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US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

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211–220 of 243 posts

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#211
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not disagree that there is A LOT that Apple could, and should, be doing to enable parents. The problem that we have is, that if a vendor, like Apple, just decides to continue to have broken systems, there isn't a way to compel them to fix the problem outside of legislation. And, because most people in the House/Senate have a complete lack of technical literacy, we get situations where they define things poorly o…

We agree that legislation won't work because legislators aren't competent. But you claim that only legislation can force behavior, and I'm pretty sure that if a few senators just relayed their frustration with broken screen time reporting to Tim Cook personally we could get some results.

Calls don't have enforcement mechanisms/consequences needed to ensure compliance with the desired outcome. The whole point of government is not to ask nicely that something be done, it is to use the power of the state to ensure that something is done. Assuming that the state decides to actually enforce its laws, but that is an entirely different conversation.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an endless complaint I've heard for many years but Americans always vote for lobbied parties. They are clearly happy with this compared to whatever other reasons they have to vote. Somehow there's always something more important that makes them think "I'll tolerate a bit of corruption because at least he's promising XYZ".

As an american voter I confess you're right. - but also there aren't many good alternatives for us. Say you have 3 people running for senate to choose from. Canidate A and B have super PACs that spend $80 million each on ads. Canidate C doesn't. You could vote for canidate C, but he will likely lose - nobody sees anything about them, they can't employ many people to work their campaign, they don't get interviewed on…

But why not vote for a loser? Is it just some irrational pride/feeling thing? One vote is never going to determine the outcome anyway, yet a spoiler vote is still a signal to A and B about how competition is stealing their votes and how they could win you back.

That other reason you mentioned is ridiculous too. Since parties A and B always win, alternating each one or two cycles, it's not the end of the world if your hated one wins this time - if they don't, they'll just win next time anyway.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they will care that some cyberpunk refuse to compromise, or get around it? Some people refuse to fly, judging security checks at airport dystopian. Business goes on.

> Do you think they will care that some cyberpunk refuse to compromise, or get around it? Not me individually, no, but I hope that by speaking up I am doing a very small part to encourage others to speak up. If enough of us speak up, it can make a difference. The alternative (keeping my mouth shut) is complying in advance, IMO. > Some people refuse to fly, judging security checks at airport dystopian. Business goes o…

I also reject the body x-ray machine. Apparently some did speak up and by law they can't oblige us to go through potentially hazardous radiation.

Not arguing against acts of resistance, however small. Just pointing out the majority of people now turned digital, the few like you and many on HN wouldn't put a dent to the erosion or freedom when it comes to software.

Also interested to see what motivates people to speak up, when they know full well it won't change anything. (I'm one of those too)

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently reading Foucault's history of sexuality, and the reason you might want this is because population! Obviously we are facing a population crisis, and we will need more bodies for the factories and retirement homes. Or at least this was the idea in the 1800s. We might have morally coated it with religion, but biopower is a real thing. The current hypothesis is that the ever evolving LGBTQ+ is a way to sell…

I'm wary of reasoning that boils down to using utilitarian arguments to back up moralistic fundamentalism - especially when there are so many other things that would achieve similar results but continue to go unaddressed. We could start with making sure every child has abundant access to food and healthcare so they grow up as healthy as possible. We could address the economic treadmill wherein two incomes have become…

[dead]

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#216
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, that's informative. Interpol? Orwellian stuff.

Interpol would be legitimately for child porn prevention reasons here, actually.

Doesn't matter - police don't get to decide the fucking laws. That is separation of powers 101 for places which aren't shitholes.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#217
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that even slightly has to do with LGBTQ people will likely end up getting blocked from children’s eyes, while anything to do with non-LGBTQ people won’t.

I find it interesting this criticism assumes age-appropriate LGBTQ content isn’t a thing.

Have you paid attention to the discourse of the would be censors? They've been conspicuously trying to turn crossdressing from a longstanding tradition (albeit mostly comedic) to obscenity. Hell, even calling trans people inherently obscene. Talk about giving away the game.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#218

I didn't even know a bill could be listed without the text being out. Too early to discuss much though?

There are several different approaches to trying to keep children from things that are probably bad for them on the internet that have been proposed or passed as laws.

1. Requiring sites in various categories (porn, social media) to make sure they aren't serving children, without specifying how they are to do that.

2. Similar to #1, but specifying specific means the sites must use. They are often pretty bad from a potential privacy perspective because they often specify uploading copies of passports or driver's licenses or other things that could be very harmful to you if they leaked. These laws do at least often require the sites to delete those documents. With #1 sites often ask for the same documents but aren't required to delete them.

3. Like #2 but includes among the allowed means of verification some that don't give the site copies of your sensitive documents.

4. Ones that require operating systems on devices whose primary user is a child to let the parents set the age of the child when the child's account is being set up, and to provide an API that apps can query to find out if the current user is a child.

Whenever any of those are discussed here, or whenever any of the other approaches being developed such as those that allow binding a digital copy of your government ID to a hardware security module you have (such as on a smartphone) and to use that to demonstrate age range without disclosing anything else (Google and Apple have these, and the EU is planning on such a system) is discussed here, 95% of the commenters comment as if it was a #2 type of system.

So might as well discuss this one now. The discussion won't be any different once the text comes out.

Re: US national level OS-level age verification bill proposed

#220
Google did the hard work for everyone last year...

>"In layperson’s terms, ZKP makes it possible for people to prove that something about them is true without exchanging any other data. So, for example, a person visiting a website can verifiably prove he or she is over 18, without sharing anything else at all."

- https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu...

- https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk

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