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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

#51

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 - li…

I see a few problems with this proposal: 1- There are still strong taboos against certain kinds of relationships; being forced to tie one's dating preferences and behaviors to a governmental ID seems dangerous. 2- Should companies get automatic access to one's name and age based solely on the ID number? Seems like a violation of privacy. 3- Mandating that for apps served over Google Play or the App Store is not hard;…

1. Yeah, you wouldn't want to roll this out to places like Egypt or Iran, for sure. And I usually am very pro-privacy, but since people either pay the companies that run these apps/sites/services or they use it for free but have it directly linked to their phone, google, etc., in reality these companies already have their true identities - or at least enough of it that if asked by any government entity they could produce it even if they didn't have the actual ID number of the government issued document. Isn't this how people buy alcohol online, though? I've never done it, but I recall someone telling me they had to upload their driver's license to the site they were buying from for age verification. So this seems to already be occurring elsewhere and I don't think anyone has complained about it.

2. Not sure I agree this is a violation of privacy since a) you would be providing them this exact same information when building your new profile upon account creation and b) you would agree to its collection as part of the signup process thereby waiving any privacy right you may or may not have in this regard. It would also be considered something a reasonable person would expect the third party to be given when supplying that identification number. For example, I assume that when I provided my information to my insurance company when applying for a personal disability policy that they checked everything on those documents for accuracy (name, age, address, etc.).

3. I was assuming this was legislation and would therefore apply to all services of this nature as long as they operate in the country/state where the legislation is effective.

4. 15 year olds are able to exist on these platforms in part because some 18 year olds look very young while others look much older. So someone can be 18 or 20 and look 15-16.

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

#53
post #7
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Will this end up another misguided "think of the children" measure that will just make more consentual adult sex illegal? What do you mean by “another”? When has regulating sex with children had the effect of making consensual adult sex illegal?

The UK has been pushing making adults register (with their ISP) to be able to access porn. Because of the children.

1) Pushing? But it hasn't happened, right?

2) Porn isn't always consensual or between adults.

This comment seemingly has nothing to do with what I asked.

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

#54

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…

Require a $5 CC payment and a photo ID where the picture matches their profile ID in order to create the account... The $5 would cover the cost of HUMAN verification.

Not every aspect of every interaction online needs to automate out human interaction.

The other aspect is to actively encourage REPORT for minors on the platform.

Another possibility is to allow 16+yo and wall them off from those over ~21 with a big fat banner on the account that it's a minor.

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

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. An…

As to extremely burdensom... require a minimal one time fee to create the account to pay for a person to confirm their identity. Require an ID upload and a separate picture that matches a CC/Debit card to cover the cost.

If you don't have ID, a matching CC or debit card and $5, then maybe you should have other priorities other than getting onto DATING-APP

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

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. An…

> Did you read the article? That's an inappropriate response. Don't respond that way in the future. > What lawmakers want is ID required. Yes, like for alcohol. > 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. New regulations are regularly called "extremely burdensome". I would say that alcohol regulations are ext…

Actually, asking if you read the article was me being kind in my assumptions.

Alcohol is responsible 88,000 deaths per year.

You are literally comparing something with 0-10 deaths per year (if that) to almost 100,000 deaths per year. That type of grotesquely disproportionate comparison is part of 'outrage' culture. It's something I dislike and have no trouble calling people out on.

Not a single cost/benefit analysis. No consideration of the cost, just a wave of the hand (they will bear it). No discussion even of what type of age verification should be or any pros and cons.

The fact that tinder has revolutionized sexuality for a generation is... or made dating safer for women... or made dating safer for LGBT in places where it can be dangerous to date as an LGBT... better bury that in bureaucracy.

No care about privacy.

Doesn't matter if over regulation just pushes people to less regulated platforms like online classifieds, maybe hosted in a non-us country.

If you don't seem to consider the consequences of laws, or even the fact that the logic you use is based on grotesquely unbalanced comparisons, I see little possibility for dialectics.

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

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. An…

As to extremely burdensom... require a minimal one time fee to create the account to pay for a person to confirm their identity. Require an ID upload and a separate picture that matches a CC/Debit card to cover the cost. If you don't have ID, a matching CC or debit card and $5, then maybe you should have other priorities other than getting onto DATING-APP

Actually, what we need is a single chip system given to you when you are born and charge people for it. If they can't pay, put 'em to work.

The chip will hold all our info.

Then when we want to do something on the internet or IRL, a computer will read our chip and we will use the system.

It will have... no abuse or secondary consequences.

But it will perfectly protect minors from getting on dating sites.

I wonder what other historical characters/political systems would love such a system?

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

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. An…

> Did you read the article? That's an inappropriate response. Don't respond that way in the future. > What lawmakers want is ID required. Yes, like for alcohol. > 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. New regulations are regularly called "extremely burdensome". I would say that alcohol regulations are ext…

> You seem to believe that the burden to verify age is too onerous for online dating apps. I think that we should require age verification for dating services across the board, and it should be up to the online apps to compete with offline dating services on equal footing.

It is a burden for the apps themselves but it's not something they can't overcome. The real issue is end-users wanting some degree of privacy and not wanting to submit their real identity to who knows what's on the other end. For example, a gay dating app, or an app for people into BDSM or whatever the thing might be that they're into, or someone who is already in a relationship but wants to see what's out there - a significant percentage of those people will never submit their ID and won't use the app. Even if it’s just some vanilla dating app, how do you know the operators aren’t just in it to easily skim tons of IDs in some vast identity fraud scheme? I certainly wouldnt submit my ID to such services. It also doesn't solve the original issue, since teens will find a way to get around the ID check - use someone else's account, use photoshop to alter an ID, get a fake ID, etc etc.

> Condoms aren't 100% effective. Why should laws be 100% effective?

Yes, nothing is 100% effective. Yet proponents of these laws try to push things to 100% without stopping to check how we're doing so far. The article says 60 cases of child sex offenses since 2015. So 15 / year, about 1 a month, out of how many hundreds of millions/billions of people using these apps? Also, the article counts 16/17 year olds as children, despite them being above the age of consent in the UK and in many states in the US, so who knows how many of those 60 are actually under 16 and not just 16 or 17. Sounds like we have this issue 99% solved with current enforcement methods. Do we really need to institute onerous burdens on apps and end-users for the sake of that last 1%? We can eliminate automobile accident deaths by instituting a nationwide speed limit of 10 MPH on all roads at all times but we don't do that because of the obvious cost/benefit concerns.

If you're concerned about your child going on these apps, give them a feature phone until they're of age. That's what I'd do.

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

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you read the article? That's an inappropriate response. Don't respond that way in the future. > What lawmakers want is ID required. Yes, like for alcohol. > 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. New regulations are regularly called "extremely burdensome". I would say that alcohol regulations are ext…

> You seem to believe that the burden to verify age is too onerous for online dating apps. I think that we should require age verification for dating services across the board, and it should be up to the online apps to compete with offline dating services on equal footing. It is a burden for the apps themselves but it's not something they can't overcome. The real issue is end-users wanting some degree of privacy and…

You are speaking to the outrage crowd. Really hard to reason with them.

They reverse the burden of proof.

If they find an issue, they point it out and imply that there is a solution that people don't want to take.

They don't consider any nuances: magnitude, scale, proportions, cost/benefit, margins of error, the concept of diminishing returns, game theory, etc. Hell, half the time they will comment without even reading an article. They just read title and then pull out a speech based on the topic of the title.

Instead of them having to advocate for their position with pros and cons and facts, they put you on the defensive with innuendo, distorted comparisons and other sophist techniques.

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

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to extremely burdensom... require a minimal one time fee to create the account to pay for a person to confirm their identity. Require an ID upload and a separate picture that matches a CC/Debit card to cover the cost. If you don't have ID, a matching CC or debit card and $5, then maybe you should have other priorities other than getting onto DATING-APP

Actually, what we need is a single chip system given to you when you are born and charge people for it. If they can't pay, put 'em to work. The chip will hold all our info. Then when we want to do something on the internet or IRL, a computer will read our chip and we will use the system. It will have... no abuse or secondary consequences. But it will perfectly protect minors from getting on dating sites. I wonder wha…

Okay, my suggestion was nowhere NEAR the hyperbolic suggestion you are making.
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