Online age verification is the hill to die on • Hacker News Board

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#501

Post by EmbarrassedHelp » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:53 AM UTC

znnajdla wrote: post #278

In the age of AI I think it’s only necessary and inevitable to implement some of kind of internet ID system to stop the massive onslaught of AI generated fraud, malicious hacking, and spam. If age verification is a Trojan horse to erase online anonymity, so be it, I see that as a worthy goal. Humans are inherently social, and social networks are based on trust. Trust is primarily a function of reputation, peer pressu…

> would gladly support the shutting down of the whole internet if it would save the life of a single precious child.

We should sedate everyone and lock them in secure concrete cells, with food and water provided through tubes. My proposal will save far more than a single child from being killed. I really think the "pro existence" activists don't understand the scale of the harms, and how we can prevent them all by having everyone be permanently unconscious!

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#502

Post by cvoss » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:56 AM UTC

awkward wrote: post #31

cvoss wrote: post #6

> If you love your family, you must stop online age verification. > If you want the best for your children, you must stop online age verification. > Your children are being targeted. The infrastructure being built under the cover of child safety is designed to enslave them for the rest of their lives. Jumped the shark on that one, and really off-color. I'm less inclined to listen to guy, not because of his actual poi…

Responding to tone but not to content is what a dog does.

Dogs are on to something! Tone matters in persuasion. A whole lot. If the author were interested in persuading (as I assume he must be, given his strongly held convictions) then he should consider his tone more carefully.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#503

Post by cooper_ganglia » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:57 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #468

jonplackett wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is that this whole push for age verification is nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content. If it was then this kind of solution would be being legislated for. It’s just about making everyone identifiable.

>If it was then this kind of solution would be being legislated for. What's more likely a global conspiracy to get age verification passed to allow these unnamed groups to identify everyone for some unknown purpose or politicians just not understanding tech? The way people try to pretend that there can't be any organic desire for these proposals is so bizarre and is a major cause for all these proposed solutions bein…

The politicians that want to identify everyone capitalize on organic desire for these proposals in the form of fear-mongering and "Think of the children!"

Citizens that want these laws are unthinking drones who don't want to raise their children, and instead want legislators to do it for them.

Politicians that want these laws are the people who, ideally, want to track your every move online for a multitude of reasons, not least of which are censoring speech and controlling narratives.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#504

Post by cvoss » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:59 AM UTC

nandomrumber wrote: post #23

cvoss wrote: post #6

> If you love your family, you must stop online age verification. > If you want the best for your children, you must stop online age verification. > Your children are being targeted. The infrastructure being built under the cover of child safety is designed to enslave them for the rest of their lives. Jumped the shark on that one, and really off-color. I'm less inclined to listen to guy, not because of his actual poi…

Do you actually have an argument to make? He’s 100% correct. For a start, child are parents responsibility, and the state should stay out of that as much as reasonably possible. Nothing more would need to me said on the matter if that’s as far as it went, but it isn’t. There can be no free speech if the state can imprison you for what you say, and they know everything you say. I dropped the word ‘online’ from the abo…

Yes, my argument, to restate it, is that rhetoric can be misused to counterproductive effect, as is the case here.

Carefully note that I have neither affirmed nor contradicted anything of the substance of his argument. So defending his position to me is a non sequitur.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#505

Post by EmbarrassedHelp » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #275

streetfighter64 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic that he's relying on the same ridiculous "think of the children" rhetoric that's being used to promote age verification. Really says a thing or two about online discourse in our day and age.

Do you think children are harmed by porn? Did you know it's illegal to distribute porn to a minor in the US? It seems reasonable to me to hold porn companies responsible for distributing porn to minors.

There is actually extremely little evidence for anything when comes to individuals, sexual content, and their sexual fantasies. There is even less evidence available for anything when it comes to minors.

I've read papers on the topic, and the good papers always point out that there is almost no focus on any potential positives. Many "authors" have already made up their minds before they've even started conducting research, and that's only if they manage to get funding (everything sex related gets very little or no research funding).

