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Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

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Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#151

Post by iamnothere »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #145
iamnothere wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you’re welcome to be a test case. I do think there is a stronger case against the next under-18 Aaron Swartz, who will get hit with 200 felonies for setting his age wrong (one felony per app/service) after pissing off someone important.

I'm more than happy to be a test case. I'm pushing 40 but I will do every single thing in my power to give false information to the surveillance machine. If I get arrested for lying about my age, when I'm of age, then they could probably get me on a whim already anyway. No point in trying to fall in line.

Another one I just thought of is when they arrest a parent for setting their 17 year old kid’s age to 18 (again under CFAA) because said parent thinks the kid is mature enough to access whatever the hell they want to. Easy to imagine in a red state, especially if the kid tells others about their 18+ access.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#152

Post by duskdozer »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
tasuki wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online As a parent, sure, that is my stance as well. What... what other stances are there even? How would they work?

The other stance is that most parents are not capable of winning a battle against tech giants for the mind of their children, just as parents were not capable of winning this fight with tobacco and alcohol companies.

If this had anything to do with reigning in tech giants, it would be done for adults as well, without restricting anyone's rights (well, aside from the people-corporations' of course). The issues are the manipulative algorithmic datafeeds, advertising, and datamining. Age verification does nothing for any of this and only provides the tech giants and governments the means to secure even more control over people.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#153

Post by mindslight »

heavyset_go wrote: post #44
cosmos0072 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

> Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option. There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws a…

ZKP methods are just as draconian as they rely on locking down end user devices with remote attestation, which is why they're being pushed by Google ("Safety" net, WEI, etc).

The real answer to the problem is for websites/appstores to publish tags that are legally binding assertions of age appropriateness, and then browsers/systems can be configured to use those tags to only show appropriate content to their intended user.

This also gives parents the ability to additionally decide other types of websites are not suitable for their children, rather than trusting websites themselves to make that decision within the context of their regulatory capture. For example imagine a Facebook4Kidz website that vets posts as being age appropriate, but does nothing to alleviate the dopamine drip mechanics.

There has been a market failure here, so it wouldn't be unreasonable for legislation to dictate that large websites must implement these tags (over a certain number of users), and that popular mobile operating systems / browsers implement the parental controls functionality. But there would be no need to cover all websites and operating systems - untagged websites fail as unavailable in the kid-appropriate browsers, and parents would only give devices with parental controls enabled to their kids.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#154

Post by julkali »

john_strinlai wrote: post #136

for ~2 decades i have attended events, written to my representatives, proposed solutions to whoever i can, and encouraged my students to do the same as various attempts are made to strip regular people of their privacy. for ~2 decades now, i have been trying to fight this fight. one scary observation is that each year, less and less people care. at least, this is true among my students. plenty of them believe the 'pr…

i felt that.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#155

Post by ori_b »

jwr wrote: post #2

I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.

The way to go for this kind of thing is to not go for this kind of thing at all.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#156

Post by duskdozer »

soulofmischief wrote: post #142
cosmos0072 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

I'll go further. As a human being, I am responsible for myself. I grew up in an extremely abusive, impoverished, cult-like religious home where anything not approved by White Jesus was disallowed. I owe everything about who I am today to learning how to circumvent firewalls and other forms of restriction. I would almost certainly be dead if I hadn't learned to socialize and program on the web despite it being strictl…

This is obviously where it's going to go, at least in the US. Things that are non-religious, non-Christian especially, pro-LGBT, and similar will be disproportionately pulled under "adult content" to ensure that children are not able to be exposed to unapproved ideas during formative years.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#157

Post by XorNot »

edgyquant wrote: post #60
fn-mote wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fine websites for not using this API (ex: porn sites). Recent posters here are clear that porn sites are setting every available signal that they are serving adult-only content. According to them, you are targeting the wrong audience. Facebook/Instagram studying how to get young users addicted should be of greater concern. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of age-based blocking there, though.

Both are problems, porn sites have also targeted children and any non-enforced age “verification” on these sites is simply plausible deniability that isn’t plausible at all

In what way have porn sites targeted children? They have no disposable income to target and the product is literally self age gated in appeal.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#158

Post by inetknght »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #41
Chance-Device wrote: post #7

TLDR: Meta want to push all the age verification requirements onto the OS makers (Apple, Google, everyone else gets caught in the crossfire) so that they don’t have to do anything AND they want it done in such a way that they can use it to profile people to push them targeted ads. Its like they want to keep being seen as the bad guys.

I want age verification but not at the OS level.

> I want age verification

Why?

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#159

Post by module1973 »

cosmos0072 wrote: post #5
jwr wrote: post #2

I am now waiting for Gruber (daringfireball.net) to post another rant about how terrible EU regulation is. Zero-knowledge proofs are the way to go for this type of thing, I find it mind-boggling that the US lets itself be bamboozled into complete lack of privacy.

I am from EU, and contrary to age verification laws in general. My stance is that if somebody is a minor, his/her/their parents/tutors/legal guardian are responsible for what they can/cannot do online, and that the mechanism to enforce that is parental control on devices. Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring…

that is correct the parents are meant to pass on morals and parent the child. If the parents fall through, there is the community such as church, neighbors, schools etc. The absolute last resort is government or law enforcement intervention, and this should be considered an extreme situation. But as John Adams noted, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people" -- in other words, all these laws start to rip at the seams when the fabric of society, the people who make up the society no longer have morals. But I appreciate this article in general, we need to fight against mass surveilance at all costs.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#160

Post by ori_b »

andrepd wrote: post #148
heavyset_go wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having said that, open-source zero-knowledge proofs are infinitely less evil (I refuse to say "better") than commercial cloud-based age monitoring baked into every OS To be honest, I worry that the framing of this legislation and ZKP generally presents a false dichotomy, where second-option bias[1] prevails because of the draconian first option. There's always another option: don't implement age verification laws a…

The concern is ubiquitous all-pervasive surveillance, control, and manipulation of algorithmical social media and its objective consequences for child development and well-being. Not "kids reading a bad word". Disagree all you want, but don't twist the premise. Surely you can find a rationalwiki article for your fallacy too.

If you want to avoid all pervasive surveillance, it might be wise to not mandate all pervasive surveillance in the OS by law.

In fact, I suspect adults, and not just children, would also appreciate it if the pervasive surveillance was simply banned, instead of trying to age gate it. Why should bad actors be allowed to prey on adults?

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