Of course they do. Only fools expected anything else.
Does else anyone remember the "age verification" on '80s video games? Some of them were hilarious. I think it was Leisure Suit Larry that asked multiple choice history questions that I guess were meant to be impossible for fifth graders to guess. I was the local history nerd, so I remember getting calls from classmates, like "we're trying to get into a game; when was JFK assassinated?" If I didn't know I'd ask my dad, who never knew he was contributing to the delinquency of (other) minors.
There is one thing I do not remember, and that is if Leisure Suit Larry was advertised toward children and how much of Leisure Suit Larry revenue sales came from 0–12 years old, adolescent of 13–17 years old, and then adult customers.
It could be that that Leisure Suit Larry age verification was actually fairly good, if one put it in relation towards how much of their customer base and revenue came from selling the game to young children.
One big problem is that the verification is trying to estimate your age instead of looking up who is the actual person and then checking what the age is of that person. If the lookup returns that the face is that of a video game character it should reject as opposed to trying to estimate the age of that character.
The next age verification tech will involve checking tallness so we'll have kids standing on eachother's shoulders in a big trenchcoat to do the very adult act of installing linux.
My 12yo son is already significantly taller than me! We had to use his passport to prove he’s much younger than these systems report because they were locking him out from chatting to his friends (said the age gap was too big)
Additionally tier 1 networks legally not allowed to route packets that don't include an attestation that they were produced by a computer running only approved software.
I assume that everyone's ID is identifiable by willing state actors (at least adults) . Perhaps they want to create databases of possible child terrorists?
The only good justification of it can be that the companies can claim that the age verification was done as per Terms of Service, so in the future no parent or parent group can come after them for the content. Along with better targeted advertising by identifying the target audiences.
Logically parents are probably best suited to gate the content for their children how they see it fit.
I process the manual ID reviews for a small system. I don't get many, but I have seen some funny stuff. Last week a kid tried to use a still from a Spiderman movie.
"Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice."
The Helen Lovejoy argument "will somebody please think of the children" provided for the foot in the door. The intended outcome is that only iris scans will allow for full child protection ... and that was the plan all along.
I mean it’s no coincidence that Labour adopted the Tory Online Safety Act and at the same time as Keir Starmer started pushing Blair’s old National ID system again.
They’ve wanted total surveillance for quite a while. Now politicians and billionaires are talking about making it happen.
I don't want to give my ID to every service I interact online. But I also don't think it's reasonable to ask of parents to ensure their children aren't accessing age restricted content online.
What about liquor shops or strip clubs? They ask for ID, which makes sense; we're not expecting parents to make sure their children don't go into these places. But the liquor shop takes a look at the ID and then doesn't collect the data.
Being entirely against age verification is not a good stance I think, but we should definitely have a hard stance on the privacy issue. There are systems that preserve privacy while still making it possible to verify you're old enough to use a service.
People like to make fun of and poke holes in the EU's planned implementation of this, but so far they seem to be the only ones trying to implement this in a way that doesn't give my name to every online service or give some identity provider full knowledge which services I sign up to
The California bill about setting an age in the OS was another interesting idea. Have the parents police a single setting on the device, then websites and apps can query that setting. Of course that's little more than the parental controls we always had, but apparently everyone forgot about those
>> Being entirely against age verification is not a good stance I think
I think the problem is that the internet has existed for quite a while without it. I'm sure there were similar complaints from people when you suddenly needed to pass a test to drive a car or when insurance became mandatory.
>> There are systems that preserve privacy while still making it possible to verify you're old enough to use a service.
In a similar vein: A while ago, Chinese adolescents were bypassing age restrictions for playtime in Mainland China by using the published national ID numbers of insolvent debtors (which are apparently published online to ensure that no financial institutions extend credit to them) to sign up for accounts. From what I understand, they started partially masking these national ID numbers in response to that.
I think, the best way to keep children from dangerous content is large fines for parents, for example, $4000 for every adult video their child was traumatized by due to their negligence. 50% of the fine is shared with the person who reported the violation (including site operators). After all being a parent is a responsibility.
