btw, what have schools done in the past 2 decades to educate children about content consumption?
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The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
131–140 of 598 posts
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#132call and email your congresspeoples, and tell them not to go through with this
Isn't it interesting how they're doing it in every anglo country simultaneously? How does that work?
At global conferences like Davos, where national leaders and policy makers go to schmooze and exchange ideas, this idea has been discussed for years. I’m sure there has been some subsequent cross-border coordination and discussion.
For instance:
https://idtechwire.com/spains-pm-proposes-mandatory-digital-...
https://www.weforum.org/publications/reimagining-digital-id/
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/01/davos-agenda-digital...
Everyone ignores stuff like this because of people like Alex Jones who make it seem like a lunatic conspiracy theory. But these conferences happen, and they do influence policy. It’s not a “cabal” that issues orders—many participants are national leaders bringing their perspectives (see the link above about Sanchez)—but it does have an impact.
The banal truth is that many different world leaders have talked each other into this after years of discussion on the proper way to “manage” the Internet. They see cyberspace as a threat to top-down technocratic control and view Internet-enabled populism (aka democracy) as something to be quashed.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#133I like to look back in history for parallels. In 1912 the USA required that all radio transmitters be licensed. There were classifications established for commercial and amateur stations. So at that time Feds understood the power of giving citizens the ability to communicate with the masses. Fast forward to the 1990s and politicians were clueless about what the internet was doing or would do in future. So what is the…
There's a limited amount of radio spectrum, so it has to be managed. Though technically not unlimited in the strictest sense, internet communications don't have a real limit on how many people can communicate with each other, except limits artificially created.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#134[flagged]
Everything that happened during the pandemic period is an embarrassment most would like to forget. The authoritarians however remember everything and see how little friction there is against them expanding their power, especially if they can wrap it up in a threat.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frankly, our liberty and privacy do not deserve to die because of children. They are going to track everything everyone does, and the next generation will turn that tracking into coercion and control. This is everything we were warned about in 1984. Kill products that advertise to kids before you kill privacy. Make it illegal to advertise to children instead of making people submit their state-issued ID. Fine parents…
Look, I'll do my part with my kids (as in no social e-life before 16, which anyway somewhat aligns with various state bans flying all around the world, if there will be peer pressure then so be it new Commodore flip phone looks ideal for that), I know what sort of cancer to young developing defenseless mind screens have. I can see it all around. Child psychologists all agree, but few parents want to hear that. But it…
> But its unfair to kids who have shitty weak lazy parents, and screens are like fentanyl to young mind, there is literally nothing more attention-grabbing in the world for them.
As much as I generally agree with your comment, it's not "the screens". It's the entire industry hyperoptimizing every bit out of their social networks/media for attention; gambling mechanics in live-service games. In other words, not a "handful" of apps, but too many of the apps and websites you come across.
You'll surely remember the numerous attempts at edu software/games of the 90s. Instead, the current attention monopolies won and have been perfecting their addiction mechanics for the past 20 years.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
This kind of restrictions expects account control to work. For example, parent's account & separate child account on a device. For the same reasons you describe, it will be ineffective: not tech-savvy. Children will use their parent's/grandma's account on TV and phone, one that has long been verified as "adult" despite the Youtube recommendations consisting of 6-13yo content. If there were an organic push by parents,…
You're assuming the politicians think this will be 100% successful and not, say, 80% successful.
I assume ulterior motives for politicians. It's their PR campaigns that do make it seem like it will solve all children's issues, if only we sacrifice a little privacy for their control. One thing that's never mentioned is increased vulnerability when (inevitably) personal data (of children) leaks.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#137That sounds like a reasonable aim. Online services should be responsible for implementing age verification checks on content that children shouldn't be accessing, just like vendors of alcohol and nicotine products are responsible for age verification. The EFF likes to frame everything that might even slightly rein in online service providers as being a terrible assault on online freedom and therefore, in their view,…
> vendors of alcohol and nicotine products are responsible for age verification. You don't wind up in a database for buying alcohol. This proposal puts your name right next to the category of porn you're into, which will be a great way to coerce all those politicians into voting for the "correct" bill. Would be a shame if they found out a state senator watched porn, so maybe they'd better vote yes on the proposal. In…
> as the US becomes more fundamentalist and Christian.
As Christian I would say "more fundamentalist and less Christian". I am not sure this is religiously based. We have similar things happening in European countries that are not religious. Its a moral panic and "think of the children".
> You don't wind up in a database for buying alcohol.
My (just turned 18) daughter said a pub in the UK scanned her driving license so they may well be connecting to some database before letting young people buy alcohol. IIRC the EU wants its age verification app to be used for things like this.
This is a time of "first they came for the....".
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The truth hurts and you're getting downvoted for it. The public at large have real issues with the current state of the internet and people here don't want to hear it or address it so we get this.
HN is a venture capital place, we are the ones financially benefiting from destroying children's minds so of course we don't want them to put a stop to it.
Maybe. I see a lot of canned responses to privacy, freedom of speech, "it's not really about protecting children," etc. That might all be true but it doesnt address the problems that people have with the current state of things.
I've said it in other threads but the worst thing you can do is tell people their problems aren't real.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming the politicians think this will be 100% successful and not, say, 80% successful.
I assume ulterior motives for politicians. It's their PR campaigns that do make it seem like it will solve all children's issues, if only we sacrifice a little privacy for their control. One thing that's never mentioned is increased vulnerability when (inevitably) personal data (of children) leaks.
I think politicians treat IDs as public info. Theirs are, and they have access to a lot of databases of all citizens.
Re: The KIDS Act would require age checks to get online
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
We do not need to lose our rights to privacy because people want to control what their kids do and see. (I'm not even convinced this is true - this is likely just a convenient lie told by the politicians, because I don't see parents clamoring for this.) We're below replacement rate, so it's not like most people are even having kids, anyway. Yet we have to give up our freedom for other people to raise little Christian…
When did you grow up? The internet in 2006 and 2026 were nothing alike.
Yeah, the 2026 internet is way safer