Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

techoversight.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 170 posts

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#131

Post by micromacrofoot »

rafram wrote: post #75
micromacrofoot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sounds like YouTube taking actual steps to improve the situation. And yet here we are years later without change. So we've got proof that they knew this and have done nothing. Don't need to speculate at all.

No, they actually added a bedtime reminder feature for all users that they couldn't verify to be adults: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1pmcr04/what_the_h...

lol yes, every software company's answer to a problem, no matter how pervasive: a new setting

but I guess you're right, it's a little more than nothing

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#132

Post by uniq7 »

mikkupikku wrote: post #128
akramachamarei wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very shocking that you're being downvoted on HackerNews of all places, where I'd expect people to be tech-literate and aware of the harms of internet age verification law etc.

I downvoted it because he invoked the analogy of alcohol and tobacco while simultaneously arguing that it should be totally on the parents. That's not how it's done for alcohol and tobacco! If that were true then any shop could sell booze and cigs to kids, and if that were the case then how could parents possibly hope to stop it? The premise that parenting is wholly on the parents and society at large doesn't need to…

Age verification for alcohol/tobacco doesn't require full identification nor keeps any records that can be later used for tracking people for other perverse purposes.

I didn't say that "parenting is wholly on the parents", that's a straw man argument. I said that parents who don't keep their children away from digital dangers should be blamed.

Parents have a huge radius of action, they can:

- Avoid using Youtube for entertaining their babies/toddlers.

- Avoid buying tablets to their children.

- If they buy them a phone, use parental control and restrict app usage.

- Monitor what their kids do on internet.

- And the most important: educate their children to identify dangers.

Do you think a parent who does none of this shouldn't be blamed?

I want parents to embrace responsibility and act as parents. Delegating this kind of education to government is dangerous and has many negative collateral effects we will pay sooner or later.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#133

Post by program_whiz »

uniq7 wrote: post #119
rightbyte wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The salesman is at their friends place. And is a prerequisite for soccer team meetups. Etc. You need most parents to cooperate to bar him... but yeah I guess being prudent at home helps.

I totally understand that "the salesman" is everywhere and that a single person can't fight against that, but he is everywhere because most parents are not blocking him in the first place, and that's exactly my point. Those are the parents that need to be blamed. In my first message I was not targeting those parents who try to block this but can't; I was targeting those parents that use Youtube to distract their kids…

This is a surprising take. So you know that this gun salesman is targeting the youth, and that parents can only resolve it by massive collective action, but they are to blame, and the gun salesman should be allowed to continue on his merry way?

Do you think a crack dealer should be allowed to hang around on the playground and every kid has to talk to him too (and its up to parents to make sure the kids know not to buy his stuff)?

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#134

Post by fsflover »

mikkupikku wrote: post #111
fsflover wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no serious attempts at enforcing the rules.

If that's so, then is it realistic to expect that to somehow change? These corps have been fined more times than I can count, but it's clearly not working.

The fines were too low. If Europe is serious now, it can change.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#135

Post by program_whiz »

mikkupikku wrote: post #128
akramachamarei wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very shocking that you're being downvoted on HackerNews of all places, where I'd expect people to be tech-literate and aware of the harms of internet age verification law etc.

I downvoted it because he invoked the analogy of alcohol and tobacco while simultaneously arguing that it should be totally on the parents. That's not how it's done for alcohol and tobacco! If that were true then any shop could sell booze and cigs to kids, and if that were the case then how could parents possibly hope to stop it? The premise that parenting is wholly on the parents and society at large doesn't need to…

Yes, to uniq7 and others -- you keep saying "identity verification will be used for nefarious purposes". Lets take the alcohol and tobacco case, was it used for nefarious purposes? Did adults suddenly lose rights and/or have something bad happen to them?

The government can and does already track whatever they want about you. Businesses already track you unless you are extremely thorough about erasing your footprint. Adding a zero-knowledge proof through a trusted system that you are 18+ doesn't seem like the mountain people are claiming. You already have to provide ID and credit card to get ISP access, the byte patterns are traced back to your household. They already have a unique fingerprint on your browser and computer. The real harm is just the obvious encroachment that we can all see and have known about since early 2000s. They don't need a "backdoor", it feels like alarmism over a possible problem, when there is a very real harm to children and teens (suicide rates, depression, bullying, mental health, etc).

to go back to smoking / alcohol / guns, one could argue it is an infringement, but ultimately it does seem to have been the right choice for society at large, and the increased "invasion of privacy" has been pretty minor. If anything, the opt-in stuff like credit cards, cell phones, GPS, car apps, streaming services have all been far larger invasions of privacy that people willingly embrace.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#136

Post by uniq7 »

program_whiz wrote: post #135
mikkupikku wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted it because he invoked the analogy of alcohol and tobacco while simultaneously arguing that it should be totally on the parents. That's not how it's done for alcohol and tobacco! If that were true then any shop could sell booze and cigs to kids, and if that were the case then how could parents possibly hope to stop it? The premise that parenting is wholly on the parents and society at large doesn't need to…

Yes, to uniq7 and others -- you keep saying "identity verification will be used for nefarious purposes". Lets take the alcohol and tobacco case, was it used for nefarious purposes? Did adults suddenly lose rights and/or have something bad happen to them? The government can and does already track whatever they want about you. Businesses already track you unless you are extremely thorough about erasing your footprint.…

Age verification for alcohol/tobacco doesn't require full identification nor keeps any records that can be later used for tracking people for other perverse purposes.

Also, the fact that gov and companies are already tracking people doesn't mean we should consent to more ways of tracking.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#138

Post by kilna »

sharts wrote: post #9

This is obvious for anyone that understands sales and marketing. The real question isn’t whether this was true—the question is why does anyone expect this revelation would change anything? They made their wealth. They bought their politicians. In the worst possible case for them they would pay some fee that amounts to absolutely nothing making a dent in their personal day to day lives as a consequence of their action…

All capitalism is crony capitalism.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#139

Post by Dylan16807 »

program_whiz wrote: post #133
uniq7 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand that "the salesman" is everywhere and that a single person can't fight against that, but he is everywhere because most parents are not blocking him in the first place, and that's exactly my point. Those are the parents that need to be blamed. In my first message I was not targeting those parents who try to block this but can't; I was targeting those parents that use Youtube to distract their kids…

This is a surprising take. So you know that this gun salesman is targeting the youth, and that parents can only resolve it by massive collective action, but they are to blame, and the gun salesman should be allowed to continue on his merry way? Do you think a crack dealer should be allowed to hang around on the playground and every kid has to talk to him too (and its up to parents to make sure the kids know not to bu…

> and the gun salesman should be allowed to continue on his merry way?

I see nothing in their comments to suggest that.

They argued against the government tracking people, that's it.

Re: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"

#140

Post by indubioprorubik »

Because teens make up revolutions and warbands in societal regressions - they have nothing to loose and everything to gain, especially topheavy, elder centric societies like the west. Controll mechanisms are the stabilization agents preventing Hitler Youth, Red Guard runaways. And it works. Testrun completed. Now it can be gradually reversed and the useless elderly dispossessed off the holdings they cling too - if they pledge loyalty to the cooperate feudalist royalty.
Post reply on HN