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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

#391

Post by array_key_first »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #190
retired wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People under the age of 16 shouldn't be worried about "making a decent income". They should focus on school. In the weekends they can stock shelves, deliver pizza, deliver newspapers, wash dishes, babysitting, feed animals or other typical jobs for children in the age range of 12 to 16.

>They should focus on school. Why? Presumably so they can go to college and get a high paying job that may not exist in 10 years? The direction we give kids coming up always seems to lag behind reality by 10 or 20 years. Perhaps we shouldn't stand in the way of the new generation figuring things out for themselves in this brave new world. The old playbooks to a solid middle class life are increasingly outdated.

> Why? Presumably so they can go to college and get a high paying job that may not exist in 10 years?

Also so they don't end up stupid and useless like a potted plant. People with too little education are easy to manipulate and dim. They're perfect fodder for the propaganda machines.

It would be nice if we could just let kids loose like wild animals and they'd, somehow, figure everything out. But no, we actually have to try. Otherwise they end up illiterate and eating so much candy they throw up. Because they're kids.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#392

Post by Bender »

crabbone wrote: post #327
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…

How would this work with sites like YouTube which allow sharing of content, potentially not appropriate for children, but the content is generated by the site's users? Who will be fined for "violations"? And how would such a fine be levied, especially internationally?

I think that initially the onus would be on Youtube to figure this out. They have some very intelligent engineers. For example, if the Youtube client is receiving affiliate funds then they are easy to ID and fine. If they are random people then Youtube would have to share the violation data with the other countries and the US or UK would have to pressure those countries to participate in fining the end user. There could be financial incentives for the foreign country to participate. They can also just force label a video to be adult as they do today when enough people report it which is admittedly not uniformly applied.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#393

Post by beloch »

dylan604 wrote: post #368
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech companies care even less than the bouncers do. They just want a plausible defence should it ever end up in court.

tech companies care even less? how do you arrive to that conclusion? tech companies log/store EVERYTHING. this would be an absolute boon for them to be able unequivocally assign to you all of the data they track about you. suddenly, anonymous analytics become identified data and not just deanonymized data.

Logs of location data on people are already worth real money. The FBI has admitted to buying it. The companies that do age verification will absolutely be selling that data unless there are severe penalties for doing so, and what are the odds that the U.S. government passes a law making it illegal for the FBI to buy data?

That's bad enough if you're a U.S. citizen. If you're a non-U.S. citizen, now you're in the situation where all these U.S. social media sites are collecting personal information from you and reselling it, but you have no legal protection unless your government risks tariffs and invasion threats to pass legislation against it, which the U.S. will probably ignore anyways.

This might just be the impetus that finally drives enough users to non-U.S. social media platforms to get the snowball rolling downhill.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#394

Post by fc417fc802 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #388
rpdillon wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the way it should be done. Device with parental controls enabled disables content client-side when the header is detected. As far as I can tell, it's a global optimum, all trade-offs considered.

Well why haven't all the big tech companies done it then? They have only themselves to blame. They had years to fix the problem of inappropriate content being delivered to kids and their response was sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "blah blah blah parenting blah blah blah" And it really should be the opposite. Assume content is not kid-safe by default, and allow sites to declare if they have some othe…

Because it isn't in their financial interest. They've either done nothing or actively lobbied for these ID laws. You can plausibly explain it in a number of ways, including regulatory capture, deanonimization, spam reduction, etc.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#395

Post by hirvi74 »

bigbuppo wrote: post #374

Since it is so harmful to let children use social media, why aren't parents being put in prison for abuse and neglect when they let their children use social media? Why should everyone else have to suffer when it's parents that should be punished? (it's because it's not about protecting children)

Because this is a golden opportunity erode privacy riots under a complete guise of "protecting the children." Same goes for "preventing terrorism" and various other attempts to appeal to authority.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#396

Post by dpark »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #383
dpark wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used a rhetorical device to demonstrate why restricting children’s activities is not simply ageism. I don’t know how you can seriously come here and accuse me of engaging in bad faith when I’ve taken the time to make my viewpoint explicit multiple times in this thread now, including directly to you.

Hyperbole is a rhetorical device, if that’s what you mean. Just because I had a hard time following your logic doesn’t mean I didn’t engage in good faith. You also seem to be arguing in a heated way with every person who responds to you. Either way it’s probably best if we both move on

I did not accuse you of not engaging in good faith. You accused me of that.

I don’t think I responded to anyone in a heated manner, though I will readily admit to being annoyed when you accused me of bad faith.

Agree we should move on.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#398

Post by abustamam »

DontBreakAlex wrote: post #257
cooper_ganglia wrote: post #211

THe government shouldn't be raising anyone's children, that's what parents are for. If you're a bad parent, your kids will get access to bad things and could become an adult failure. The future of your family and your legacy is up to you, not the government. We don't need age verification to restrict the social darwinism of raising children.

I wish I could upvote this comment harder. I started having unsupervised internet access (with the family computer in the living room) when I was 8. I'm a functional and successful adult because I trusted my parents. When my mother forbade me from registering on online forums I complied. When I read "fellation" in some minecraft chat (albeit somewhat later) I asked my mom what it was and understood that "sex" was som…

Yeah I'm not sure why the govt or any other 3rd party needs to get involved. If I don't want my kids to look at porno online I will educate them on porn. If I don't trust my kids to listen to me then I will install an open source monitoring software and educate them on trust.

Letting the govt dictate what is age restricted is an easy way for the govt to control speech and narrative. For example, children's books that feature LGBT characters are being reclassified as adult [1], thus requiring additional verification. If I do/don't want my kids to read LGBT books, it's my decision. The govt should not dictate that. What else will the govt reclassify? Anything involving people of color?

[1] https://www.ala.org/bbooks/book-ban-data

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#399

Post by array_key_first »

mghackerlady wrote: post #239
gslepak wrote: post #224

Good: some commenters here realize it's an attack on privacy Bad: some still entertain the idea that we should do age verification using some sort of crypto primitives There is no reason for age verification at all. I am from the goatse generation. Rotten.com. steakandcheese. Horrific stuff tbh, I mostly stayed away from it, and I didn't need a helicopter government to protect me from it. The moment you accept the na…

Right? I especially don't understand where some of the "think of the children" attitude on porn sites, as they for the most part already ask for your age and if you didn't get some kind of amusement out of seeing tits as a teenager you're a liar

It's a function of our society becoming more puritan and conservative in the past 10-15 years. This has been a slow burn.

We are back to perceiving viewing boobies as an existential threat to people. Currently, sexuality is being demonized all around, and sexual morality is once again becoming a currency in society.

I encourage people to talk to some Gen Z kids. They're much more puritan than millennials. They're focused on virginity and the moral superiority of monogamy. It's bizarre.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#400

Post by nerdo »

foresto wrote: post #386

The Electronic Frontier Foundation set up a resource page for this: https://eff.org/age Their guide: https://www.eff.org/files/2026/04/09/condensed-age_verificat... Unfortunately, their most prominent call to action doesn't seem to address the various state-specific and non-US legislation (focusing on KOSA instead). Here it is: https://www.eff.org/pages/help-us-fight-back

The EFF has long been a skin suit my dude, they're just here to dissipate and confuse opposition.
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