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Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

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Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#131

Post by ericmay »

mindslight wrote: post #122
ericmay wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it isn't trade-off. Yes it is. > You're supporting a systematic chilling effect on free speech. No I'm not. ~~~~~~ There's no point in free speech if the only free speech is from bots and propagandists. Social media platforms aren't free speech platforms either, you're subject to their terms and conditions.

> There's no point in free speech if the only free speech is from bots and propagandists. Social media platforms aren't free speech platforms either, you're subject to their terms and conditions. You're absolving the social media companies of why they continue choosing to amplify bots and extremist content in one big "community", rather than working towards creating smaller communities that can have social trust and…

I think we should just ban social media companies. If you want to create a small community walk outside and create one with your neighbors.

> and by sidestepping that you're then going off into the weeds with some mistaken idea that we can approach the problem by purifying who can use such websites.

On the other hand we have what we have today, propagandists, bots, hatred, &c.

It's like you're complaining about potential problems, but ignoring the current problems happening today are those potential problems.

I am also not "going off into the weeds" because I'm just responding to the OP.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#132

Post by ericmay »

iamnothere wrote: post #119
ericmay wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's mostly easy to identify anyone if you actually want to - if you buy anything online you are 100% identifiable for example. Given the pros/cons in context, I think I'm in favor of it for social media, at least. I'd actually argue you would want to go further and you should have your full address, employer, and more available online. LinkedIn is a cesspool of awful salespeople, but you know what it's not?…

Fortunately your opinion doesn’t trump the Constitution or settled law. Anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) speech has been a feature of American discourse since before the Revolution. Without anonymity, you lose whistleblowers, effective criticism of the powerful from the weak, and “public interest” leaks like the Snowden revelations. You lose outlets where the abused can ask for help and advice in escaping bad sit…

> Fortunately your opinion doesn’t trump the Constitution or settled law.

Neither does yours? This is a nonsense claim.

> Anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) speech has been a feature of American discourse since before the Revolution.

You're just cherry-picking which ideas you like from the founders or early America. Slavery was also a feature of the United States. Whether we had something in the past or not isn't necessarily a good enough argument to keep doing it.

> Without anonymity, you lose whistleblowers,

We can figure out other ways to have whistleblowers without social media.

> effective criticism of the powerful from the weak, and “public interest” leaks like the Snowden revelations.

Snowden, who is living in Russia.

> You lose outlets where the abused can ask for help and advice in escaping bad situations.

The only way to do this is on social media, anonymously? If so, we have a much bigger problem. An emergency, even.

> You lose any/all criticism of employers current and past; who wants to hire a complainer?

I complain about past employers all the time. I don't think you lose this.

> You silence people who are afraid to give their opinion because of their employer or parent.

I don't think so. And both left and right political blocks have gotten plenty of people fired, even those who post anonymously.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#133

Post by mindslight »

ericmay wrote: post #131
mindslight wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no point in free speech if the only free speech is from bots and propagandists. Social media platforms aren't free speech platforms either, you're subject to their terms and conditions. You're absolving the social media companies of why they continue choosing to amplify bots and extremist content in one big "community", rather than working towards creating smaller communities that can have social trust and…

I think we should just ban social media companies. If you want to create a small community walk outside and create one with your neighbors. > and by sidestepping that you're then going off into the weeds with some mistaken idea that we can approach the problem by purifying who can use such websites. On the other hand we have what we have today, propagandists, bots, hatred, &c. It's like you're complaining about poten…

> I think we should just ban social media companies.

Sure, great! Go right ahead! I honestly think sec 230 was a mistake. Not in that I want to see it reversed so the fascists currently in power can use the dynamic as a club to go after speech they don't like. But rather that I think the Internet would have developed healthier without it, and what it has enabled.

> On the other hand we have what we have today, propagandists, bots, hatred, &c.

You seem to be pigeonholing all of the problems into one bag. "Hatred" does not go away with real-name policies.

> It's like you're complaining about potential problems, but ignoring the current problems happening today are those potential problems.

No, I am pointing out that you're approaching this from the wrong angle. The core dynamic of the Internet has always been "don't trust what you read on the Internet". The lack of needing permission to communicate is precisely what has enabled so much innovation. Defining context is the responsibility of higher layers.

What changed from that core dynamic? The social media companies showed up, took unvetted and unfiltered streams of content, and presented them to the public as trustworthy finished products. "We'll figure out a better system than naive voting later". Well later never came, did it? At least Slashdot tried.

Facebook relies on real names, creating lists of bona fide friends, and can (could?) show you only posts from friends-of-friends, right? How does this differ from what you're proposing? If you're seeing Facebook posts from bots, you've either friended bots or Facebook is responsible for showing them to you, right?

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#134

Post by dogleash »

mghackerlady wrote: post #98
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You weren’t around when Tipper Gore was raising the alarm about Ice T’s “Cop Killer” (now “ICE Killer” since he has been playing a cop on TV for a quarter century) or NWA and “F%%% the Police”

Gore is at best a centrist

And not born in Edinburgh, either.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#135

Post by cindyllm »

deltoidmaximus wrote: post #102
agentifysh wrote: post #40

Curious, what is driving this "you need permission to use the internet" bills suddenly ? Really miss the old internet.

As wealth inequality and corruption based economic policies push people further and further into a corner the state will have a greater need to identify any nascent organization of political movements that threaten the status quo earlier so these can be strangled in their cribs.

[dead]

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#136

Post by gigel82 »

spicyjpeg wrote: post #120
gigel82 wrote: post #22

It's clear these "age verification" bills will just keep coming and it's a losing battle to try and oppose each individually. Instead (or rather in addition to) activism we should go at it from the other end and request the introduction of a verifiably independent authority and zero knowledge protocol that will deliver a cryptographically secure boolean bit (isOver18) with no way to correlate from either end the ID o…

Solutions based on zero-knowledge-proofs would solve the privacy aspect at the massive cost of killing general purpose computing as we know it today, by mandating the use of remote device attestation (as that is the only way to guarantee an otherwise fully anonymous token is not being sniffed and passed onto someone else). That would be in my opinion significantly more dystopian than every service having a copy of my…

I'm not an expert in this area, but I thought blockchain and things like zk-SNARKs solved this.

I agree that if remote device attestation comes bundled in, it's worse overall.

But are we just SOL then? How long before Cloudflare integrates, and then ISPs? What is left of the internet? Are we all going to run pirate LoRa nodes and other such things to get some free (as in freedom) internet?

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#137

Post by giancarlostoro »

stvltvs wrote: post #117
giancarlostoro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every smart TV I own can be kept offline; I just don't put it online ever. The issue is the software bloat makes turning them on unnecessarily slower.

I don't trust that smart TVs won't use my neighbor's open Wifi or a mobile network to phone home.

Time to make a wiki... How to open up your TV and yank out the wifi antenna out of it...

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#138

Post by JoshTriplett »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #27
advisedwang wrote: post #6

In my ideal world a law would: 1. Require device manufacturers to allow the device owner (which covers parents of minors' devices) to set policy for the device, including allow/blocklist for apps and sites, and allow/blocklists for content categories. 2. Require browsers to respect the device's policy for site allow/blocklist 3. Require browsers to set a certain header for allow/blocklist of content categories 4. Req…

> Require browsers to respect the device's policy for site allow/blocklist But then HN would still riot, because you would need to require all apps to be approved by a central authority (no unauthorized browsers) OR you need to lock down browser engines to those that respect the list somehow (maybe by killing JIT, limiting network connections). I've learned long ago, as have politicians, there is zero solution that m…

> But then HN would still riot, because you would need to require all apps to be approved by a central authority (no unauthorized browsers) OR you need to lock down browser engines to those that respect the list somehow (maybe by killing JIT, limiting network connections).

The owner of a device could prevent the installation of third-party apps or app stores. That does not require having central approval.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#139

Post by AlienRobot »

ericmay wrote: post #66
thewebguyd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not implemented like that because the true goal of these laws has nothing to do with protecting children or age verification, and instead have everything to do with completely eliminating anonymity/pseudo-anonymity online. They want to ID everyone, and have all user generated content attributed to a known, identified individual.

I think it's mostly easy to identify anyone if you actually want to - if you buy anything online you are 100% identifiable for example. Given the pros/cons in context, I think I'm in favor of it for social media, at least. I'd actually argue you would want to go further and you should have your full address, employer, and more available online. LinkedIn is a cesspool of awful salespeople, but you know what it's not?…

>Maybe you should think twice before saying something online you wouldn't say while standing in front of your house or at work.

If you have to behave everywhere like you are in public, that is the very definition of having no privacy whatsoever.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#140

Post by iamnothere »

ericmay wrote: post #132
iamnothere wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately your opinion doesn’t trump the Constitution or settled law. Anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) speech has been a feature of American discourse since before the Revolution. Without anonymity, you lose whistleblowers, effective criticism of the powerful from the weak, and “public interest” leaks like the Snowden revelations. You lose outlets where the abused can ask for help and advice in escaping bad sit…

> Fortunately your opinion doesn’t trump the Constitution or settled law. Neither does yours? This is a nonsense claim. > Anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) speech has been a feature of American discourse since before the Revolution. You're just cherry-picking which ideas you like from the founders or early America. Slavery was also a feature of the United States. Whether we had something in the past or not isn't n…

> Slavery was also a feature of the United States.

Yes, and it required a Constitutional amendment to remove it. You’re welcome to try and push through an amendment to limit free speech rights, but it won’t pass!

> We can figure out other ways to have whistleblowers without social media.

I doubt it! The media is mostly dead or coopted, and the powerful won’t willingly set up a system where you can rat them out.

> Snowden, who is living in Russia.

Yes, to avoid retaliation. Your point?

> The only way to do this is on social media, anonymously? If so, we have a much bigger problem. An emergency, even.

Good, you’re getting it.

> I complain about past employers all the time. I don't think you lose this.

The popularity of anonymous outlets for this shows that most people don’t share your opinion. It would have a chilling effect.

> I don't think so. And both left and right political blocks have gotten plenty of people fired, even those who post anonymously.

Thanks for making my point for me. It’s even easier to target people when they are not anonymous. A number of left and right wing commentators are having to pay for private security because of threats. The ones who successfully remain anonymous don’t have to do this.

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