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Online age verification is the hill to die on

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Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#281

Post by walrus01 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #207
ericmay wrote: post #161

Just requiring it for social media companies is probably enough of a win to not have to pursue any further. We require age verification for sports betting and things like that, I'm not sure why we wouldn't do the same or some variation of that for other massively addicting products that we know as a matter of scientific study have a very bad impact on some number of kids.

Indeed, social media companies seem to big proponents of the US legislation. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances...

Big social media companies are likely overjoyed to be able to get discrete, government issued info of a person's full legal name, date of birth, residential address (as is printed on US drivers licenses) for advertising and demographic profile targeting purposes. And then be able to correlate it with their existing social media history/clicks/profile, browser fingerprinting, IP address, daily usage patterns, geolocation. It's a massive gift to them.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#282

Post by traderj0e »

Bender wrote: post #8

The one and only method I will participate in is server operators setting a RTA header [1] for URL's that may contain adult or user-generated or user-contributed content and the clients having the option to detect that header and trigger parental controls if they are enabled by the device owner. That should suffice to protect most small children. Teens will always get around anything anyone implements as they are alr…

Or could have a header saying this is not adult-only content, and a parentally-controlled device will block things that don't participate.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#283

Post by traderj0e »

mzmzmzm wrote: post #226

If you don't use X/Twitter anymore, XCancel makes it possible to read threads when not logged in: https://xcancel.com/GlennMeder/status/2049088498163216560

Nothing against Twitter, but I just don't feel like logging in, so that site makes it way easier to read this. Also it doesn't take like 900TiB of RAM to render.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#285

Post by traderj0e »

wxw wrote: post #3

How are folks recommended to get involved? Contact your local Congress member? I feel this thread has a lot of passion but is missing concrete, actionable steps.

Let them pry ID from our cold dead hands. If a site requires ID, it doesn't get my business.

Example, Discord wanted my ID to enable certain features, I declined, I now can't use those features, fine by me. If they started asking for ID anyway, I'd say no and see what happens, even if that means they lock me out entirely. There's no universe where they get my ID.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#286

Post by ericmay »

afh1 wrote: post #220
ericmay wrote: post #161

Just requiring it for social media companies is probably enough of a win to not have to pursue any further. We require age verification for sports betting and things like that, I'm not sure why we wouldn't do the same or some variation of that for other massively addicting products that we know as a matter of scientific study have a very bad impact on some number of kids.

Because it's not about children but requiring identification to speak online.

That's the cynical view, yes, but we can see educational standards and performance going down in the United States, we have seen plenty of scientific and medical studies showing problems with children and more specifically teenagers using social media. I'm not one to want to want to limit someone's rights, but it seems like the trade-off here is in favor of requiring age verification at least for social media companies.

Separately I still don't fully agree with concerns raised regarding social media and identification for everyone. Bots, people who are online just stirring up trouble, &c. are causing pretty significant challenges and problems for society. If you spew a bunch of racist stuff for example I think people deserve to know who you are.

And you know we do this all the time. Folks want gun registries and things like that (and I agree, as a matter of practice, but not principal) so I'm not sure why we're ok with that form of requiring identification to exercise your rights and against this one other than political priorities.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#287

Post by scythe »

btilly wrote: post #216
big85 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the late 90s or so, there was a proposal to have sites voluntarily set an age header, so parents/employers/etc could use to block the site if they wish. People said it would never work, because adult sites had a financial incentive not to opt in to reduce their own traffic.

People were wrong. We pay money online mostly through credit cards. Credit card transactions can be reversed. If children spend money on porn, those payments are likely to be reversed. This is really bad for the ability of the porn sites to continue receiving credit card payments, and continue making money. An age header is a trivial step that can reduce the odds of the adult site receiving payments that later get re…

>But if someone is willing and able to pay

If someone is willing and able to pay, they have a source of money. If they aren't allowed to buy something, that control should be applied at the level where they get the money. If the child is using an adult's credit card, responsibility lies with the adult. If children need to have their own credit cards, the obvious point of control is the credit card itself.

But also, most porn is ad-supported, pirated or free. Directly paid content is a small fraction. So all of this is moot for porn.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#288

Post by filoleg »

Bender wrote: post #200
filoleg wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about fining entities outside of the original jurisdiction, so I am not sure what you have in mind that could be done by network/security engineers here.

In terms of fines if they do not pay the fine their country is at risk of sanctions or embargoes which is probably a bit heavy handed but may incentivize their government to also enforce the rules, collect fines keeping some for themselves and passing the original fine back to the countries implementing child safety controls.

This is extremely naive and short-sighted. There is a literal example of this happening rn, and hopefully you will see why your approach isn't that good.

UK's OFCOM is currenly issuing legal threats to 4chan, for allegedly serving adult content and not willing to implement age verification. 4chan's lawyer tells them to pound sand[0], on the basis that 4chan is hosted in the US and has zero business presence in the UK, and UK is more than welcome to ban the website on their end through UK ISPs. The saga has been ongoing for a while, and the lawyer has been pretty prolific online talking about the case.

Anyway, following your approach, UK should embargo US over 4chan not willing to implement age verification as required by UK law? I plainly don't see this happening, or even being considered, ever.

0. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#289

Post by Bender »

traderj0e wrote: post #282
Bender wrote: post #8

The one and only method I will participate in is server operators setting a RTA header [1] for URL's that may contain adult or user-generated or user-contributed content and the clients having the option to detect that header and trigger parental controls if they are enabled by the device owner. That should suffice to protect most small children. Teens will always get around anything anyone implements as they are alr…

Or could have a header saying this is not adult-only content, and a parentally-controlled device will block things that don't participate.

That's a good idea. There could be two headers, the existing RTA header that adult sites use today [1] and another static header that explicitly states there shall be no adult content.

[1] - https://www.shodan.io/search?query=RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-R... [THESE ARE ADULT SITES, NSFW]

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#290

Post by ericmay »

walrus01 wrote: post #281
cmiles74 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, social media companies seem to big proponents of the US legislation. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/13/california-advances...

Big social media companies are likely overjoyed to be able to get discrete, government issued info of a person's full legal name, date of birth, residential address (as is printed on US drivers licenses) for advertising and demographic profile targeting purposes. And then be able to correlate it with their existing social media history/clicks/profile, browser fingerprinting, IP address, daily usage patterns, geolocat…

I doubt they need that to identify you. There are also lots of other problems like algorithmic manipulation. But also just stop using these junky websites. Everyone always complains about Meta doing this, TikTok doing that, and it's like if all they do is make you mad, stop being their user/customers?
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