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#506

Post by cvoss » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:01 AM UTC

peyton wrote: post #30

cvoss wrote: post #6

> If you love your family, you must stop online age verification. > If you want the best for your children, you must stop online age verification. > Your children are being targeted. The infrastructure being built under the cover of child safety is designed to enslave them for the rest of their lives. Jumped the shark on that one, and really off-color. I'm less inclined to listen to guy, not because of his actual poi…

The kids are our future adults. It should be pretty obvious that getting them used to the state yanking access is a future problem. I don’t see anything off-color or unreasonable.

Invoking the concept of enslavement to describe even a grotesque digital surveillance state is the really off-color part.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#507

Post by tzs » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:02 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #484

marcus_holmes wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are facts, whether you like them or not. [Citation Needed] As I understand it, the debate on whether social media is responsible for actual harms in kids is still open and ongoing. Social media has been found to do both harm and good for kids, and for some kids the good outweighs the harms [0]. Scientists are hoping to get some verification from the actual social experiments that we're conducting in the UK an…

> Mandating OS-level age verification effectively means not allowing kids access to OSS platforms, a step way too far in my opinion. For instance, we would have to outlaw Steam Decks for kids. This is entirely false scare tactic nonsense, and you really need to look at where you sourced that idea and no longer use them as a reference point. There isn't even a concept of a method of doing this that would make that tru…

> There isn't even a concept of a method of doing this that would make that true, and certainly not in any of the implementations being considered in the US. The federal bill is called the Parents Decide Act, if it gives you some idea where the goal in decisionmaking is supposed to be.

The Parents Decide Act (PDA) goes considerably farther than superficially similar sounding laws like California's.

The California law requires that an OS allow the parent or guarding to associate an age or birthdate with the account when setting up a child's account on a device that will primarily be used for the child. It does not require any verification of the age information that the parent provides.

The PDA requires that the birthdate be provided for anyone who has an account on the device, and leaves much of the details up to the Federal Trade Commission to work out in the first 180 days after is passed. The wording of the list of things the Commission is to do suggests that the OS is supposed to actually verify age information, rather than just accept whatever a parent enters when setting up the child's device and account, and that it also has to verify that it will require the birthdate of the parent and verify that.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#508

Post by EmbarrassedHelp » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC

nonethewiser wrote: post #272

hackable_sand wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird that none of your arguments or proposals hold accountable the responsible parties. You want to force us to compromise when we were minding our own goddamn business .

Responsible parties like porn companies that distribute porn to minors? Parents are still accountable with age verification laws. If parents suck at parenting, they will suffer. If porn companies distribute porn to minors, which is illegal in many places such as the US, they will not suffer. Unless you start holding them accountable.

Every major adult content site has warnings that you have to be over 18 when you enter the site. Its extremely easy to use parental controls to block these sites for a kid, and parental controls don't require violating user privacy.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#509

Post by HaloZero » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:05 AM UTC

retired wrote: post #34

Age verification on Australian social media has loopholes. Underage influencers use an agency to manage their social media for them. So anyone with enough followers or money can continue using social media under the age of 16. If you are going to implement age controls, you should implement a ban on underage influencers as well.

I'm curious how much of that will keep occurring though? These underage influencers I assume had a following that existed that they want to manage. But if you can't start one without an agency or an adult running things won't that dampen the amounts of them?

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#510

Post by cvoss » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:08 AM UTC

therobots927 wrote: post #48

cvoss wrote: post #6

> If you love your family, you must stop online age verification. > If you want the best for your children, you must stop online age verification. > Your children are being targeted. The infrastructure being built under the cover of child safety is designed to enslave them for the rest of their lives. Jumped the shark on that one, and really off-color. I'm less inclined to listen to guy, not because of his actual poi…

I’ve been noticing a trend among a lot of HN members where instead of contending with the arguments made in an article, they focus on the “off putting rhetoric” used by the author. Make no mistake you are engaging in your own form of rhetoric when you respond like this. You are in effect moving the discussion away from the subject at hand, and towards the perceived faults in the author’s communication style. This is…

It can't be disingenuous if I actually mean for you to take my argument at face value. There is no hidden motive that I haven't stated. I mean for you to focus on the author's communication style, in case you missed how bad it is, notice what's wrong with it, and seek better sources of information about the issue.

You have accused me of "rhetoric", but that is no accusation at all. Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speech. I have not accused the author of "rhetoric" but of "poor rhetoric". Perhaps that is what you mean to accuse me of.