All of this so people can pretend to live in another community instead of the one they physically reside in.
For the actual issue, Tea would be better suited with a web of trust system rather than forcing identification audits. If a woman is inviting male accounts then a web of trust would allow the service to shutdown anyone invited from the bad account (similar Lobste.rs bans).
I’ll say it again: the fact an adult has to sign up and pay for internet service and devices that can access those services should be all the age verification needed, full stop.
If parents don’t want kids getting into mischief online, then they need to restrict device and network access appropriately.
The internet was never intended for children, and we need to stop placing the onus on other adults to police themselves instead of on parents to police their children.
It's not "the Internet" who wants to check your ID, it's politicians who want to, since the internet is the new place where citizens are exercising their freedom of assembly rights and that frightens politicians.
Life would be so much easier for Trump if people stopped pestering him online about that bloody Epstein list, or if EU citizens would stop pestering their politicians about the crimes of illegal immigrants.
They want to control your speech using the daily boogieman flavor: terrorists, protecting the kids, Russian trolls, etc
Decades of historical baggage, technical cruft, and now a new set of encumbrances in the form of aggressive state surveillance under the moniker of "regulation;" it's strange to me that there are no movements in this space to replace an aging and decrepit web that has grown increasingly user hostile.
Is there any serious investigation or a good article that explain how these ID check laws got simultaneously rolled out in the UK, EU and Australia? As well as the main payment processors heavily restricting adult content? It seems like there are remarkably powerful groups pushing for these things, or maybe it really is just happenstance.
I wonder when there will be first Generate ID as a Service (GIDaaS). I would expect something like choose state, ID type, pay 10USD in crypto and now I am Joaquim van Ender from Netherlands.
Of course, this will get combated by governments letting tech companies to query IDs against their databases, which inevitably will leak the IDs which will then make this exercise pointless.
Lots of discussion on this and not much comparison to another democratic country (South Korea) that already implement this type of control. Account creation for non-critical services (games, etc) requires a SSN type equivalent during signup, so they very clearly know who is associated with the account.
They also implement child specific locks, such as limiting the duration kids can play a game, and for only specific hours (not during night time).
Slightly bothered that it seems like the article is conflating an app/website choosing to implement some form of verification vs a law requiring it.
I think that if a website or app wants to make this choice, they should be allowed too. Obviously we should expect that they have proper security, and we should make the choice on if we want to take that risk. But I think it is a perfectly valid choice by the developer, and users can choose whether or not they think it is worth it or use a competitor that doesn't (or a competitor is created that doesn't).
But the issue of laws requiring it I think is where things have gone too far. So much of this is being framed as "protect the children" but most of it really seems to be fueled from a puritanical "porn is bad" and needing to make it harder to get access too for adults. I really wish we could move past this as a society, stop vilifying it, being ashamed of sex, etc.
And likely throw in some tracking of what people are doing online since now you no longer have the anonymity.
Edit:
If you really truly are trying to "protect the children"... Maybe educate them instead of hiding things from them.
I know it is not the same as ‘prove who you are to surf’ but when I open the page and am greeted with a note that explains that, in exchange for reading the article, The New Yorker will share my personal information with 219 different partners, you sort of wonder where the anonymity they are so worried about has gone.
>> "We, and our 219 partners use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences. We may also use these technologies to gauge the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, target advertisements, and analyze website traffic. Some of these technologies are essential for ensuring the proper functioning of the service or website and cannot be disabled, while others are optional but serve to enhance the user experience in various ways. We, in collaboration with our partners, store and/or access information on a user's device, including but not limited to IP addresses, unique identifiers, and browsing data stored in cookies, in order to process personal data."
The internet badly needs a standard system for people to verify their age*, identity**, etc but it's a terrible idea for that system not to be pseudonymous.
* as in "I am over n years old", not "my exact birthday is nnnn-nn-nn"
** as in "I am a unique human you know as <uuid>", not "I am John Q Smith"
I find it sad that all these problems have solutions already (see for example https://sovrin.org). You do not need a full ID or exact birthday to perform a check for age.
As usual, mental laziness means that complexity kills the acceptance of good solutions and instead we legislate privacy-invading garbage.
It seems very coincidental but totally unnoticed by many that this is occurring during discussions about AI bot activity and how to control access. ID access is a human check fundamentally with an on the surface primary aim of age checking.
To me its noteworthy that it seems that most of those who would agree that checking for human vs bot is a Good Thing are very opposed to checking for human vs human. It's advocating for the same tools, same machines, same algorithms.
