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Online age verification is the hill to die on

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Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#81

Post by thesuitonym »

big85 wrote: post #38
Bender wrote: post #8

The one and only method I will participate in is server operators setting a RTA header [1] for URL's that may contain adult or user-generated or user-contributed content and the clients having the option to detect that header and trigger parental controls if they are enabled by the device owner. That should suffice to protect most small children. Teens will always get around anything anyone implements as they are alr…

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.

What, in the same way movie studios wouldn't comply with the Hayes Code, or comic book publishers wouldn't comply with the CCA, or games publishers wouldn't comply with the ESRB? The financial incentive is to police yourself, because government policing is much, much worse.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#82

Post by Barbing »

chainingsolid wrote: post #49
wxw wrote: post #3

How are folks recommended to get involved? Contact your local Congress member? I feel this thread has a lot of passion but is missing concrete, actionable steps.

I've contacted my congressmen and I would also advocate for telling/explaining this to non technical people you know. They either won't have heard of this or won't know whats bad about it.

Any tips for writing the letter, maybe even a starting point?

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#83

Post by connoronthejob »

logicchains wrote: post #42
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.

>If you are going to implement age controls, you should implement a ban on underage influencers as well. That just makes it even worse, why deprive the younger generation of one of the few remaining methods they have to make a decent income? We should be encouraging youth entrepreneurship, not making them spend even longer in classrooms learning things that LLMs will do better than them.

Since when did being an influencer become 'one of the few remaining methods' to make a decent income?

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#84

Post by Bender »

Lammy wrote: post #70
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.

> Back in the late 90s or so, there was a proposal This one: https://www.w3.org/PICS/

PICS was very complicated and attenpted to cover all possible "categories" of adult content. It was confusing, incomplete and only a handful of sites voluntarily labelled their sites with it. RTA is one simple static header that any site operator could add in seconds unless they get more complicated with it by dynamically adding it to individual videos say, on Youtube which means in that case the server application would need to send that header for any video tagged as adult.

I added PICS to my forums but it was missing many categories of adult content. I ended up just selecting everything as I could not predict what people may upload which made for a very long header.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#85

Post by noident »

bee_rider wrote: post #40
kelseyfrog wrote: post #20

[flagged]

Basically every article on this site has a comment complaining that the article is AI. Who knows. Maybe “complaining about AI” is the new AI way of fitting in.

No, it's because authentic writing on HN has been drowned out in an ocean of slop, in such quantities that calling it out is becoming an exercise in futility

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#86

Post by Supermancho »

anonym29 wrote: post #44
rationalist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More and more places I go in other states besides Utah, try to scan IDs when purchasing alcohol.

Again, the proposal isn't for a system which requires scanning of IDs, it's for a system where the cashier glances at the ID. You're arguing against a strawman. You may argue that the system proposed could evolve into the system you're describing, but still, you're arguing against a hypothetical future fiction. If we're going to be arguing about what the proposal might evolve into in the future, we might as well be a…

> we might as well be arguing about what we should be doing when aliens arrive, since they might arrive in the future, too.

Did aliens land in multiple states already? Strawman deflections aside, scanning is the natural evolution and has already happened across multiple kinds of exchange (money markers, various ids, various phone apps, etc). Government issue has a benefit of an independent verification system. It's super expensive for various government agencies to integrate into businesses. Constituents and businesses don't want that, leading to a much more comfortable adversarial relationship, imo.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#87

Post by devmor »

goda90 wrote: post #41

Age verification can be achieved without destroying anonymity and privacy online using anonymous credential systems, but it has to be designed that way from the ground up, and no one pushing age verification is interested in preserving privacy.

They are interested - interested specifically in opposing it. These groups don't care about age verification - it is a trojan horse for censorship.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#88

Post by hypeatei »

anonym29 wrote: post #39
hypeatei wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of system is a horrible idea for the following reasons: 1) the cards can just be re-sold which creates a black market and defeats the "cashier physically saw the person buying the card" angle 2) nickle and dimes people for simply browsing the internet (verification can dystopia anyone?) 3) related to #2, it creates winners in the private sector since presumably you need central authorities handing out these…

First - Alcohol and cigarettes can just be resold too. The black market for them is effectively zero because the consequences for giving them to kids are severe and the room for meaningful profit is close to zero, same applies here. Second - The codes would be priced on the order of magnitude of pennies per verification - think 10 cents or less, accessible even to low / fixed income folks without really making a dent…

You're doing a huge logical jump in your first point. Alcohol and cigarettes are physical goods, digital ID is not, but you're proposing a system that turns it into a physical problem. I'm merely pointing out that's what you're doing and the issues with it.

Second, it doesn't matter what it costs, it's inconvenient and I already spent time (possibly money too) obtaining a government ID... on top of a theoretical mandate that says I need to show the ID on a bunch of websites.

Third, I'm not sure I follow your point on alcohol restrictions creating winners? The non-profit idea could potentially be good, but I'm not hopeful that real world legislation would be crafted that way.

EDIT: also more on #1 and "severe consequences" for re-selling... yes that's exactly what we want to avoid: creating more reasons to put people in prison and a bigger burden on law enforcement and the court system.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#89

Post by jrajav »

cft wrote: post #11

There is a sudden concerted international push for online age verification, and we do not know where this push originates from. That is the scariest thing about it.

It's not _completely_ shrouded in mystery - it started after Facebook got slapped by the EU for irresponsible handling of underage users, and since began a heavily funded lobbying push to drag competitors down with them. https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings...

Of course, it's probably also been coopted by the neverending stream of nanny-state political power grabs in both the US and EU.

Re: Online age verification is the hill to die on

#90

Post by matheusmoreira »

Ifkaluva wrote: post #22
emptybits wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read those seemingly outrageous claims, I didn't immediately dismiss the author. I allowed him to substantiate the claims and kept reading. I found myself agreeing with his argument and his train of thought of how, once digital IDs are accepted as a norm, they won't be unwound, and all online activity will likely require them and then, as he says, "Your children will never know what it was like to think freely…

The best way to not be in a digital cage is to opt out of the current digital products. Would that be such a bad thing? Frankly I would welcome a world in which kids are not using Instagram or TikTok. They don’t have to live in a cage if we don’t let them in the cage. Personally, my plan is that when age verification laws get passed, every service that requires ID is a service I stop using. And I expect my life to be…

> The best way to not be in a digital cage is to opt out of the current digital products.

But will your friends and family opt out? Their phones are always listening. They can just as easily listen to you, even if you go to great pains not to expose yourself to technology. They'll make a shadow profile of any avoidant user whether they want it or not.

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