Many of these "social" media websites increasingly just fling AI-generated disturbing videos at people. I am sure we could build a web that is actually pleasant to use for kids, but we are not building it.
youtube for example: https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/2006013682472669589
> If a child is in a Formula One car and they turn on the engine, I don’t want them to win the race, I just want them to get out of the car. I want them to learn the highway code first, and to ensure the car works, and to teach them to drive in a different car.
Yet computer education in France has been severely lacking for so long. From middle school to even universities (except the courses computer focused obviously) people aren't taught correctly. Teachers themselves are lost to computers and lectures are bad.
The goal is obviously to have tech illiterate people knowing just enough to use computers for the job but not worrying about the digital autoristarism currently being deployed.
Devil's advocate: what is the difference between "social media" and a website very much like this one? When can I look forward to having to give a DNA test to read HN?
I am convinced that the current world wide rise of (right wing ) populist movements is mainly caused by social media. By regulating like this my hope is we can reduce their spread.
The question is how this is implemented, in particular age verification.
It's usual to say that MPs are old people that don't understand current technologies, but in law preparation committees they appear to be well aware; in particular, they mentioned a "double-anonymity" system where the site requesting your age wouldn't know your name, and the entity serving age requests wouldn't know which site it is for. They are also aware that people walk-around age verification checks with e.g. fake ID cards, possibly AI generated.
I'm not sure if it is actually doable reliabily, and I'm not sure either that the MPs that will have to vote the law will know the topic as well as the MPs participating in these committees.
I would personally consider other options like a one-button admin config for computers/smartphones/tablets that restricts access according to age (6-14, 15-18) and requiring online service providers to announce their "rating" in HTTP headers. Hackers will certainly object that young hackers could bypass this, but like copy-protection, the mission can be considered complete when the vast majority of people are prevented from doing what they should not do.
Alternatively one could consider the creation of a top-level domain with a "code of content" (which could include things like "chat control") enforced by controlling entity. Then again, an OS-level account config button could restrict all Internet accesses to this domain.
Perhaps an national agency could simply grant a "child safe" label to operating systems that comply to this.
This type of solutions would I think also be useful in schools (e.g. school-provided devices), although they are also talking about severely limiting screen-time at school.
I'm one of the weirdos that should be on board with this, but I'm against it. This will do harm to marginalized youth and push younger people to lie and find ways around the ban.
Plus, we saw that in Australia that the lobby behind the ban was in fact an ad agency that makes ads for gambling apps.
Here is France, the ban is probably just a way to avoid legislation against companies selling crap that isn't for kids like vape pens and sports gambling apps.
A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.
They are implicitly the same thing.
You can't exclude children without first verifying _everyone_ and from there excluding people who match age < approved. This is basic logic.
If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law and using "think of the children" as the social justification for it.
If you're a conspiracy theorist you'd wonder why Apple and Google have now added the ability to upload and link your passport and other real id into their respective app wallets. How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...
>A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.
ID verification was not required for adults in Australia. Age was inferred based on activity. In fact, blanket verification was disallowed by the legislation.
This is such a fools errand, there will always be services popping up faster than regulators can ban them. This won't stop a lot of the kids. So wasteful.
I remember when I was a kid I listened to radio until very late in to the night.
Unless they want to remove all of technology from 10pm to 8am, this bill is going to be ridiculous. Teenager and kid will always find better things to do than sleep.
I'm going to restate my proposed age verification system here. I've posted it several times as a comment on this website. It works as follows:
1. A private company, let's call it AgeVerify, issues scratch-off cards with unique tokens on them. They are basically like gift cards.
2. AgeVerify's scratch-off cards are sold exclusively in IRL stores. Preferably liquor stores, adult stores, and/or tobacco/vape shops. Places that are licensed and check ID.
3. Anyone who wants to verify their age online can purchase a token at a store. The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever.
4. Giving or selling these tokens to a minor is a criminal offense. If a store does it, they lose their liquor or tobacco license. Treat it just like giving a minor alcohol or tobacco.
4a. Run public service announcement campaigns to communicate that giving an AgeVerify token to a child is like handing them a cigarette. There should be a clear social taboo associated with the legal ban.
5. The buyer of the AgeVerify token enters it into their account on whatever social media or adult website they want to use. The website validates the code with AgeVerify.
6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased.
7. A separate token is required for each website/each account.
8. The website is responsible for enforcing no account sharing.
No identifying information is stored anywhere. Kids find it very hard to access age-restricted materials online, just like the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes.
Sounds good. Except the reverify thing. The whole reverification is becoming a bit of a disease lately.
I've already had my bank AND my mobile provider demanding an updated scan of my ID. Which is completely BS, after all I'm still the same person. I didn't suddenly become someone else. It's ridiculous they demand it.
