Live data from Hacker News

Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

bbc.com

411–420 of 448 posts

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When exactly did this transition happen? In the late 2000s, as a response to a parental demand for communication and safety following high-profile school emergencies, especially school shootings.

Crazy. Compromising the quality of education for everybody every school day so that on rare occasions a very small number of students might be able to call their parents (who will be powerless to help over the phone.)

Yea I’m a parent and “what if there’s an emergency” is one of the silliest excuses to allow students to have phones. If there’s an emergency, the school is already going to have called the police. What the hell am I going to do if my kid calls me? I’ll tell her to hang up the phone and follow whatever emergency procedure they have.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#412
post #257
post #253

This is never about protecting the children. This is always about government overreach. People are less likely to criticize the government, or even participate in political debate, if their online identities are know by the government. Governments like obedient, scared citizens. The only ethical response to laws like this, is for websites and apps to terminate operations completely in countries that create them. Citi…

That’s a very strange take on governments, treating them as a singular entity. A government that deserves that name is first and foremost and elected set of representatives of the constituents, and thus like citizens that vote for them again, act in their interests. If the government is not working like that, you have an administrative problem, not a societal one. A state is its population.

> A state is its population.

Oh that's not true at all. A state is an institution which is influenced by its population, but if anything, the attitudes of the population are more a product of the state, its constituent political parties, and the associated media apparatuses than of a freestanding "will of the people."

To give a trivial counterexample, if the American state "is" its population, then why does your presidential vote only matter if you live in a swing state, and why can you only vote for one of two candidates? Surely your vote should reflect all of your policy preferences and have equal influence no matter where you live.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#413
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is card verification a lesser form of surveillance? It's not just about which is worse surveillance, it's also simply that everyone has a face but not everyone has a credit card. I'm not deemed creditworthy in this country I moved to (never had a debt in my life but they don't know that) so the card application got rejected. Do we want to upload biometrics or exclude poor and unknown people from "being 18"? I reall…

>everyone has a face Does everyone who is 18+ have a face that passes for 18+ (and the inverse as well)? Overall it seems like a bad idea, but one demanded by what sounds like a good idea with not reasonable way to fully implement it, leading to a tangled network of bad ideas patching other bad ideas patching other bad ideas all the way down.

Right. Yes, I'll have to agree simply neither option is good at all

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't express strongly enough that arguing about how to raise children is an incredibly deep, contentious topic. Over and over i see that the state terrifies me deep into my soul, as does the power that a parent has over shaping its children. You're gambling either way and there will always be disturbing consequences. You do not know the optimal way to raise a child - nobody does. It is subjective. Parents NEED to…

Help me understand how we went from "Social media is bad for kids" to "optimal way to raise a child." Avoiding a harm is not equivalent to optimal way in my mind, but it seems like it is in yours? How does that work?

[deleted]

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#415
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they have, by electing the representatives that ought to represent them Yes this is the theory, but what if there is no political party "representing" me, what about people abstaining from voting, what if peoples elect an authoritarian figure I didn't vote for ? This is one of the pitfalls of your system, if only one citizen disagree, or do not feel represented in it, this justification falls apart. You cannot…

> what if there is no political party "representing" me If it bothers you enough, you’re supposed to create your own party. Democracy doesn’t mean that everyone else is doing the hard work for you. > what about people abstaining from voting Silent disagreement—if they were bothered enough, they would go voting. > what if peoples elect an authoritarian figure I didn't vote for If a few people do this, the system can (…

> If it bothers you enough, you’re supposed to create your own party.

Yeah, and that party wouldn't get any seats. I'm sorry, how did we go from "the state IS the population" to "well if your policy preferences fall outside the two agendas on offer, you have to start an electorally-successful third party—something NOBODY has managed to do—and if you don't or if it doesn't work, then it's your fault."

It sounds like you're trying to apportion blame for why the state ISN'T the population, and at that point, you've already conceded that your initial claim was wrong.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My impression is that parents are increasingly alarmed at young boys becoming bitter misogynists This seems more in line with the increase of mysoginist influencers (Andrew Tate and the like) and less to do with porn. The former of course being the type of content that social media companies are more than happy to proactively promote to children.

I'm not particularly familiar with Tate or his story, but wasn't he literally arrested for human trafficking in connection with a porn site that he ran? And that site was part of the start of his "Internet" career? And part of his shtick is bragging about being an "Internet pimp" and running said site?

Even the stuff that’s less extreme than Tate should be totally unacceptable for children and teens to access. Not just the “manosphere” but everything adjacent to it: the alt-right, Nazis and White Supremecists, Qanon, conspiracy sites, flat earthers, antivaxxers, cryptoscammers and so on. They are all in orbit of the same dark barycenter of toxicity.

I’d rather my kid accidentally run into porn than them accidentally run into this garbage. But guess which one I have to worry about all the algorithms steering my kid to? Hint: it’s not the porn.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#417
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it is a realistic take, and yours is idealistic.

It isn’t realistic, it’s pessimistic. If the government, the system, is your opponent, there is no other outcome than subversion, everything is futile anyway. That leaves no room for democratic participation, for any kind of peaceful change, if you’re being earnest with it. And that seems very cynical and ideologically driven to me. There’s a lot of room for improvement that doesn’t involve tearing everything down be…

False dichotomy. "Either the system is perfect or it is useless." No: systems can have mixed results, and they can be improved. Even when they can't be improved, they can be replaced by better (but still imperfect) systems.

You present a choice between pretending everything is fine and giving up. This is no choice at all. Both options entail giving up; one is just honest about it.

We can make things better.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#418
post #415
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what if there is no political party "representing" me If it bothers you enough, you’re supposed to create your own party. Democracy doesn’t mean that everyone else is doing the hard work for you. > what about people abstaining from voting Silent disagreement—if they were bothered enough, they would go voting. > what if peoples elect an authoritarian figure I didn't vote for If a few people do this, the system can (…

> If it bothers you enough, you’re supposed to create your own party. Yeah, and that party wouldn't get any seats. I'm sorry, how did we go from "the state IS the population" to "well if your policy preferences fall outside the two agendas on offer, you have to start an electorally-successful third party—something NOBODY has managed to do—and if you don't or if it doesn't work, then it's your fault." It sounds like y…

I respectfully disagree. If we replace all idealism with realism in the way we think about our political system, there is nothing left to do other than burying our heads in the sand. I firmly believe that people must participate in democracy, and that involves fighting for your convictions.

It's not your fault how things are, but doing nothing and expecting things to get better on their own isn't going to work either.

Re: Discord's face scanning age checks 'start of a bigger shift'

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This response is a textbook example of a manipulative false dichotomy that poisons legitimate discourse about child safety online. Presenting the only options as either "scan your child's biometric data into opaque systems" or "let your child be groomed and/or get addicted to porn" is intellectually dishonest and deliberately inflammatory. It's a rhetorical trap designed to shame parents with valid privacy concerns i…

>from improved content filtering and educational initiatives to parental controls

Parents can do all of that now. They are not doing so. Time to actually cut the kids off from porn. Fuck their privacy rights. Not being a porn addicted gooner at 14 is infinitely more important. Simple as.

Post reply on HN