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

Online age verification is the hill to die on

x.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 750 posts

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#711

Post by ufocia »

jonplackett wrote: post #412
SoftTalker wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well why haven't all the big tech companies done it then? They have only themselves to blame. They had years to fix the problem of inappropriate content being delivered to kids and their response was sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "blah blah blah parenting blah blah blah" And it really should be the opposite. Assume content is not kid-safe by default, and allow sites to declare if they have some othe…

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.

Facts!

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#712

Post by trinsic2 »

slg wrote: post #709
trinsic2 wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im happy to have dialog with anyone that wants to protect children under the circumstances I already described. But if these initiatives push forward IDing people to have protection, then Im sorry you are on the wrong side of life and are involved in making the future of our society worse. I don't see you as an enemy, more misguided then anything. Im sure people are going to turn this into friends and enemies, but I…

>Im happy to have dialog with anyone that wants to protect children under the circumstances I already described. But you're ignoring my point that your dialog is actively counterproductive when you don't engage with the root of the problem. Nowhere in here did I advocate for "taking away freedoms" or for the age verification policies as discussed in this article. The only aspect of this issue that I have argued is th…

How am I not engaging with the root of the problem? I just see it differently than you. And thats ok. I dont think the problem is solved by id verification. This is the position I have been arguing all along and Im not seeing how my position is getting in the way of what you are talking about.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#713

Post by Nursie »

tardedmeme wrote: post #655
Nursie wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could, you could also go to their house and go through the process for them, but in either case I don't think it's going to scale very well (rate-limiting would seem to be called for, maybe with 2FA as well, to mitigate this sort of thing and remove the possibilities for automation). But sure, you could subvert it on a small scale, just as you can borrow someone else's driving license to register in 'normal' syst…

What rate limit would you recommend? My cellphone provider will be pleased be paid to deliver all those 2FA text messages. Who's sending them? How are they getting paid? Maybe I'm actually my own phone company, so I get paid for delivering them to myself.

> Who's sending them?

Your bank, like they have 2FA for every other access to your account. 2FA also doesn't need to be via SMS, and even when it is that's dirt cheap. Rate limits can be a couple of approvals per hour with daily limits of a small handful. Or a leaky-bucket style algortihm where you can do a few at a time, but you only get one more per hour. Whatever way it's done it precludes your large-scale automation attempt.

I tire of this now. We've entirely wandered off from "Here's a way to prove age without the privacy implications, that works just as well as handing over scans of ID"

So if you have an actual point, please make it.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#714

Post by Nursie »

al_borland wrote: post #644
Nursie wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for a start not all of them are very tech savvy, and we've built a world in which tech is essential to their day to day lives, including for their kids. If school demands the kids have a variety of devices to do their work, and they have no idea how to lock those down to exclude (for example) social media services that we know have been designed to be as addictive as possible, can you not see why they might want…

If public school is supposed to be free, the school should supply the required devices and take on the burden of securing those devices. For private schools, the parents are more involved in the first place, but I would expect them to also have guidance for parents to help the less tech savvy among them.

"should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#715

Post by slg »

trinsic2 wrote: post #712
slg wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Im happy to have dialog with anyone that wants to protect children under the circumstances I already described. But you're ignoring my point that your dialog is actively counterproductive when you don't engage with the root of the problem. Nowhere in here did I advocate for "taking away freedoms" or for the age verification policies as discussed in this article. The only aspect of this issue that I have argued is th…

How am I not engaging with the root of the problem? I just see it differently than you. And thats ok. I dont think the problem is solved by id verification. This is the position I have been arguing all along and Im not seeing how my position is getting in the way of what you are talking about.

>How am I not engaging with the root of the problem?

The root of the problem is child safety on the internet.

>I dont think the problem is solved by id verification. This is the position I have been arguing all along

I have advocated for child safety, but nowhere in any of these comments have I advocated for id verification. If you have been "arguing all along" against id verification, then you must be equating all childhood internet safety advocates with those advocating for id verification.

>Im not seeing how my position is getting in the way of what you are talking about.

The equating of childhood safety on the internet with id verification is getting in the way. There exists compromises like the one OP suggested in the top comment in this thread that satisfy both my desire for childhood safety and your desire to prevent id verification. But instead of seeking that path of coalition building and compromise, you're actively repelling childhood safety advocates by misrepresenting their opinions and then calling them "misguided". You're making it clear that you won't be my ally when it comes to protecting kids on the internet because you're so worried about a policy for which I'm not advocating.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#718

Post by big85 »

btilly wrote: post #216
big85 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the late 90s or so, there was a proposal to have sites voluntarily set an age header, so parents/employers/etc could use to block the site if they wish. People said it would never work, because adult sites had a financial incentive not to opt in to reduce their own traffic.

People were wrong. We pay money online mostly through credit cards. Credit card transactions can be reversed. If children spend money on porn, those payments are likely to be reversed. This is really bad for the ability of the porn sites to continue receiving credit card payments, and continue making money. An age header is a trivial step that can reduce the odds of the adult site receiving payments that later get re…

There's an anecdote about an attempt to ban porn in Utah, which cited a survey which found that most people were opposed to adult content. The defense argued that most people will oppose porn when asked in public in order to appear moral, even if privately they are avid consumers.

As proof, they provided records of cable TV pay-per-view purchases in Utah. The defense won.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#719

Post by tim333 »

afh1 wrote: post #215
tim333 wrote: post #138

>age verification requires identity verification. Identity verification requires digital IDs. Digital IDs require everyone — not just children — to prove who they are before they can speak... Not if it's done in a half arsed way. I'm in the UK and so far my age verification has involved doing a selfie with the webcam for Reddit. That's it. No one needing my name, ID number etc. (Apart from banks of course). Really th…

A photo identifies you. This is the digital equivalent of having a photo taken of you upon entering the mag store, stored digitally forever, shared with government, and tied to every magazine you read and purchase.

In the real world though people see your face and you wandering around and doing stuff. Also I have my name and face up on things like linkedin. I don't think it's necessary to be that obsessive about privacy and secrecy for most people.

I understand they could do facial recognition on my photo. If I want to post something criminal or some such I'd make a new account.

Post reply on HN