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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

#141

Post by ericmay »

mindslight wrote: post #133
ericmay wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, propag…

> 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?

I think I am just more aligned with, for example, the French president on his criticisms: https://archive.ph/JMrd4 (archive link to avoid Bloomberg paywall)

  "“Having no clue about how their algorithm is made, how it’s tested, trained and where it will guide you — the democratic consequences of this bias could be huge,” Macron said Wednesday in New Delhi. “Some of them claim to be in favor of free speech — OK, we are in favor of free algorithms — totally transparent,” Macron said. “Free speech is pure bullshit if nobody knows how you are guided to this so-called free speech, especially when it is guided from one hate speech to another.”
I think this idea that social media companies are free speech platforms or should be treated as such, is incorrect and it's leading to bad outcomes. They are product companies selling you an experience of "being connected" and engaging with them is a matter of terms of service, not exercising a constitutional right.

> Sure, great! Go right ahead! I honestly think sec 230 was a mistake.

I would but it's not up to me. I am not sure Section 230 was a mistake, at least in principle. But if you think Sec 230 was a mistake what would social media companies do in response? Verify you. Which the government has access to...

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#142

Post by hekkle »

zamadatix wrote: post #84
t1234s wrote: post #17

This is a bait-and-switch that will be used to roll in an internet ID for all people. I believe this is why M$ is trying to force people to log in to their local machines with a microsoft account.

I'm much more convinced Microsoft wants to do stuff like sell cloud subscriptions at the click of a button in the desktop than Microsoft gives a crap about those subscriptions being tied to a consistent account ID. The latter certainly sounds evil, but not in a way that particularly helps Microsoft over their competitors. Uncle Bob probably would probably need to do a decent amount of work to figure out how to purcha…

> I'm much more convinced Microsoft wants to do stuff like sell cloud subscriptions at the click of a button in the desktop than Microsoft gives a crap about those subscriptions being tied to a consistent account ID. The latter certainly sounds evil, but not in a way that particularly helps Microsoft over their competitors.

Bless your cotton socks, you had it in the first part MS wants to sell stuff, but then you failed to realise that by tying people to a consistent account ID builds a profiling on them that lets MS serve targeted advertisements, through Edge.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#143

Post by iamnothere »

gigel82 wrote: post #136
spicyjpeg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Are we all going to run pirate LoRa nodes and other such things to get some free (as in freedom) internet?

I will, if it comes down to it. I wouldn’t love to return to the 1980s with pirate BBSes and floppynet, but I already lived through it and survived. There would be a certain romance to it, like old hacker movies, maybe it would even make cyberpunk cool again.

(To be clear, it would still suck and we should fight this. But even if we lose a battle, the war is eternal.)

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#144

Post by ericmay »

iamnothere wrote: post #140
ericmay wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. > Sno…

> Yes, and it required a Constitutional amendment to remove it.

Yea but I can think of lots of other examples. You are missing the point.

> You’re welcome to try and push through an amendment to limit free speech rights, but it won’t pass!

I'm in favor of free speech so I wouldn't want to limit it.

> 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.

Sounds like defeatism.

> Yes, to avoid retaliation. Your point?

He's not just there in Russia because of that. My point is he is either an actual traitor, or someone who was duped into doing what he did.

> Good, you’re getting it.

Haha I think you missed the point, but I can explain it for you. If you are relying on social media for these things, you have already screwed up. Regulating them one way or another is immaterial, because the dependency is a far greater problem.

> 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 it'll have a chilling effect. People publicly complain about their employers all the time using their real information. The popularity of something isn't an acceptable argument to me.

> 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.

Maybe you shouldn't say things that result in you needing private security? It's no different than walking down the street yelling vulgar or offensive things. You might get punched. I see much more harm done by anonymous broadcasting here than I see benefits. Plus you are never truly anonymous on these platforms. Sure it's slightly more difficult for someone to identify you, but if you make enough people mad you will be identified and no amount of "anonymity" will save you. If the government itself wanted to identify you it can do so at the snap of a finger.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#145

Post by ericmay »

1209178 wrote: post #88
ericmay wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is happening today with anonymity, but then we have all the negative stuff too.

> But that is happening today with anonymity It would happen a lot more often without anonymity.

