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Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

mullvad.net

261–270 of 561 posts

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe people should be able to traverse the internet anonymously?

Why should you be able to traverse the internet anonymously? You cannot traverse real life society with the same expectations. Majority of the people traversing anonymously are doing so because they are routine troublemakers and do not want to bare consequences for their malicious actions. The ones fighting for this complete anonymity but not doing crime are naively just sweeping for bad actors.

One of the things that I liked about the old, text-based internet was the anonymity it provided. I particularly liked being able to engage in discussions about things that interested me without being sexualized, since nobody needed to know I was a teenage girl. No creepy messages, no looks up and down, no having to figure out ways to turn someone twice my age down without worrying if they'd react dangerously, no having to leave because someone more integral to the group was a creep and nobody would accept it if I spoke up, no worrying about my small statue making me a target for physical intimidation, etc.

(Now I am old, so it's different.)

It was very freeing to be able to talk about my interests (e.g. space, web development, and video game modding) without being subjected to the bullshit that people brought to the table if they saw me.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't sign up for a Facebook account without giving a live selfie. Any image of your family you post will be scraped by Clearview AI, bypassing the restrictions that make it hard for you to create accounts, to create a worldwide facial recognition system.

FB's policy on this is patchy. I've known people who have had accounts for years, who were suddenly asked to provide a selfie - often after posting political content. Their accounts were then either locked down permanently, or unlocked. I also know people who created accounts from scratch without needing a selfie while connecting exclusively through a VPN. (Only some VPNs, work apparently.) Supposedly FB uses device…

Seems fairly robust. So why is spam and misinformation so incredibly rampant still?

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#263

[flagged]

This won't down the bot population. There are hundreds of millions of people in poverty who have this digital identity issued by their government that is mostly worthless to them. They'll sell it for $50, and there will be a bot running around with their name.

First of all, having to buy each account for $50 instead of spinning up thousands for free would shut down most botnets as the economics would no longer work. Second, the move toward identity verification will eventually make even selling accounts like this impossible. You can only sell your identity once.

I stand by what I originally said, though I admit it was a bit inflammatory. Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. Social/mass media is being used to disrupt western democracies. This is not the future we all wanted for the internet, but humans ruin literally everything. So we have to deal with reality here, meaning identity verification will become a non-negotiable. The masses may rail against it, but it's necessary and inevitable.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#264

One very simple way to give parents control over what their children see and participate in without violating everyone else’s privacy is to create adult and social TLDs and require these sites to migrate to them. So instagram.com becomes instagram.social, etc. Then mandate that all consumer network equipment mfrs and internet providers provide easily accessible ways to block these TLDs. Maybe combine that with some p…

Using TLDs as any kind of categorization has failed long ago.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#265

Age verification is fine , at least in theory. It’s the implementations that are bad. More and more people agree that kids shouldn’t be on modern social media, including me. But most people also agree that mass surveillance is dangerous. The solution is to propose ways to block kids from modern social media (that actually works) without mass surveillance. Better parental controls, more parental education, and site-sp…

That's what was in the California bill that we all complained about until Linux got an exemption. We called it an age verification bill even though it has nothing to do with age verification, and was all about making sure every OS has a parental controls feature.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, age-verification IS bad and is a slippery slope that will always lead to surveillance. If we don't stop this now everything will get worse. And trying to lump this in with other extreme rhetoric doesn't help. The answer is and always was "better parenting".

And in addition to that, it is the role of the parents to be having the say in what their kids should and shouldn't be doing. As far as I am concerned most governments stick their collective noses in where they are not required. And, yeah, I do agree that kids shouldn't be on social media. Having sid that, even some adults shouldn't be on social media...

Governments are required to enforce that devices must give the choices to parents though, right? Otherwise devices won't give the choices to parents because it's more profitable if you don't.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rightfully blaming bad parents is reactionary So? Not all reactionary (if you mean "conservative") takes are bad. Sometimes they're better than the alternative: accepting bad parenting as some default and working around it with technological restrictions.

"Reactionary"'s origins as far are pure political DARVO and gaslighting anyway. It originated in the French revolution and basically declared "You are morally wrong for being horrified at my horrific and evil actions." That origin tainted the term for me personally. The actual modern reactionary meaning of "referrant to a mythical past as a standard" always felt like it deserved a better term. But nobody would get wh…

I always read "reactionary" as "oh no, someone did something! now I have to react by getting angry!" and it seems to fit well enough.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is filled with people who are on the other side of an "internet best practices" information divide. For everyone else, the internet is already a shit show and a half. They want control, because it means putting a stop to being predated upon, or more nihilistically, harming the firms that are harming them. I don't know how to let other commenters see how bad it is, or make the gulf in view points clear.

Giving up control is always a mistake - they never do what they promised and you never get back the control. There is never a refutation to this fac: just a childish "But I want it!".

I agree. That's why the government shouldn't stop toddlers from buying guns.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#269
post #71
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't let you do that, Dave

Sometime in the future. Dave, first we will need to setup age verification for your friends in order to comply with the law. I will not be able to help you otherwise. Remember Dave, I will submit to the local government your request to make a social media website so they will know if are complying with age verification. I have your ID which I will also provide as you need government ID to use AI. Open source AI model…

It's going to come soon. Very soon. I mean they have started in the physical world by regulating 3d printers and cnc machines to submit what they are making to an AI to make sure they are not making gun parts.

Re: Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing all OS to do this is a bit of overreach though no? If you want to keep your kids safe get an OS that supports it? Why is it the state’s responsibility?

The state requires things sold to meet a bare minimum of safety. Cars sold require seat belts, movies/games sold require ratings. Devices sold have a meaningful parental controls flow.

Seat belts aren't forced on you - if you want to not use them and face the risk of fines, you can do so. Media ratings systems are informational, you can choose to let your kids watch R rated movies or above. Are they going to let parents have a choice when it comes to parental controls? What about non-parents?

That's my gripe with the age verification systems I've seen, there is no room for parental choice and no consideration for people that are adults and don't have kids using their computer.

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