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Australians to face age checks from search engines

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Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#251

Post by fc417fc802 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #242
fc417fc802 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's hardly a good faith interpretation of the goals behind the Texas law. Also HB 20 was social media deplatformimg, not identification. Notice that the goalposts shifted subtly from moderation of disallowed content to distribution of age restricted content. The latter isn't amendable to size based criteria for obvious reasons. Note that I don't think the various ID laws are good ideas. I don't even think they're…

> That's hardly a good faith interpretation of the goals behind the Texas law. It's plausible that it wasn't what some of the supporters intended , but that was the result , and the result wasn't entirely unpredictable. And it plausibly is what some of the supporters intended. When PornHub decided to leave Texas, do you expect they counted it as a cost or had a celebration? > Notice that the goalposts shifted subtly…

The intent behind HB 20, which has a size exemption and has not AFAIK driven anyone out of the market.

The ID law, sure, I doubt the proponents of it care which alternative comes to pass (ID checks or market exit) since I expect they're opposed to the service to begin with. But that law has no size carveout, I didn't use it as an example, and I don't think it's a good law. So we're likely in agreement regarding it.

> Would the former be any different?

I expect so, yes. You've constructed a dichotomy where heavy handed moderation and failure to moderate effectively are the only possible outcomes. That seems like ideologically motivated helplessness to me.

I'm also not entirely clear what we're talking about anymore. The proposed law has to do with ID checks, the sentiment expressed was "if you don't moderate for yourselves the government will impose on you", and somehow we've arrived at you confidently claiming that decent moderation is unattainable. Yet you haven't specified the price range nor the criteria being adhered to.

The point you raise about federated networks is an interesting one, however it remains to be seen if such networks exhibit the same dynamics that centralized ones do. In the absence of a profit driven incentive for an algorithm that farms engagement we don't yet know if the same social ills will be present.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#252

Post by SchemaLoad »

1718627440 wrote: post #150
SchemaLoad wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously an impossible task. Kids need computers for school, and every school provides laptops. Kids don't need access to social media.

No? This was how it was for me. And the only downside was, that all the other kids are glued to their smartphones. Why is this even controverse. Is there any rational reason why kids should have smartphones? The only reason I see is to let the big companies earn money and because adults don't want to admit, that they are addicted themselves.

Don't know how long ago you went to school, but at least in Australia, every student is provided a personal laptop for school work which is capable of connecting to social media. Maybe you could block it on your home wifi, but that't a step beyond what most people are capable of. And you'd be an extremely unpopular parent if you were the only one blocking social media while every other kid continues to arrange event invites on Facebook

Blocking it at the service level would be significantly more effective and mean all kids would have to socialise and send using IM platforms instead.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#253

Post by fc417fc802 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #244
fc417fc802 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't follow. The absolute of a principle being unobtainable doesn't mean it isn't of use. As I stated, you make a case by case judgment when applying it. That you aren't satisfied by the imperfection doesn't imply a lack of usefulness. I expect you can get quite a bit of moderation for that price. If a given user is exceeding that then they are likely so problematic that you will want to ban them anyway. Spea…

> That doesn't follow. The absolute of a principle being unobtainable doesn't mean it isn't of use. As I stated, you make a case by case judgment when applying it. That you aren't satisfied by the imperfection doesn't imply a lack of usefulness. The principle was that if you can't operate without doing harm, you can't operate. But then nobody can operate, including the government. If you give up that absolutist princ…

You're being dense. The original statement was:

> maybe if you can't avoid causing harm then you shouldn't be allowed to operate?

That isn't plausible to interpret as an absolute. The tradeoff is implied - as far as I can tell there isn't any other reasonable interpretation. It follows that the contextual implication is that the status quo is one of excessive harm.

Clearly others don't agree with your view that a "reasonable amount of resources" is being spent on the problem at present.

To your hand wringing about abuse of reports, nearly all of the smaller platforms I have participated on have treated that as some form of bannable offense.

Responding to reports doesn't take anywhere near as much effort as you're making out. The situation with the large centralized networks is analogous to a company that keeps cutting its IT budget while management loudly complains that it's simply impossible to get reliable infrastructure in this day and age without spending an excessive amount.

> that's the goal then why not just do it directly and pass a law capping entity size?

Because that's (quite obviously) not the goal. To date smaller venues have very good track records in my personal experience. The idea being floated was that the centralized services that actively manipulate the behavior of large portions of the population either improve theirs or be removed from the market.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#254

Post by ActorNightly »

Cartoxy wrote: post #148
ActorNightly wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, this is minor political fluff. Australia is still doing quite good.

in the digital rights and government spying department --- maybe VS china or Nkorea but in the "west" we are profanely the worst. easily.

The thing that Australians don't realize is that like nobody cares that much about Australia. You are on that side of the world, pretty isolated as far as politics go.

