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Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

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Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#31

Post by scottlocklin »

purple_ducks wrote: post #27
hackinthebochs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>then I'd do my damndest to have the restaurant shut down for facilitating the grooming of minors. You lost me there. This is an entirely unreasonable burden.

You don't think an establishment has a legal duty to report child grooming that occurs on their premises? I used the word 'dates' (plural) - a re-occurring thing, not a one off event.

I'll bite, how is a restaurant supposed to figure out which groups of people are "child groomers" as opposed to something more pedestrian and normal like "parents?"

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#32

Post by xfitm3 »

justtopost wrote: post #2

Will this end up another misguided "think of the children" measure that will just make more consentual adult sex illegal? Or will it be accepted with open arms by dating sites who want all your PII to sell? ('anonymised' of course) (CoughmatchCough) Am I just jaded or does this seem to be the way things are going?

Im really glad to see this comment. It is absolutely a “think of the children” measure. ID isn’t required for most things online and that’s a good thing.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#33

Post by NeedMoreTea »

thosakwe wrote: post #10

One question - where the heck are these kids' parents? I think most people on dating apps are under the impression that other users are of legal age. If your child is searching for adult partners, complete strangers, over the Internet, you as a parent have a lot to answer for. That being said, none of that justifies what happened to the minors mentioned in the article. Ultimately, there are a lot of bad people out th…

Same place your grandparents were when dad was hiding adult mags or the topless polaroids of girlfriend under the mattress or watching 4th gen copy videos of some 18 horror film with friends. I had fairly old-school strict parents and still managed to get around supervision. ;p

I'm going to hazard a guess you don't have kids. Short of bringing up children in a panopticon that gives no privacy, ever, and continual spot checks of what apps and usage, or a feature phone only until 18, what do you expect? Watch over shoulder the entire time they use a device? Bolt down the home router and rely on network 18+ limiting, and they can still use their friend's or Costa's wifi.

I might prefer to limit younger children from access, I can advise and try and give them a degree of common sense, and advise against blind trust. I can't as a parent prevent them doing some very daft things. It's part of the rite of passage of every teen.

I'd aim to be supportive enough that they can come to me when they fuck up for support and help. I can't in good conscience blame other parents for every lapse.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#34

Post by jnty »

blancheneige wrote: post #30
purple_ducks wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where the heck are these kids' parents? What about the internet suddenly absolves the company from being diligent and responsible? If this was shops selling alcohol & cigarettes to 14 year olds, would your response be "where the hell are the parents?" Parents aren't going to monitor their kids 24/7. > If your child is searching for adult partners, complete strangers, over the Internet, you as a parent have a lot to…

>Parents aren't going to monitor their kids 24/7. It's not about monitoring your kids 24/7. It's about instilling values in them precisely so they can monitor themselves. This is what differentiates good upbringing and clueless parenting looking for scapegoats.

Are you a parent? Of a child over ten?

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#35

Post by sidlls »

thosakwe wrote: post #10

One question - where the heck are these kids' parents? I think most people on dating apps are under the impression that other users are of legal age. If your child is searching for adult partners, complete strangers, over the Internet, you as a parent have a lot to answer for. That being said, none of that justifies what happened to the minors mentioned in the article. Ultimately, there are a lot of bad people out th…

Human beings are clever, and kids often are much more clever than adults partly because they lack the filter of having had experience. It's simply not possible to have the level of control you describe without effectively imprisoning children and stunting their growth.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#36

Post by towelr34dy »

klodolph wrote: post #16
thosakwe wrote: post #10

One question - where the heck are these kids' parents? I think most people on dating apps are under the impression that other users are of legal age. If your child is searching for adult partners, complete strangers, over the Internet, you as a parent have a lot to answer for. That being said, none of that justifies what happened to the minors mentioned in the article. Ultimately, there are a lot of bad people out th…

How is this different from, for example, requiring age verification to purchase alcohol? Or are you also opposed to that? I think we understand that parents are not in complete control over their children, and in the interest of harm reduction, we don't give parents the entire burden of keeping their children safe but spread parts of it out among the community. This doesn't seem like a particularly burdensome request…

Did you read the article?

It clearly states that tinder and grinder already monitor for minors. They state that they spend, and I'm guessing this wouldn't be an exaggeration given their volume, millions of dollars on this effort.

What lawmakers want is ID required.

This is an extremely burdensome requirement. To have every new user of any online platform have to verify photo ID against a webcam is... very onerous. And even then whats to stop a kid from using his parents confirmed account?