But these cards sound like a better solution than using government ID yes.
1. You can go to the mayor's house to get the token. No need to associate tobacco/alcohol to it.
2. It's free.
3. It's culturally enforced to exchange tokens with other people. This way users themselves help make sure it's truly impossible to trace their activity.
4. It's illegal to publish your or someone else's token. It's like a paper ID, with a QR code.
5. Can be reused. Expires after 5 years .
This way if you want 5 pornhub accounts you don't have to buy 5 stamps. You are also extra sure that the tokens cannot be linked to you because you can exchange it with anyone.
>6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased.
> 7. A separate token is required for each website/each account.
I propose instead:
A single code valid for 10 packets sent to a single IP address, or 30 seconds, whichever expires first.
What happens with point 7 when you verify your age to Google Plus and then you go to Reddit and “sign in with Google?”. If your verification doesn’t transfer, that would be silly because you aren’t a different age.
Trying to start a new social network in your world either has “every new signup must go to a store and spend money” or every new social network becomes tied to “sign in with Google”.
Your plan locks us into the current social networking forever?
Not only this but every age verification system will create an immense motive for the kids to obtain an "adult pass". Money, uncles, "family engineering" on parents or obscure paths will be used by the kid to become a hero to their peers. In a few months/years the system will degenerate and become abandoned.
Too much of a coordinated efforts between western countries, thus it cannot fail. The decisions have been made and your voice pretty much doesn't matter.
Look, I’m all for not letting children into social media apps. But that’s the job of the parents, not the state.
Besides, like many point out, this is just a way to deanonymize the web for everyone.
Why is the state always meddling with the citizens lives and personal responsibilities, and why do we let them? Do we really appreciate so much this nanny state?
>But that’s the job of the parents, not the state.
How? I can't hover over the shoulders of my kids 24/7 - there's no world in which that's practical.
Maybe tech companies should start offering parents tools to make it easier? The same tools that people here might already use to keep that bullshit away from their kids.
I was going to write a comment about how stupid and harmful these bans are for multiple reasons (including being entirely ineffective at their stated goals anyways), but honestly, who cares at this point. It's clear to me that the internet is dying and will either look dramatically different in the next decade or cease to exist as it's overtaken by bots and AI. And I'm starting to think that's a good thing for humans and society. Perhaps we will return to the real world.
(We will still need the internet for communication, but hopefully far less for entertainment etc).
Any kind of government encroachment into the time of it's citizens is theft.
Many of their citizens chose American social media because they prefer American values. This offended the nationalists so they are simply going to ban American sites and try to make their own inferior ones.
Traditional media (Murdoch) and traditional gambling lobbied the hardest for these laws (of course these are anything but traditional). This is a billion dollar gimme to newscorp, but they will probably still fail to pick up the younger audience because they can't compete.
In America we have freedom of religion and freedom of association, we used to have the freedom to put whatever we please in our own bodies and minds.
Absolute nonsense. American social media is used because it's designed to addict children and adults. Same reason people gamble, and buy advertised products.
42 comments
[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 69.5 ms ] threadYet computer education in France has been severely lacking for so long. From middle school to even universities (except the courses computer focused obviously) people aren't taught correctly. Teachers themselves are lost to computers and lectures are bad.
The goal is obviously to have tech illiterate people knowing just enough to use computers for the job but not worrying about the digital autoristarism currently being deployed.
It's usual to say that MPs are old people that don't understand current technologies, but in law preparation committees they appear to be well aware; in particular, they mentioned a "double-anonymity" system where the site requesting your age wouldn't know your name, and the entity serving age requests wouldn't know which site it is for. They are also aware that people walk-around age verification checks with e.g. fake ID cards, possibly AI generated.
I'm not sure if it is actually doable reliabily, and I'm not sure either that the MPs that will have to vote the law will know the topic as well as the MPs participating in these committees.
I would personally consider other options like a one-button admin config for computers/smartphones/tablets that restricts access according to age (6-14, 15-18) and requiring online service providers to announce their "rating" in HTTP headers. Hackers will certainly object that young hackers could bypass this, but like copy-protection, the mission can be considered complete when the vast majority of people are prevented from doing what they should not do.
Alternatively one could consider the creation of a top-level domain with a "code of content" (which could include things like "chat control") enforced by controlling entity. Then again, an OS-level account config button could restrict all Internet accesses to this domain.
Perhaps an national agency could simply grant a "child safe" label to operating systems that comply to this.
This type of solutions would I think also be useful in schools (e.g. school-provided devices), although they are also talking about severely limiting screen-time at school.