No it wouldn't. Accounts would be identified right so you would know that some account is a China bot farm or Russian military or whatever. And then when Jane down the street starts talking about the need to kill "insert group here" well you know who they are and you can go down and have a talking to them or tell their employer, or whatever. If you say crazy stuff maybe there should be repercussions. Today there are none. It has a moderating effect when there are consequences.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#146

Post by iamnothere »

ericmay wrote: post #144
iamnothere wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. > Sno…

> Yes, and it required a Constitutional amendment to remove it. Yea but I can think of lots of other examples. You are missing the point. > You’re welcome to try and push through an amendment to limit free speech rights, but it won’t pass! I'm in favor of free speech so I wouldn't want to limit it. > I doubt it! The media is mostly dead or coopted, and the powerful won’t willingly set up a system where you can rat th…

> Maybe you shouldn't say things that result in you needing private security? It's no different than walking down the street yelling vulgar or offensive things. You might get punched.

Maybe you shouldn’t have spoken up. Maybe you shouldn’t have walked down that street. Maybe you shouldn’t have worn that dress.

Done with this convo, I think this says enough.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#147

Post by vorpalhex »

jerf wrote: post #69
agentifysh wrote: post #40

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

As I recently observed [1], there is a lot more of this sort of coordination than people realize. I personally know of about three groups trying to get some cross-state initiatives implemented at the state level, and I'm not even particularly looking for such things. It is not a coincidence. It means there is some organization out there pushing these. In general, "organization" here applies very broadly; there are so…

Can you name the groups? (Assuming they are sufficiently public, corporate/political entities)

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#148

Post by donmcronald »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #71

Serious question: why can't Meta, Google, and friends just decide not to serve Arizona? I get logistically it would be tough, but if they built that capability, they would have a very robust lever to pull anytime a government pulls this schtick. I would imagine the backlash from the people would fix this pretty quickly. This seems like one of those "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" situations. I'd fully support bi…

> What am I missing?

Big tech are going to be the ones selling the verified ID solutions and the laws are going to effectively make it mandatory. There’s a potential future where we’ll all be paying for a subscription to a verified ID system that we don’t want.

Big tech is probably lobbying for it behind our backs.

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#149

Post by trhway »

ericmay wrote: post #128
trhway wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chilling effect you’re supporting leads exactly to thriving of bots and propagandists while suppressing dissenting voices of regular people. Just look at any country where it is already fully or partially implemented.

I don't support any chilling effects. > leads exactly to thriving of bots and propagandists while suppressing dissenting voices of regular people. This is the current state, today, with anonymity. > Just look at any country where it is already fully or partially implemented. Which ones?

>This is the current state, today, with anonymity.

whatever the current state, removing anonymity will remove dissenting voices of regular people.

> Which ones?

Russia for example. The sites where verification is implemented has become pro-government bot cesspools.

Here you mentioned LinkedIn - it is where pro-Russian propaganda runs free (especially if compare to for example HN where people freely respond to it), and it is exactly where my even pretty mild response to it got me almost banned, and so I don’t engage it there anymore.

I wonder how do you square your de-anonymity of speech position with anonymity of voting, or do also think that voting should not be anonymous?

Re: Arizona Bill Requires Age Verification for All Apps

#150

Post by mindslight »

ericmay wrote: post #141
mindslight wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, propag…

> 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? I think I am just more aligned with, for example, the French president on his criticisms: https://arch…

> I think this idea that social media companies are free speech platforms or should be treated as such, is incorrect and it's leading to bad outcomes. They are product companies selling you an experience of "being connected" and engaging with them is a matter of terms of service

Yes I wholeheartedly agree with Macron's quote, and basically agree with your interpretation of it. Maybe you can see we have some common ground here and re-read what I wrote before? My critique isn't trying to reject that there is a problem. Rather I'd say my critique is that your proposed solution is specious and will enable worse things

> not exercising a constitutional right

Except individual users are also exercising a constitutional right. That's the problem - users' main modern ways of partaking in their constitutional rights are being modulated by corporations!

(Just to be clear though, I think the legal system's current framing of the owners/workers of Facebook having a "constitutional right" to control users' speech is utterly disingenuous)

> if you think Sec 230 was a mistake what would social media companies do in response? Verify you

Now that the situation has been set up, maybe, and maybe users would stand for this. But verification wouldn't actually resolve their problem when Joe Judgementproof posts fascist hate, they'd become jointly responsible for publishing it. The point is that the moral hazard created by sec 230 is precisely what has allowed the centralized social media industry to grow to the point it has.

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