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

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

#301

Post by maigret »

ian_holt wrote: post #226
p2detar wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is the role of the parents to be having the say in what their kids should and shouldn't be doing The only effective tools parents have is to disallow or remove devices from their kids. It will work at the beginning but as they grow up it will become impossible, since at some point kids get influenced mostly by their friends' circle. So yes, I do agree that parents must talk to their children and explain what soc…

Very true & having 6 kids of my own, I know that only too well. I still don't like the idea of Mr Government trying to tell me how to raise my family. Here in Australia the government seems to like that a lot...

Well the thing is that people often love when the government tells other families how to live, and partly for good reasons including enabling basic education for everyone. Partly the wants of the parents and the needs of the kids might be at odds. Society is a complex construct.

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

#302

Post by cdrnsf »

palata wrote: post #284
cdrnsf wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like parents to parent and develop a relationship with their kids. Comparing the internet to guns is a stretch.

My point was that having the state regulate stuff is not always a bad idea. The problem for many parents is that all the other kids have it . It's not always easy to develop a relationship with your kid to convince them that they don't need to conform and have friends. So I can imagine that many parent would be relieved if access to social media was slightly more complicated, such that maybe it would be more normal t…

We've encountered this with things like Minecraft and Roblox and had conversations and suggested alternatives to it. It hasn't proven to be an issue, but I'm holding out hope that these platforms continue to collapse as our kids get older.

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

#303

Post by HerbManic »

platevoltage wrote: post #287
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #79

Back to the internet's peer-to-peer roots. Many protocols besides the www The www became infested with so-called "tech" companies acting as intermediaries (middlemen) Lots of folks making money from surveillance ad system on the www. Oversized, unmanageable websites calling themselves "platforms" The www is an ad network. Not a great place for non-commercial activity Fortunately, the internet is more than the www. Th…

I have to admit, I'm kind of looking forward to what comes after the inevitable death of the www.

I don't think WWW will ever die but I can see a hard split coming eventually. Most people will just put up with the current state of the internet for a long time yet.

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

#304

Post by HerbManic »

thefz wrote: post #123
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #79

Back to the internet's peer-to-peer roots. Many protocols besides the www The www became infested with so-called "tech" companies acting as intermediaries (middlemen) Lots of folks making money from surveillance ad system on the www. Oversized, unmanageable websites calling themselves "platforms" The www is an ad network. Not a great place for non-commercial activity Fortunately, the internet is more than the www. Th…

Once again American capitalism ruins everything for everyone.

Yeah but $1.50 Costco hot dogs! I got nothing more on that.

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

#305

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

jpc0 wrote: post #105
drivebyhooting wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relationship was established decades ago and they accept money and direct deposit still with no KYC. But to get the money out? Oh no! We need a picture of your face! And there’s no option for going in person.

> The relationship was established decades ago and they accept money and direct deposit still with no KYC. Having just gone through the annual KYC checks required by my bank/s I don't think this opinion stands universally. Can also confirm to open an account I need to provide a live selfie and verifiable government ID.

> Having just gone through the annual KYC checks required by my bank/s I don't think this opinion stands universally.

What is the "annual KYC check"? Your bank is afraid you became someone else during the year or what?

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

#306

Post by jsmith45 »

hydrogen7800 wrote: post #296
armchairhacker wrote: post #146

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…

Why isn't there a simple solution in the software world that's functionally equivalent to flashing your ID at the liquor store? They get the verification they need with no permanent record of your PII . This can't be that hard. Can't I get an electronic certificate/flag verified by a trusted third party using my ID, where this cert retains no PII? This is what I come up with after not thinking very hard about the pro…

In theory, sure, an identity verifier could issue you you a bunch of single use JWTs signed by them that contain `{"over18":"true", "nonce": 12748583..., "iss": ""}`, signed by their key. A relying party just needs to know the public keys of all the issuers they trust, and can consume this JWT, verify it, and never learn anything about your IRL identity.

The important things are that they must issue a bunch at once. (Otherwise, correlating who you are becomes easy). They must keep no record tying nonce or the full JWT to an individual identity. Something user local or otherwise trustworthy (not keeping logs), needs to hold on to these, and send them out as needed, being very very careful never to reuse one (as that would enable cross site tracking). Lastly a relying party must be required to trust many issuers, not just those they are colluding with track users across sites with this.

The European Commission actually proposed pretty much exactly this system, also with a variation where instead of revealing the signed token, a ZSNARK proof (that you possess a validly signed token with the over18 attribute from a specific issuer) could be given to the relying party instead (to make it impossible for issuer and relying party to collude to release your identity). Many people here seemed to not like it.

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

#307

Post by HerbManic »

idle_zealot wrote: post #102
j45 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is it's a few incremental steps away from nto being that way and the first step is really the issue.

I think the part that's the issue is the one where they mandate age verification. They're going to try that either way, the worst thing this could do is get people accustomed to the idea, but in practice the operating system they use already asked their age.

Just look at how far privacy has slipped in the last 25 years, it won't take another 25 to get there. Maybe less than a decade.

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

#308

Post by djaro »

sunaookami wrote: post #185
armchairhacker wrote: post #146

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…

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".

Age verification has always existed in the physical world, such as at bars and casinos. I just dont see why the internet should be immune to real world rules we decided upon for good reason.

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

#309

Post by HerbManic »

jollymonATX wrote: post #293

Yeah a lot is about to change with this all. I've already picked my side and nope not gonna ID to use your website. Will do without, fine with that.

Same here. Need an ID then I don't need you.

To that, I have also what I consider my "forever hardware" were I can do what I want offline.

Not saying other stuff won't creep in for various pragmatic reasons but it will be kept at arms length at best.

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

#310

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

9rx wrote: post #174
davkan wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you work around it without admin access to the computer?

A full answer is somewhat dependent on specific implementation details, but the simplest approach is much like the simplest way to acquire alcohol or other age-restricted product as a child: Ask someone else to act as an intermediary. Get another computer that identifies as an adult, and that isn't concerned about your age, to send the data to you. And maybe that's a healthy way to think about it. That it doesn't mat…

> the simplest approach is much like the simplest way to acquire alcohol or other age-restricted product as a child: Ask someone else to act as an intermediary.

They can do exactly the same with other proposed solutions - ask an adult to register a social media account with their id or pass selfie-age-verification for them.

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