Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

ofcom.org.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 123 posts

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#61

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #45
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, I think I agree with you. What we really need, and that is the reason why it does not even enter the conversation, is standard default that we can agree upon. By this I mean, no more fucking around with timeline. We agree that any corporation introducing a feed based on anything other than date from newest to oldest is subject to penalties and sanctions. Will it stop 'innovation'? God I hope so. I am tired of…

maybe we shouldn’t use government intervention and force as the default in all of these things.

What I can tell you for sure is that self-regulation was not very beneficial to the society as a whole ( see current cell phone impact on youth ). As to whether government regulation is a bad idea, at this point I believe it is an interesting academic objection thrown in that happens to be true often enough to an extent, but then hijacked by corporations trying to avoid actual regulation.. ie. biased at best.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#62

Post by mrmetanoia »

gedy wrote: post #5

> We want children to enjoy life online. But for too long, their experiences have been blighted by seriously harmful content which they can’t avoid or control. Many parents share feelings of frustration and worry about how to keep their children safe. That must change. Yes, stop letting kids stare at screens all day. Yes, you are a bad/lazy parent letting the firehose of the Internet pipe into their heads.

Yes, and stop using screens as a pacifier. People don't like to be told how to parent, but I'd settle for them just parenting. Shoving shit in your kids hand to shut them up isn't parenting.

I used to blame the shitty influencers and internet at large for the selfish greedy brats, but it's their parents. I've met too many exceptions where the difference was just "We limit their screen time." Maybe they end up shitty in some other way, I dunno, but at least they're going to be more functional than my nephews who my SIL is constantly trying to figure our how they get sucked into racism and greed and what to do about it. Stop letting them get all their views from greedy racists online would be a start - can't do that, she'd "never have a moments peace." Idiot human.

Side note, if you let your kids play roblox unsupervised, you're fucking up hard.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#63

Post by drak0n1c »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #13

The thing that always strikes me in all the reporting and discussion of the problems that Ofcom is trying to solve is that no one seems to ask if the problems are equally bad in other countries, especially in non-English speaking countries. And if it isn't then can, and should, whatever helps there be implemented in the UK? I live in Norway and it doesn't seem that the problem is so severe here. Or is it simply that…

It's a difference of scale. English is dominant in the number of countries that speak it and is even more dominant among the online population (people from countries that don't otherwise use English who are "overly-online" tend to use it).

There is a larger population of bad actors, a greater variety of underlying cultural/philosophical differences and thus conflict, and the algorithms that seem fine for a smaller contained country like Norway can produce a different quality of topics at a larger scale. It's not just algorithm thresholds either - people are simply more naturally prone to follow fads when there is multinational scale affecting the quantity and rapidity of the content and replies/likes that they see (dopamine and confirmation bias).

Unsure what the solution is - maybe more location-based weighting of suggestions? Conversely you don't want to empower local predators. So far attempts at moderating the entire English speaking world by the standards of SF-cloistered young professionals and PhDs has also been unwieldy and led to backlash.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#64

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

infecto wrote: post #51
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, I think I agree with you. What we really need, and that is the reason why it does not even enter the conversation, is standard default that we can agree upon. By this I mean, no more fucking around with timeline. We agree that any corporation introducing a feed based on anything other than date from newest to oldest is subject to penalties and sanctions. Will it stop 'innovation'? God I hope so. I am tired of…

Such a rule is impossible to write.

It is a lot of things ( overbearing, difficult to implement, world-changing ), but is not impossible. If you have any doubts, check OFAC rules and regulations ( and note how some seem contradictory in nature ) and see how regulated institutions respond to those.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#65

Post by whimsicalism »

Aurornis wrote: post #60
whimsicalism wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might only be marginally relevant, but California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge”

> California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge” I'm not familiar with the system, but I assume it would necessarily have to reveal the sites you're verifying with to the State of California. So it's less of a big deal, as long as you're okay with sending a record to the government about what site you're visiting every time you want to sign up so…

> TruAge encrypts your data points and then protects them even further by creating anonymous tokens. These anonymous tokens cannot be traced back to you without legal authorization from a court-issued subpoena

Yes, I think you are right. There is probably a way to make a fully anonymous scheme.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#66

Post by s1artibartfast »

jorvi wrote: post #47
Aurornis wrote: post #26

People love these proposals until they read the details and think of the consequences. Anything that requires "robust age-checks" means that everyone using the site must go through an ID check and validation process. No more viewing anything without first logging in via your ID-checked account > 1. Carry out robust age-checks to stop children accessing harmful content > Our draft Codes expect much greater use of high…

Already happening in the EU. Give your phone number, credit card number, or government ID number if you want to watch age-gated YouTube. The best solution would be a government or banking API that emits a one-time token. No logging, and it self-destructs upon verification. But aside from the user, no other party has detriment from the current situation.

That's a really interesting idea. I was just wondering how any of this could be prevented in a way that preserves user choice.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#67

Post by rustcleaner »

Aurornis wrote: post #26

People love these proposals until they read the details and think of the consequences. Anything that requires "robust age-checks" means that everyone using the site must go through an ID check and validation process. No more viewing anything without first logging in via your ID-checked account > 1. Carry out robust age-checks to stop children accessing harmful content > Our draft Codes expect much greater use of high…

These kinds of proposals will hand the 'net to the darknet [its proper successor]. I can't wait for Freenet/Hyphanet to eventually get onion routing!

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#68

Post by whimsicalism »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #61
whimsicalism wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe we shouldn’t use government intervention and force as the default in all of these things.

What I can tell you for sure is that self-regulation was not very beneficial to the society as a whole ( see current cell phone impact on youth ). As to whether government regulation is a bad idea, at this point I believe it is an interesting academic objection thrown in that happens to be true often enough to an extent, but then hijacked by corporations trying to avoid actual regulation.. ie. biased at best.

As someone from the cell phone impacted generation, I wish our elders would spend less time trying to protect us from the internet and more time building homes.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#69

Post by Aurornis »

whimsicalism wrote: post #65
Aurornis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge” I'm not familiar with the system, but I assume it would necessarily have to reveal the sites you're verifying with to the State of California. So it's less of a big deal, as long as you're okay with sending a record to the government about what site you're visiting every time you want to sign up so…

> TruAge encrypts your data points and then protects them even further by creating anonymous tokens. These anonymous tokens cannot be traced back to you without legal authorization from a court-issued subpoena Yes, I think you are right. There is probably a way to make a fully anonymous scheme.

> There is probably a way to make a fully anonymous scheme.

A fully anonymous scheme would be ripe for abuse: People would immediately take their keys and set up websites that exchanged age verification tokens for watching ads. Kids would visit these websites, watch an ad for 60 seconds, and get a fully anonymous age verification token in exchange.

Identity verification systems only work if everyone involved has some incentive to protect their identity. If the identity means nothing and nothing can be traced back to you, the tokens will be generated for next to nothing and handed out freely.

The idea is DOA.

Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online

#70

Post by [deleted] »

Aurornis wrote: post #60
whimsicalism wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might only be marginally relevant, but California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge”

> California’s digital id has a way of verifying age without revealing anything else about your identity called “TruAge” I'm not familiar with the system, but I assume it would necessarily have to reveal the sites you're verifying with to the State of California. So it's less of a big deal, as long as you're okay with sending a record to the government about what site you're visiting every time you want to sign up so…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN