No. The parents are responsible for their children, not tech firms or anyone else.
Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
91–100 of 123 posts
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#92People 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…
Who cares. I want the internet to be an ecosystem without any privacy (which is a drastic change from what I believed for most of my life). I believe anything of value will be available even without anonymity. For something that absolutely needs anonymity people will find workarounds and I appreciate the extra technical barrier when they have to do so so it’s not available to very pleb.
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#93Personally, I am against the idea of adults having to prove their age before being able to access certain types of content - particularly if that means giving their identity. I am not, however, adverse to the idea that big tech companies should be more responsible for what they are serving to youngsters.
Yes, I know their are plenty of tools to allow parents to restrict what sites their children visit, etc... but not all parents are tech savvy enough to be able to set this stuff up, plus you could still allow a child to access Youtube, for example, but then find they are getting unsavoury recommendations from the algorithm.
This made me think about the fact that the major platforms (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft) gather enough data on their users that they almost certainly know roughly how old someone is, even if no age has been provided to them. They can use all the signals they have available to provide a score for how certain they are that an individual is, or is not, legally an adult.
(As an example, if you have a credit or debit card in your Google or Apple wallet then you are almost certainly an adult because it would be very difficult for a child to obtain a card and get it into a digital wallet due to the security procedures that are in place.)
Given that, if these companies get forced to discern whether users are adults or not in order to serve appropriate content then it seems a no brainer for them to provide free age verification as well.
My vision would be for the UK government to provide an anonymised age verification router service. When a website requires you to verify your age in order to access some particular content it could ask you which age verification service you wish to use. It then sends a request to the government "middleman" that includes only the URL of the verification service. The router forwards the request anonymously to the specified server (no ip address logs are stored). If you are logged in to the account already then it will immediately return true or false to verify that you are or are not an adult. If you are not logged in then you will be prompted to login to your account with the service and then it will return the answer. The government server will then return the answer to the original website.
That way, we can get free, anonymous verification.
I'm sure people will have issues with this idea, such as "do you trust the government server to not log details fo your request instead of being anonymous?" - to which I do not have a definitive answer, but I feel like it is potentially a little better than having Google or Facebook knowing what sites I am visiting that need verification.
Anyone out there have any thoughts on this? I have only just had the idea pop into my head, so no serious thought has gone into it. There are probably issues that I have not thought about.
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
We all wish for an ideal future and, heavens know, it is a good thing that I am not an emperor for a day as a lot would change. Personally, and I mean it in a nice way, I am not obligated to build you a home. I am not even obligated to do it for my kid. Frankly, neither is the society as a whole. You want your elders build you a home for you. No deal. Best I can do is help you along by pulling you away from your cell…
I've always sort of felt that the whole "society is little removed from anarchy and no one owes anyone anything" is not all that far removed from "I can hit you on the head with a hammer and take your stuff if I feel like it".
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
But who would buy them? Generation Y+ can't afford them. I'm only half joking: The issue isn't the supply of new housing, it is the cost of building new housing. If we fix the cost issue, the new houses will follow.
> The issue isn't the supply of new housing, it is the cost of building new housing. I fail to see the distinction. The cost barriers (most of which are legal/zoning related) reduce quantity supplied. I don't believe it costs 2 million in materials or labor to make a condo in California.
I think tackling zoning is a good example of addressing fundamental cost issues instead of supply.
Cities actually building or mandating new 2 million condos for the poor would be an example of trying to fix supply without fixing the cost issue (which happens).
In general, reduction of regulation is needed to decrease cost.
I have family that just built a home in a county without zoning or building codes, and I can assure you it was quite cheap.
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Adults could potentially protect themselves, children absolutely can't.
I'm an adult, history of ADHD. Youtube, facebook, reddit is a disease for me. I am a moderator of some niche subreddits but if I stray away I will find myself stuck reading comments and engaging in conversations for hours. I take steps by not using my phone during work or after a certain time but it is extremely difficult and I still fall into the trap and watch some shorts for 2-3 hours at a time. I'm not stupid eit…
I am undiagnosed (from a parent who was ADHD anti-diagnostic) as an adult but strongly suspect I too. I've never taken an amphetamine to see if there is improvement.
Privacy reasons aside, a big reason I ditched social media and much of the normiesphere technology is the distract-ability. I take great care and pride in reducing unwanted automated interruptions to zero. My phones only make a noise if a cleared human on the other side is initiating the noise. There are zero "check this out" or "your coins reward is ready" crap pinging me, and I won't have it!
ADDENDUM: my abridged phone stack is:
GrapheneOS (there is nothing better)
Mullvad (audited by police raid) & Tor
Syncthing-Fork (because f' the cloud)
Fennec (+uBlock Origin,Sponsorblock,Tampermonkey)
Tor Browser Bundle (anti-glowie browsing)
BraveNewPipe (multiplatform and search settings)
Seal (decent yt-dlp wrapper)
Session F-Droid & Briar (anti-glowie messaging)
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your problem is with the class of product, then you should know to stay away/keep your kid away. If the product has broken with the class (say, adding asbestos to kids' clothes), then we would want to regulate that. Really, as long as the product is staying within the general confines of the definition of the class, then it's up to the consumer to educate themselves and know better. For a fun and controversial exa…
I think you're saying that instead of regulating the experience for kids, parents should keep their kids away from that class of product entirely. In essence, treat all social media as adult-only products. The biggest difficulty is coordinating this approach with other parents and institutions - it is punishing to be the only kid without a smartphone when peers (and increasingly, institutions) require you to have one…
it is still strange to allow for this class of products tailored to kids but parents are just supposed to universally agree should not be bought
The US is all about freedom. We also allow people to smoke even though smoking kills more than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. That's weird...but we still allow it. Conversely, I would expect the EU to implement the kind of legislation you're advocating for.
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There are so many inefficiencies and security risks that individuals have to put up with simply because the US federal government (or any other federal government) have not provided an identity verification API.
From banking to buying concert tickets, a way to prove one is human could be invaluable to ridding the system of the myriad proxies we currently use that inevitably result in discrimination.
The crazy thing is it would be dead simple, the hardest part, having physical infrastructure all over the country is already done. The US Postal Service already verifies people's identity for US passports.
Combine this with a constitutional inalienable right to receiving and transferring money to an electronic money account operated by the federal government, and we could get rid of so many inefficiencies.
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#99Isn't it the parents' job? Why introduce authoritarianism under the disguise of caring for children?
The internet is a big place. How am I supposed to manage what Google / Facebook / YouTube etc. serves to my daughter?
Are you also leaving your daughter unattended in a big city at a McDonald's alone and just go about your business, expecting them to take care of her?
Re: Tech firms must tame toxic algorithms to protect children online
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose I would flip the question around - why should I have to do that, when content platforms could do it? It's just another administrative burden that gets foisted onto the plebs because large tech companies want to scale, but won't moderate content properly at that scale.
> why should I have to do that Because you're the parent? Yeah you can't monitor 100% of the time but like.. moderating your child's experiences is kind of part of the job isn't it? Edit: I'm not saying the tech companies have no responsibility at all here, but surely the parent is the final responsibility in these matters? When I was a kid if I went over to a kid's house and their parents let us watch R rated movies…
> Yeah you can't monitor 100% of the time but like.. moderating your child's experiences is kind of part of the job isn't it?
Is the subtext here "don't have children if you can't do the job"?
If it is, then it's valid to discuss the difficulty of predicting what exactly the job of parent involves when it can drastically change due to technology and social norms over the interval of 5-10-15 years between making the decision and executing the role.
This isn't a blanket statement to abdicate responsibility, nor a blank check for unlimited responsibility, but certain unanticipated challenges are expected and some grace must be given in light of a dynamic environment.
Responsibility is an abstract concept that we operationalize in order to make judgements and decisions. Like any operationalization problem, how can you be transparent around its construction?