For the french speakers, see:
[1] https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.17950525_6942684...
[2] https://videos.assemblee-nationale.fr/video.17952051_6942761...
Plus, we saw that in Australia that the lobby behind the ban was in fact an ad agency that makes ads for gambling apps.
Here is France, the ban is probably just a way to avoid legislation against companies selling crap that isn't for kids like vape pens and sports gambling apps.
They are implicitly the same thing.
You can't exclude children without first verifying _everyone_ and from there excluding people who match age < approved. This is basic logic.
If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law and using "think of the children" as the social justification for it.
If you're a conspiracy theorist you'd wonder why Apple and Google have now added the ability to upload and link your passport and other real id into their respective app wallets. How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...
ID verification was not required for adults in Australia. Age was inferred based on activity. In fact, blanket verification was disallowed by the legislation.
I wish my country (USA) would adapt similar laws.
There’s so much that falls out of the social media definition. And regardless, kids are not stupid… VPNs, proxies, etc are easy to circumvent with.
Unless they want to remove all of technology from 10pm to 8am, this bill is going to be ridiculous. Teenager and kid will always find better things to do than sleep.
1. A private company, let's call it AgeVerify, issues scratch-off cards with unique tokens on them. They are basically like gift cards.
2. AgeVerify's scratch-off cards are sold exclusively in IRL stores. Preferably liquor stores, adult stores, and/or tobacco/vape shops. Places that are licensed and check ID.
3. Anyone who wants to verify their age online can purchase a token at a store. The store must only demand ID if the buyer appears to be a minor (similar to alcohol or tobacco purchases). The store must never store the ID in any form whatsoever.
4. Giving or selling these tokens to a minor is a criminal offense. If a store does it, they lose their liquor or tobacco license. Treat it just like giving a minor alcohol or tobacco.
4a. Run public service announcement campaigns to communicate that giving an AgeVerify token to a child is like handing them a cigarette. There should be a clear social taboo associated with the legal ban.
5. The buyer of the AgeVerify token enters it into their account on whatever social media or adult website they want to use. The website validates the code with AgeVerify.
6. Once validated, the code is good for 1 year (or 6 months or 3 months, adjust based on how stringent you want to make it) - then it expires and a new one must be purchased.
7. A separate token is required for each website/each account.
8. The website is responsible for enforcing no account sharing.
No identifying information is stored anywhere. Kids find it very hard to access age-restricted materials online, just like the vast majority of kids don't easily have access to alcohol or cigarettes.
I've already had my bank AND my mobile provider demanding an updated scan of my ID. Which is completely BS, after all I'm still the same person. I didn't suddenly become someone else. It's ridiculous they demand it.
But these cards sound like a better solution than using government ID yes.
1. You can go to the mayor's house to get the token. No need to associate tobacco/alcohol to it.
2. It's free.
3. It's culturally enforced to exchange tokens with other people. This way users themselves help make sure it's truly impossible to trace their activity.
4. It's illegal to publish your or someone else's token. It's like a paper ID, with a QR code.
5. Can be reused. Expires after 5 years .
This way if you want 5 pornhub accounts you don't have to buy 5 stamps. You are also extra sure that the tokens cannot be linked to you because you can exchange it with anyone.
Your idea is garbage.
> 7. A separate token is required for each website/each account.
I propose instead:
A single code valid for 10 packets sent to a single IP address, or 30 seconds, whichever expires first.
Trying to start a new social network in your world either has “every new signup must go to a store and spend money” or every new social network becomes tied to “sign in with Google”.
Your plan locks us into the current social networking forever?
[1] At best with a "trust us we won't tattle" "privacy" architecture.
Too much of a coordinated efforts between western countries, thus it cannot fail. The decisions have been made and your voice pretty much doesn't matter.
Besides, like many point out, this is just a way to deanonymize the web for everyone.
Why is the state always meddling with the citizens lives and personal responsibilities, and why do we let them? Do we really appreciate so much this nanny state?
How? I can't hover over the shoulders of my kids 24/7 - there's no world in which that's practical.
Maybe tech companies should start offering parents tools to make it easier? The same tools that people here might already use to keep that bullshit away from their kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1RpYGJsp-A
(We will still need the internet for communication, but hopefully far less for entertainment etc).
Many of their citizens chose American social media because they prefer American values. This offended the nationalists so they are simply going to ban American sites and try to make their own inferior ones.
Traditional media (Murdoch) and traditional gambling lobbied the hardest for these laws (of course these are anything but traditional). This is a billion dollar gimme to newscorp, but they will probably still fail to pick up the younger audience because they can't compete.
In America we have freedom of religion and freedom of association, we used to have the freedom to put whatever we please in our own bodies and minds.