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So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

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Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#221

Post by Hizonner »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #98
btown wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One aspect of this normalization of photo uploading is that, if a platform allows user-generated content that can splash a modal to kids, a bad actor can do things like say “you need to re-verify or you’ll lose all your in-game currency, go here” and then collect photo identification without even needing to compromise identity verification providers! I truly fear the harm that will be done before legislators realize…

The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? Is the harm done significant enough to warrant providing parents with a technical solution for giving them control over which sites their X-aged child signs up, and a solution that like actually works? Obviously pinky-swear "over 13?" checkboxes don't work, so this currently does…

Nice job of sidestepping the "fundamental question" of whether that can be done and what damage it would do. You do not get to answer the question as you posed it in a vacuum.

It's not a "robustness issue". Nobody has proposed anything that works at all.

But to answer your "fundamental question", no. Age gating is dumb. Giving parents total control is also dumb.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#222

Post by benbristow »

owisd wrote: post #218
benbristow wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world, parents would be good parents, know what their kids are up to, install parental controls on their digital devices (software solutions out there range from free/bundled to not expensive), have conversations with kids about what's on the internet and what to avoid. Government overreach is not the answer, it's a plaster (and an excuse for more surveillance which is arguably the primary factor) over ba…

You roll out the ‘bad parents’ trope then immediately admit bypassing parental controls is trivial.

Did I not mention 'seeing what your kids are up to'? I think that covers that.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#223

Post by owisd »

anthk wrote: post #68
mlinster wrote: post #48

I think that age verification is important. While its not perfect, it is one tool to help protect kids.

Call your ISP and ban any NSFW/NSFL access by DNS, both in your children's phones and your home connection. Problem solved.

Then they scrape together their pocket money and walk into a pawn shop and hand over the cash for a second hand smartphone. Plenty of free WiFi around.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#224

Post by einpoklum »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #29
cons0le wrote: post #6

>If Google can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification screen. Your Google account is typically connected to your YouTube account, so if (like mine) your YouTube account is old enough to vote, you may not need to verify your Google account at all. This has been proven false a bunch of times, at least if the 1000s of people complaining online about it are to be believed. My google account is definit…

I agree they want the face data, but I think it's less clear they want to "hand it" (presumably that's really "sell it"?) to third parties. My sense is Google and Apple and Meta are amassing data for their own uses, but I haven't gotten the impression they're very interested in sharing it?

Then you have not been paying attention for the past decade, I'm afraid...

Ed Snowden revealed that these companies share their data with the US government:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...

also, even you think about using it "their own uses" - much of that is scrutinizing you to make you better susceptible to ads and other solicitations by their paying clients. I mean, people are not the clients of Google and Meta - they're the raw material.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#225

Post by Ntrails »

Aurornis wrote: post #161
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? Is the harm done significant enough to warrant providing parents with a technical solution for giving them control over which sites their X-aged child signs up, and a solution that like actually works? Obviously pinky-swear "over 13?" checkboxes don't work, so this currently does…

> The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? I suspect if you ask Hacker News commenters if we should put up any obstacles to accessing social media sites for anyone, a lot of people will tell you yes. The details don't matter. Bashing "social media" is popular here and anything that makes it harder for other people to use…

> Would you be willing to submit to ID verification for the sites you participate in, as a fundamentally good thing for protecting minors from bad content on the internet?

The friction would be sufficient to give up. Arguably no loss to me and certainly none to the internet.

This is what has happened already, I am not giving my id to some shitty online provider. If I lose more sites so be it.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#226

Post by seb1204 »

layer8 wrote: post #142
dakiol wrote: post #65

I’ve noticed that many people struggle to simply let things go. Take a hypothetical case where HN requires ID verification. I'd just stop using HN, even if that meant giving up checking tech news. Sometimes things end, and that's fine. I used to watch good soccer matches on public TV. When services like DAZN appeared, only one major match was available each weekend on public TV. Later, none were free to watch unless…

Many people don’t struggle to let privacy go.

