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UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

bleepingcomputer.com

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Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#61

Post by munksbeer »

sjducb wrote: post #54

These laws exist because social media is extremely damaging to children, destroying their attention, exposing them to online bullying and extortion, and showing them horrific and traumatic content. Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification? People without teenagers often say that parents can restrict phone access and use parental controls. In reality most parents don’t do this be…

You are really so naive to think that banning the big public social media sites is going to stop children from seeing bad things on the internet?

I promise you, within a few years there is going to be an underground social media network or sites that are harder to monitor, don't give a shit what the UK government thinks, and definitely don't care about children's safety at all.

They probably already exist.

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#62

Post by munksbeer »

SoftTalker wrote: post #41
palmotea wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what this will achieve is it will reduce the number of British muggles on social media, thus bringing us a bit closer to the Good Old Days when only nerds were online. I'm fine with this. I think you have a skewed and inaccurate understanding. Why would "British muggles" be so up in arms over an ID check that they swear off social media if they can't "circumvent this with a VPN or a proxy"? It's not like everyon…

I'm in a state that PornHub and most of the other adult sites will block due to age restriction laws. I'm not going to make a login, or give them my ID, and I'm not motivated enough to use a VPN or otherwise work around the restrictions... so I guess the law achieved its goals. I don't think I'd bend over backwards to keep access to social media either. It's really not that important.

That includes hackernews right?

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#63

Post by feurio »

pmg101 wrote: post #59
feurio wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"like" It's not beyond the wit of humankind to build a working system.

I am so tired of everyone assuming the worst possible implementation of age verification. Whatever happened to steel manning? It's supposed to be in the fabric of HN. Curious enquiry. Is it nice children are exposed to dreadful things? No. Could we, with tech, come up with a way to improve things? Probably! Let's discuss and think about how!

This.

Smart people could apply their skills and build a genuinely useful technology.

But seems they would rather stick their finger in their ears and pretend that it's not happening. And they will be ignored.

WHen did this learned helplessness become so in vogue?

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#64

Post by Delphiza »

I had to do an age check in the UK recently. There were various options (credit card, face scan, etc). The one that I chose was email address. My email address has been around long enough to vote, so I am that old. It seems like a good heuristic. If your email address is, say, 10 years old, you are likely to be old enough to create an account.

I will get downvoted by people suspicious of handing over a lot of personal data, but we do have GDPR laws, and they're not getting me to install a proctopod (tm). Giving someone my email address to verify my age is not a big deal. They're getting my email address to create an account anyway.

The practicalities of implementing 'good enough' age verification, where the website can prove that they conformed to an acceptable approach, do not require giving up all or significant freedoms. Maybe we get to something similar to DNS verification where you need to create a dummy TXT record in an already verified account.

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#65

Post by bhhaskin »

bilekas wrote: post #48

It was never going to stop at just adult sites, and it won't stop with social media. I see s world where the ISP will be required to check your ID and "verify your age" because people were using vpn to circumvent these. Then it's not a stretch to see the government requiring all good citizens to "check in" with the government every month like someone out on parole. It would be exactly what they would love and like th…

I agree. I think the only reason it hasn't happened yet is they didn't really have away to do anything with the data. But now with AI they can process it into reports pretty easily at scale. That is what all of these data centers going up is really about.

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#66

Post by cjs_ac »

feurio wrote: post #50
cjs_ac wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know perfectly well what I meant.

Doesn't sound like the kind of device that your average schoolkid has in their pocket?

Are you the Sisyphus of goalposts or something?

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#68

Post by bhhaskin »

bilekas wrote: post #39
jotux wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone needs to go transparent. Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft.

Unless you're a politician, they're exempt.

They are quoting the book/movie the circle.

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#69

Post by sjducb »

munksbeer wrote: post #61
sjducb wrote: post #54

These laws exist because social media is extremely damaging to children, destroying their attention, exposing them to online bullying and extortion, and showing them horrific and traumatic content. Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification? People without teenagers often say that parents can restrict phone access and use parental controls. In reality most parents don’t do this be…

You are really so naive to think that banning the big public social media sites is going to stop children from seeing bad things on the internet? I promise you, within a few years there is going to be an underground social media network or sites that are harder to monitor, don't give a shit what the UK government thinks, and definitely don't care about children's safety at all. They probably already exist.

You’re taking my argument to it’s extreme and giving it the least charitable interpretation.

I want it to not be normal to spend all day on TikTok. If something is illegal and underground then it’s much easier for me as a parent to ban it for my kids

Re: UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts

#70

Post by Hizonner »

sjducb wrote: post #54

These laws exist because social media is extremely damaging to children, destroying their attention, exposing them to online bullying and extortion, and showing them horrific and traumatic content. Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification? People without teenagers often say that parents can restrict phone access and use parental controls. In reality most parents don’t do this be…

> These laws exist because social media is extremely damaging to children,

These laws exist because people will believe any nonsense if they see it repeated enough times in news headlines.

"Social media", as presently incarnated, depending on what definition you choose, may be somewhat damaging to some people, including some children. That does not justify ghettoizing all children.

It also doesn't justify creating (yet another) pervasive tracking infrastructure for both children and adults, but that's the part everybody alway harps on. Cutting off teenagers from society as a whole? Nobody's willing to say that's bad.

Well, it's bad. It's especially bad for the ones who are getting the least support at home.

> destroying their attention,

Maybe. Strongest among the claims. Applies to adults, too; there's no sign that adults are one tiny bit more resistant. Best addressed by structural changes to the platforms.

> exposing them to online bullying and extortion,

Occasionally happens. Occasionally happens offline, too. And in online venues that aren't "social media" unless you have an insanely broad definition. One does not lock people in a vault because of that.

> and showing them horrific and traumatic content.

Oh, get a damned grip. You see a picture. Which you probably sought out. It won't kill you. If you're so sensitive that it really gets to you for the long term, your problem is your capacity for "trauma". Something else will "traumatize" you up to whatever that capacity is.

> Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification?

Restructure the platforms. For everyone.

> In a trade off between child protection and online freedom child protection will win.

Well, yes, when the "tradeoff" is being made by hysterical idiots. Which admittedly is what tends to happen.

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