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

mullvad.net

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

#521

Post by movedx »

txrx0000 wrote: post #423
movedx wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the digital equivalent of requiring ID to go anywhere or do anything, rather than just a few well-defined things. Are you aware that most library systems across most of the world require someone to be 16+ to open an account and/or take out books and materials? That's not restricting anything, that's preventing abuse by those not intellectually or emotionally capable of regulating their behaviour. The parent of…

The library is one place out of the many places you could go, and the closest digital equivalent is a library website or an app. The Internet is not just a library, but a whole world of its own. We don't have blanket control laws that restrict all movement and speech in the real world based on verified age. The restrictions for minors are implemented at much more local levels. We do need parental guidance like in the…

> We do need parental guidance like in the physical world, but such guidance should be issued by the parents, not the tech companies.

By putting up ID roadblocks, that forces the parents to intervene. That's the point :)

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

#522

Post by falkensmaize »

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.

That’s fine because an enforced TLD system would default to them being allowed to access social networks and parents having an easy way to block them. It makes it easier for parents to do their jobs and doesn’t affect everyone else. Want your kids to have access to social media? Just…do nothing.

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

#523

Post by platevoltage »

krapp wrote: post #457
platevoltage wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit, I'm kind of looking forward to what comes after the inevitable death of the www.

Why? The WWW was at least created with egalitarian ideals, even if it failed to meet those ideals (despite succeeding far more than people want to credit.) It was available to everyone, it ostensibly allowed anyone to publish and communicate freely. It wasn't intended for only a single culture or subculture. Whatever comes after will either be entirely controlled by corporate and government interests or gatekept agai…

I would rather go back to when the web was useful, and everything wasn't either paywalled or plastered with ads too. The web will never die, but this version of it is on borrowed time.

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

#524

Post by mx7zysuj4xew »

anthonypasq wrote: post #516
mx7zysuj4xew wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your kids shouldn't be on the fucking internet, period And you are an irresponsible parent for allowing them to be

please explain in exacting detail how you can prevent a child from accessing the internet without living in the woods, homeschooling them, and not allowing them to have friends or interact with another human being that has access to the internet.

That is your problem, not mine

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

#525

Post by [deleted] »

jonplackett wrote: post #364
ike2792 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many parents don’t have the technical aptitude to set the controls up properly. I am a software engineer and I find it challenging to keep up with the nuances of parental control setup and how to adjust it as kids get older. Content is also imperfectly tagged and smart kids can easily find loopholes in most controls. Having a centralized ID validation system wouldn’t be an ideal solution but having something baked in…

That’s what I mean by adding legislation to make it automatic. If it’s a kids device, then it should just block social media as required by the law. I agree that right now it’s difficult to set up - but this is a choice from Apple and Google. Just mandate sensible defaults. A hardware block is much more effective than anything else that can be faked. Just have the phone ask ‘is this a phone for a child’ and if you se…

[deleted]

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

#526

Post by 201984 »

pocksuppet wrote: post #509
201984 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are kids supposed to have a safe space "to be curious, build autonomy, and feel free" if they can't get out from the authoritarian hands of their parents or their government?

Good question. Maybe we can find the answer by getting them drunk at the strip club - two things that we'd be authoritarians if we prevented children from accessing.

As if there's no difference between harmful substances combined with lewd activity, and talking with people on a video game.

https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/01/uk-considering-banning-kids-s...

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

#527

Post by mx7zysuj4xew »

ozim wrote: post #437
protocolture wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but everyone suffering because some parents are bad seems like a shitty policy.

It is not „some parents”, problem is really big.

Okay, so we need to have stronger and more strict CPS enforcement

If parents can't take care of their kids they clearly should be taken away

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

#528

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #513
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The global Internets progenitor was the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) financed and encouraged by the U.S. Department of Defense. In order to understand the wonder that the Internet and various other components of the Net represent, we need to understand why the ARPANET Completion Report ends with the suggestion that the ARPANET is fundamentally connected to and born of computer science rather t…

This is not an argument against American capitalism. It is a correction of the false assertion that "without American capitalism there would be no internet" American capitalism can create ARPA but capitalism did not create the internet Neither American companies, nor "private citizens" looking to profit, paid for the research into computer networking that resulted in the internet. At that time, there was no commererc…

*commercial

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

#529

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #513
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The global Internets progenitor was the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) financed and encouraged by the U.S. Department of Defense. In order to understand the wonder that the Internet and various other components of the Net represent, we need to understand why the ARPANET Completion Report ends with the suggestion that the ARPANET is fundamentally connected to and born of computer science rather t…

This is not an argument against American capitalism. It is a correction of the false assertion that "without American capitalism there would be no internet" American capitalism can create ARPA but capitalism did not create the internet Neither American companies, nor "private citizens" looking to profit, paid for the research into computer networking that resulted in the internet. At that time, there was no commererc…

*interfere
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