I get the impression that you purposely misunderstood. Parent suggested to evaluate if you can let go of the anti-privacy service. E.g. stop using YouTube not the way you worded it.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#227

Post by Aurornis »

bsder wrote: post #219
Aurornis wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? I suspect if you ask Hacker News commenters if we should put up any obstacles to accessing social media sites for anyone, a lot of people will tell you yes. The details don't matter. Bashing "social media" is popular here and anything that makes it harder for other people to use…

> The details don't matter. The details very much DO matter. You can look at all manner of posts here on HN that explain exactly how you should do age verification without uploading IDs or giving central authority to some untrustworthy entity. The fact that neither the governments proposing these laws nor the social media sites want to implement them those ways tells you that what these entities want isn't "verificat…

> You can look at all manner of posts here on HN that explain exactly how you should do age verification without uploading IDs or giving central authority to some untrustworthy entity.

That's not how ID verification works. The ID verification requirements are about associating the person logging in with the specific ID.

So kids borrow their parents' ID while they're not looking, complete the registration process that reveals nothing, then they're good forever.

Or in the scenario where nothing at all is revealed about the ID and there is no central authority managing rate limiting, all it takes is for a single ID to be compromised and then everyone can use it to authenticate everywhere forever.

That's why all of the age verification proposals are basically ID verification proposals. All of these anonymous crypto suggestions wouldn't satisfy those requirements.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#228

Post by Aurornis »

ryandrake wrote: post #158
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? Is the harm done significant enough to warrant providing parents with a technical solution for giving them control over which sites their X-aged child signs up, and a solution that like actually works? Obviously pinky-swear "over 13?" checkboxes don't work, so this currently does…

> The fundamental question that needs answering is: should we actually prevent minors below the age of X from accessing social media site Y? This is only an interesting question if we can prevent it. We couldn't prevent minors from smoking, and that was in a world where you had to physically walk into a store to buy cigarettes. The internet is even more anonymous, remote-controlled, and wild-west. What makes us think…

> We couldn't prevent minors from smoking,

Smoking rates among minors have plummeted and continue to decline.

That's not really a good example because the war on underage smoking has been a resounding success.

Yeah we didn't stop every single minor everywhere from ever smoking at any time, but the decline was dramatic.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#229

Post by jvanderbot »

crab_galaxy wrote: post #217
jvanderbot wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see why phones can't come with a browser that does this. Parents could curate a whitelist like people curate playlists, and share it, and the browser would honor that. Combined with some blacklisted apps (e.g., all other browsers), this would be a passable opt-in solution. I'm sure there's either a subscription or a small incentive for someone to build this that hopefully isn't "Scam children". It's not like k…

They do, don’t they? Apple devices have had a robust whitelisting/blacklisting feature for at least a couple of years. I use it to block websites and apps to lessen my phone addiction. I’m sure Android offers similar features

Block -> opt out

Allow -> opt in

And a techie customizing it is v. different than turnkey for parents.

But yeah! Same principle, that's why I'm sure it's been done / will be done.

Re: So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?

#230

Post by anal_reactor »

mckn1ght wrote: post #205
anal_reactor wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never been about porn. By marking certain part of the internet "adult-only" you imply that the rest is "family-friendly" and parents can feel less bad about themselves leaving their children with iPads rather than actually parenting them, which is exactly what Big Tech wants for obvious reasons. If I had a child I'd rather have it watch porn than Cocomelon, which has been scientifically developed so that it turn…

> If I had a child I'd rather have it watch porn than Cocomelon As a parent that regularly fears who my children will encounter in the world, I’m glad there’s an “if” at the beginning of this sentence.

Don't worry, most likely your children will come across the normal sorts of bad people - cheating partners, bullying peers, abusive bosses, rude customers, lying beggars, maybe robbers and thieves. It's fortunately unlikely they'll meet a guy who is outspoken about his opinion that scientifically capturing people's attention to get them addicted to screens is morally much worse than showing them "penis into vagina episode 74786". We don't want their innocent minds to be poisoned with ideas that question the status quo.
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