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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?

#311

Post by HerbManic »

somewhatgoated wrote: post #153
Animats wrote: post #5

So, to post something in 2027: - You have to have an approved browser. - It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account. - You have to have an account on the posting platform. - You have to get past moderation on the posting platform. That's without age verification.

It’s the end of large scale “global village” social media - good riddance if you ask me; I’ve left it years ago for more private spaces. I wonder though how it will affect places like 4chan. I don’t really know if it’s still as anonymous as it used to be but that’s like a cornerstone of their existence.

Global village can just be code for Tower of Babel. It was knocked down for a reason.

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

#312

Post by djaro »

platevoltage wrote: post #291
jenscow wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't disagree with that. And "better parenting" is a solution. However, what about the children who don't have the advantage of "better parenting"? Rightfully blaming bad parents is reactionary

If parents don't want their kids on social media, get them a dumb phone, or use the parental control features. Maybe some parents don't care, and that's their prerogative. None of this is about protecting children, it's about "protecting" adults from "bad ideas".

The problem is many parents will not do that. Do those children then deserve to be taken advantage of by social media corporations?

Generally, things that are harmful and addictive such as alcohol, cigarettes and casinos require age verification. We dont just put the onus on parents because a child with bad or absent parents still deserves to be shielded from alcoholism at 12 years old.

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

#313

Post by drnick1 »

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.

Without American capitalism you wouldn't have computers, the Internet, smartphones, AI, electric cars and countless other things. That, and the Costco hot dogs mentioned in another reply.

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

#314

Post by pmg101 »

palata wrote: post #183
falkensmaize wrote: post #31

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…

What this misses is that many parents do allow their children to access social media because kids need to conform . If all the other kids have social media access, your kid is excluded by not having access. Is it better to have TikTok AND friends, or no TikTok and no friends? Sure, the best is no TikTok and still have friends, but you can't always have it all.

It seems to me that the supply of friends is more or less unlimited, such that it's pretty reasonable to apply filters when choosing who to befriend.

"Also not using tiktok" could be one such filter.

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

#315

Post by HerbManic »

Bender wrote: post #235
asjgGa6 wrote: post #21

There isn't much left of the free Internet anyway. Search engines no longer work, all discussion forums are ranked/censored by interest groups, mail delivery is between large entities. Maybe we need an alternative set of root servers for a free Internet.

I would suggest that we should not conflate the internet with these corportate platforms. The internet still works fine for now . I can still stand up my own DoH resolvers, forums, chat servers, email servers, DNS servers, vpn servers, etc... Many social circles are bound to have a tech-nerd one or two layers removed. That used to be a pejorative. The hardest part is the psychology. People think they have to be on th…

In a way it is the bad players that are ruining it. Yeah I can setup all manner of servers for this stuff, but the instant I miss a patch or a patch is late to be developed and you can be compromised in no time. And unfortunately it just becomes a game of endurance between you and the army of folks trying to crack systems open.

I have said it for decades, if there weren't bad players then we wouldn't need any of this security. That is a very utopian idea.

I have thought that a way to put people off is to have such an anaemic server that they wouldn't bother. Like a tiny RiscV board running Haiku that delivers basic HTML and email. There is little incentive to raid that thing. I haven't thought this idea through much however.

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

#316

Post by djaro »

Hizonner wrote: post #242
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…

> More and more people agree that kids shouldn’t be on modern social media, including me. Has it occurred to you that nobody cares, or should care, about your opinions about what other people and other people's kids do? You and the "more and more" people who agree with you are cordially invited to fuck off. > The solution is to propose ways to block kids from modern social media (that actually works) without mass sur…

> Has it occurred to you that nobody cares, or should care, about your opinions about what other people and other people's kids do?

Uhmm... Yes they do? That's... the whole point of living in a society? With laws? So we can collectively decide what is and isn't desired?

Children are also banned from purchasing alcohol or going to the casino. There are tons of things we collectively decided children shouldn't do.

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

#317

Post by HerbManic »

MyMemoryfails wrote: post #81
locusm wrote: post #61

If you deleted all your social media and AI platform accounts today you would wake up tomorrow and be no worse off.

Dont forget what kicked this age verification in first place. Initially they wanted do age verification for porn, and only year later they moved into social media seeing there's wasn't huge pushback. So even if this change doesn't affect you right now, but it will affect you later then it'll be too late to fight agaisnt.

It was funny here in Australia, they did it the other way. They banned social media for under 16 but didn't get around to porn until a few months later.

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

#318

Post by djaro »

MyMemoryfails wrote: post #81
locusm wrote: post #61

If you deleted all your social media and AI platform accounts today you would wake up tomorrow and be no worse off.

Dont forget what kicked this age verification in first place. Initially they wanted do age verification for porn, and only year later they moved into social media seeing there's wasn't huge pushback. So even if this change doesn't affect you right now, but it will affect you later then it'll be too late to fight agaisnt.

I mean, even if more things on the internet get restriced it wouldnt affect me since Im not a minor.

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

#319

Post by djaro »

phantomathkg wrote: post #63
locusm wrote: post #61

If you deleted all your social media and AI platform accounts today you would wake up tomorrow and be no worse off.

The "First they came for the Communists" logic still holds. When government able to open the flood gate, the mandatory ID check will be slowly and surely be everywhere. If you don't use social media and AI platform. Fine. But what about app stores, what about any registries from docker, to npm, to apk and toward the end source code repositories like Github/Codeberg?

This is famously why ID checks at the liquor store led to the government eventually requiring a mandatory ID check anytime you walk the dog or go to the beach... except none of that happened.

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

#320

Post by dfxm12 »

jvvw wrote: post #249

As a parent of teenagers, I feel like the sites make it hard for parents. When they were young, you had a choice between YouTube being completely locked down with no option to whitelist channels or letting them watch almost anything (although I think this has changed since but it's too late now for those of us with children that age). Now, there is no way I can whitelist contact/groups on WhatsApp or Discord servers/…

You gotta understand, the owners of these sites don't care about you, your kids or a good user experience. They care about serving ads, tracking your behavior and selling that behavior data to the highest bidder. If they get to your this behavior to your government ID, it will probably make it more valuable.

There's also a lot of room between YouTube (or even social media) and all technology...

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