestation? You're not wi…

Of course that is not parental controls. That's 3rd party controls. Parental controls means you create a child account for children and when a site is detected as being adult ideally using RTA headers [1] then a password prompt asks for the parents approval. That is parental controls. [1] - https://nochan.net/b/Internet-Crap/20230829-Think-Of-The-Chi...

Indeed, that's a reasonable approach. Just to clarify that we're agreeing, the comment I was replying to was strongly defending California and Illinois' laws that require the OS record an age field for the primary user of the device, which while currently self-declared is at least an obvious path for future, more invasive legislation.
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