Take the minor losses, be glad that conservative party didn't win, and watch the shitstorm in US and Europe from afar.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#255

Post by Nursie »

nullc wrote: post #240
Nursie wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, here in WA at least, there are signs up in the plumbing section of Bunnings saying “Stop! DIY plumbing is illegal! Only buy this stuff if you’re getting a professional to fit it!” The reasoning is often “people might contaminate the water supply for a whole street!” Which just points to poor provision of one way valves at the property line. But yeah, illegal. I agree there are limits with what you want to do on…

And let me guess, this rule isn't eliminated if your property is isolated by a reduced pressure zone device? I assume that in your post "WA" means Western Australia -- as I can't imagine this kind of absurd protectionism law flying in Washington state, even though it's a little more paternalistic than average for the US.

Yeah, Western Australia.

And of course not! As mentioned - the rule has even recently been extended to 'protect' people like us who live semi off-grid, with rainwater capture for drinking and a septic system.

Australians really seem to loooooove rules.

And of course, for the most part, nobody's actually checking this stuff and people pay varying levels of attention to the rules. Seems like a waste of time all round.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#256

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #252
1718627440 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? This was how it was for me. And the only downside was, that all the other kids are glued to their smartphones. Why is this even controverse. Is there any rational reason why kids should have smartphones? The only reason I see is to let the big companies earn money and because adults don't want to admit, that they are addicted themselves.

Don't know how long ago you went to school, but at least in Australia, every student is provided a personal laptop for school work which is capable of connecting to social media. Maybe you could block it on your home wifi, but that't a step beyond what most people are capable of. And you'd be an extremely unpopular parent if you were the only one blocking social media while every other kid continues to arrange event…

So educate parents or rethink what they need laptops for?

I didn’t say it was going to be easy. But all the middle aged guys who created all these tech startups that are rotting your children’s brains didn’t grow up with this level of technology.

So it’s clearly possible. Does the government or parents have the will to make the change? Maybe not.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#258

Post by Nursie »

account42 wrote: post #216
Nursie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact is that moderation is hard Moderation is hard when you prioritise growth and ad revenue over moderation, certainly. We know a good solution - throw a lot of manpower at it. That may not be feasible for the giant platforms... Oh no.

Throwing a lot of manpower at moderation only gets you lots of little emperors that try to enforce their own views on others.

What if the view is "advertising should be within the law of the country it's being displayed in and not contain fake celebrity endorsements or blatant lies"?

Because AFAICT some of the big platforms are failing at this, before we even get into content moderation.

> Throwing a lot of manpower at moderation only gets you lots of little emperors that try to enforce their own views on others.

Do you consider dang a 'little emperor'? If anything HN seems proof that communities can thrive with moderation.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#259

Post by owisd »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #88
jackvalentine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This view is manufactured. The premise is that better moderation is available and despite that, literally no one is choosing to do it. The fact is that moderation is hard and in particular excluding all actually bad things without also having a catastrophically high false positive rate is infeasible. Manufactured by whom? Moderation was done very tightly on vbulletin forums back in the day, the difference is Facebo…

> Manufactured by whom? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent > Moderation was done very tightly on vbulletin forums back in the day, the difference is Facebook/Google et al expect to operate at a scale where (they claim) moderation can't be done. The difference isn't the scale of Google , it's the scale of the internet . Back in the day the internet was full of university professors and telecommunicati…

Manufacturing Consent is a book that rails against ad-supported media empires. I think anyone who reads it would come away more supportive of these kinds of restrictions. If you want to give it a go, the first chapter is basically a summary of the rest of the book.

Re: Australians to face age checks from search engines

#260

Post by marcus_holmes »

florkbork wrote: post #197
marcus_holmes wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. This legislation has got nothing to do with moderation or "protecting children" - that's just the excuse that the government is using to push the legislation through. There are better ways of achieving that goal if that was the goal. The actual goal is, as always, complete control over what Australians can see and do on the internet, and complete knowledge of what we see and do on the internet.

Pfft. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.... Read it. It is specifically targeting companies who currently run riot over young individual's digital identity, flog it off to marketers, and treat them as a product.

I point you to section 63C 1 in that document:

      (1)  For the purposes of this Act, age-restricted social media platform means:
               (a)  an electronic service that satisfies the following conditions:
                        (i)  the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between 2 or more end-users;
                        (ii)  the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users;
                        (iii)  the service allows end-users to post material on the service;
                        (iv)  such other conditions (if any) as are set out in the legislative rules; or
               (b)  an electronic service specified in the legislative rules;
but does not include a service mentioned in subsection (6).

I see nothing in there that talks about young people, identities, flogging anything to marketers, or treating people as product.

I don't dispute that that happens. All I'm saying is that this act is not solving that problem, isn't intended to solve that problem, and is actually part of a larger push to censor the internet for Australians.

This act, as written, requires all interactive websites that are accessible to end-users in Australia to implement age restrictions. And in order to implement age restrictions they must remove anonymity. Which is the point.

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