I like to try to find a metaphor (or is it a simile?): it's a little bit like building surveillance and spying tools for nation states and campaigning and protesting to spying by nation states on your own person. It could be like protesting against selling arms to armies while advocating for personal gun ownership.
A poor enforcement of such a goal(since it's led by government, this is just about a guarantee) will give birth to a new movement in technology to completely avoid it. I am ready for this.
It’s really hard to imagine getting asked for an ID online and outside those mentioned countries not noticeable at all that something that fundamentally changed. It certainly affects the behaviour of the person if they showed their ID before and can easily be taken to responsibility. Would not even be surprised if they try to prosecute people who faked it to access online content.
32 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 52.4 ms ] threadFor the actual issue, Tea would be better suited with a web of trust system rather than forcing identification audits. If a woman is inviting male accounts then a web of trust would allow the service to shutdown anyone invited from the bad account (similar Lobste.rs bans).
https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/opening-up-ze...
If parents don’t want kids getting into mischief online, then they need to restrict device and network access appropriately.
The internet was never intended for children, and we need to stop placing the onus on other adults to police themselves instead of on parents to police their children.
Life would be so much easier for Trump if people stopped pestering him online about that bloody Epstein list, or if EU citizens would stop pestering their politicians about the crimes of illegal immigrants.
They want to control your speech using the daily boogieman flavor: terrorists, protecting the kids, Russian trolls, etc
Tasteless rulers
The only way around that is to kill the internet, good luck recreating North Korea's intranet as a replacement.
Decades of historical baggage, technical cruft, and now a new set of encumbrances in the form of aggressive state surveillance under the moniker of "regulation;" it's strange to me that there are no movements in this space to replace an aging and decrepit web that has grown increasingly user hostile.
* It allows parents to decide what age to allow kiddo to see certain content, not the state.
* It allows others to restrict content too. E.g. a gambling addict who doesn't want to see gambling content.
* It has no risk of leaks etc for adults.
I'd like to see laws mandating that service provides respect a new content restriction header or something like that.
Fast forward to now, it doesn't seem a bad idea for them.
Parents also don't care if their kid is sitting 5h daily in front of some roblox gambling machine.
Of course, this will get combated by governments letting tech companies to query IDs against their databases, which inevitably will leak the IDs which will then make this exercise pointless.
They also implement child specific locks, such as limiting the duration kids can play a game, and for only specific hours (not during night time).
I think that if a website or app wants to make this choice, they should be allowed too. Obviously we should expect that they have proper security, and we should make the choice on if we want to take that risk. But I think it is a perfectly valid choice by the developer, and users can choose whether or not they think it is worth it or use a competitor that doesn't (or a competitor is created that doesn't).
But the issue of laws requiring it I think is where things have gone too far. So much of this is being framed as "protect the children" but most of it really seems to be fueled from a puritanical "porn is bad" and needing to make it harder to get access too for adults. I really wish we could move past this as a society, stop vilifying it, being ashamed of sex, etc.
And likely throw in some tracking of what people are doing online since now you no longer have the anonymity.
Edit:
If you really truly are trying to "protect the children"... Maybe educate them instead of hiding things from them.
>> "We, and our 219 partners use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences. We may also use these technologies to gauge the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, target advertisements, and analyze website traffic. Some of these technologies are essential for ensuring the proper functioning of the service or website and cannot be disabled, while others are optional but serve to enhance the user experience in various ways. We, in collaboration with our partners, store and/or access information on a user's device, including but not limited to IP addresses, unique identifiers, and browsing data stored in cookies, in order to process personal data."
* as in "I am over n years old", not "my exact birthday is nnnn-nn-nn"
** as in "I am a unique human you know as <uuid>", not "I am John Q Smith"
As usual, mental laziness means that complexity kills the acceptance of good solutions and instead we legislate privacy-invading garbage.
To me its noteworthy that it seems that most of those who would agree that checking for human vs bot is a Good Thing are very opposed to checking for human vs human. It's advocating for the same tools, same machines, same algorithms.
I like to try to find a metaphor (or is it a simile?): it's a little bit like building surveillance and spying tools for nation states and campaigning and protesting to spying by nation states on your own person. It could be like protesting against selling arms to armies while advocating for personal gun ownership.
Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44781492
Yes ---> Require ID to view/register
No ---> Can register without ID in a read-only mode. To interact with other people, "upgrade" account with ID verification
Why is this so difficult to implement?
We shouldn't replicate that in technological solutions.
ID is for "who you are", which doesn't matter for the types of things we use for age checks (bars, etc.)
There should be a way to verify your age without showing ID.
Sure, ID can do that. It is sufficient, but it should not be necessary.