Alcohol is a transaction for a substance that is deadly and purchased in public. Comparing it to creating an online profile in the privacy of your home is a big stretch. It would be more like creating an account with... I don't know, maybe buying a can of figs off amazon.

Can a child buy a can of figs without ID? Not easily, but he could. Could he hurt himself with it? Yes. Should we require ID for this: I'd say not.

The article seems to not mention any of the age verification things the kids forged and their parents computer. But don't worry, if it was convenient for the powers that be, they would have framed this as: "Evil kids get into banking system by HACKING."

Funny how I'm sure they won't be asking Amazon to verify ID everytime a purchase is made. I mean, plenty of kids have ordered down right dangerous things this way, probably even caused a death.

The worst part of the authoritarian inclined who use the 'what about the children?' argument is that many times they ironically make it less safe for children since the solutions aren't particularly well thought through (see drinking age in the US) - all while making it worse for the rest of us.

The thing about the outrage crowd is they point to a problem with while implicitly saying 'anyone who doesn't support 'the solution' is in favor of the problem'. I'm not in favor of the problem. I'm in favor of fixing the problem IF it can be fixed in a cost effective way. Many people can't accept that there aren't widespread easy and simple solutions to giant complex social problems. Accepting that this behavior is an emergent quality from our individual actions and pruning one's own actions is very hard. Most people shy from this and look for externalizations.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#37

Post by jliptzin »

klodolph wrote: post #16
thosakwe wrote: post #10

One question - where the heck are these kids' parents? I think most people on dating apps are under the impression that other users are of legal age. If your child is searching for adult partners, complete strangers, over the Internet, you as a parent have a lot to answer for. That being said, none of that justifies what happened to the minors mentioned in the article. Ultimately, there are a lot of bad people out th…

How is this different from, for example, requiring age verification to purchase alcohol? Or are you also opposed to that? I think we understand that parents are not in complete control over their children, and in the interest of harm reduction, we don't give parents the entire burden of keeping their children safe but spread parts of it out among the community. This doesn't seem like a particularly burdensome request…

The difference is you can install a dating app and create a profile without providing a picture or providing a fake picture. This is what I did when I was 15 and just wanted to meet other gay people my age at a time when I was closeted and knew none. To the site operators, the profile looks just like any other. Unless they are actively reading private conversations between users, there is no way to tell a user is actually underage unless reported. Even then it may be difficult because oftentimes people don’t use the dating app itself to communicate but immediately take the conversation off the app to Snapchat or text, for example.

So to truly keep minors off adult dating apps you’d have to require everyone to submit photo ID and also somehow check that they haven’t just taken a picture of someone else’s ID and used that and I’m not sure how you’d enforce that.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#38

Post by protonfish »

thosakwe wrote: post #10

One question - where the heck are these kids' parents? I think most people on dating apps are under the impression that other users are of legal age. If your child is searching for adult partners, complete strangers, over the Internet, you as a parent have a lot to answer for. That being said, none of that justifies what happened to the minors mentioned in the article. Ultimately, there are a lot of bad people out th…

I'll tell you where this parent is. He is trying to find tools to make phone use safe for his kids and finding nothing except excuses and denial from telecoms, phone manufacturers, and app developers.

Smartphones are a playground filled with jagged edges and predators behind an entrance of flashing lights and music. People made it, profit from it, and those same people should be held liable for their actions.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#39

Post by turc1656 »

The solution seems relatively straightforward to me, but maybe I'm missing something. If you want to engage on a platform designed explicitly for adults doing adult things, you give them your driver's license number or non-driver's ID number. They can instantaneously verify that with the government electronically and determine the age of the person associated with that license number.

To further prevent problems - like kids taking their parent's ID and then changing the name and age - dating sites could bind the age of the site profile to the license provided. So if junior uses his old man's ID, he's going to show as 45, not 18, and he won't be able to change it. That has the additional benefit of stopping a lot of the lies related to age on dating sites.

Lastly, they could also bind the first name only to the profile, hide the last name from other users, and allow a nickname or preferred handle to be displayed. So you can't upload a license for John Doe, age 30, and then say in your profile that your preferred name is Tony and you look 15. This would be a red flag to anyone. But makes perfect sense for Robert who likes to be called Bob, or William who goes by Bill, and actually look their age.

Re: Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse

#40

Post by ownagefool »

Ours90 wrote: post #24
fabianhjr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is alluding that the comment he replied to is using a slippery slope fallacy. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Slippery_slope

I didn't catch the sarcasm there. Now it makes sense but the parallel he drawn was, in my opinion, still unsuitable.

Actually, it's pretty on point if you get the culture and political references for the UK. One would suspect, without looking, that the OP is British.
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