Such law would not cause inconvenience to normal Internet users without children, would provide additional source of income for vigilant people and underpaid school staff, and would result in much higher degree of compliance. Why you guys don't elect people like me.
Reading the comments here, I see a lot of criticism along the line of "age verification doesn't work, it's completely stupid".
I believe it is counter-productive, because "not having age verification" is a lost battle. Unlike E2EE (where it is impossible to give access "only to the good guys"), it is possible to implement age verification in a privacy-preserving manner. And look at the ChatControl fight: even though it is not possible, we are still struggling to convince politicians of it. Good luck with age verification where it is actually possible to do something.
It should be a public service: just like the government issues IDs already, it should run the privacy-preserving system that allows citizens to prove their age. We should fight for that, otherwise we will get non-privacy-preserving systems managed by private companies (which is already starting).
None of this prohibition works. Kids will find ways around it, authorities will get stricter, rinse and repeat. A total shitshow.
A lot of people mentioning off-license/booze/tobacco like that was a success story. It isn’t. Outside main/high streets, kids manage to buy stuff just fine. Success requires enforcement, constant vigilance and heavy penalties. Not applicable to Meta at al.
Social media is a drug. Just like crack, making it illegal won’t make it go away. Only education can change this. Unfortunately, we now have multiple generations hooked on it, so I’m not sure this is even possible anymore.
I blocked all social media on my daughter’s phone until she turned 17. I am/was a massive control freak. Guess what happened after that?
I still have control over her apps. I still won’t let install snapchat and every other crap app she asks for. She understands it is for her own good, but none of that matters when “all her friends use it.”
The first iPhone went on sale when she was born. Obama was elected when she was a baby. The world sucks right now.
51 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 64.3 ms ] threadDoes else anyone remember the "age verification" on '80s video games? Some of them were hilarious. I think it was Leisure Suit Larry that asked multiple choice history questions that I guess were meant to be impossible for fifth graders to guess. I was the local history nerd, so I remember getting calls from classmates, like "we're trying to get into a game; when was JFK assassinated?" If I didn't know I'd ask my dad, who never knew he was contributing to the delinquency of (other) minors.
It could be that that Leisure Suit Larry age verification was actually fairly good, if one put it in relation towards how much of their customer base and revenue came from selling the game to young children.
offtopic, I would love remakes of all the old sierra games, with a local llm doing the text interface.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn72ydj70g5o
Consequently, we're now discussing VPN bans for under 18 year olds <insert facepalm emoji>.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
https://web.archive.org/web/20220814024158/https://gabrielsi...
Logically parents are probably best suited to gate the content for their children how they see it fit.
"Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice."
The Helen Lovejoy argument "will somebody please think of the children" provided for the foot in the door. The intended outcome is that only iris scans will allow for full child protection ... and that was the plan all along.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36542487
They’ve wanted total surveillance for quite a while. Now politicians and billionaires are talking about making it happen.
What about liquor shops or strip clubs? They ask for ID, which makes sense; we're not expecting parents to make sure their children don't go into these places. But the liquor shop takes a look at the ID and then doesn't collect the data.
Being entirely against age verification is not a good stance I think, but we should definitely have a hard stance on the privacy issue. There are systems that preserve privacy while still making it possible to verify you're old enough to use a service.
The California bill about setting an age in the OS was another interesting idea. Have the parents police a single setting on the device, then websites and apps can query that setting. Of course that's little more than the parental controls we always had, but apparently everyone forgot about those
I think the problem is that the internet has existed for quite a while without it. I'm sure there were similar complaints from people when you suddenly needed to pass a test to drive a car or when insurance became mandatory.
>> There are systems that preserve privacy while still making it possible to verify you're old enough to use a service.
What are these systems?
As someone on a tech forum, we’re the only people who can really articulate the issues with the age verification approach.
It’s really the worst solution to these problems with awful tradeoffs.
Such law would not cause inconvenience to normal Internet users without children, would provide additional source of income for vigilant people and underpaid school staff, and would result in much higher degree of compliance. Why you guys don't elect people like me.
I believe it is counter-productive, because "not having age verification" is a lost battle. Unlike E2EE (where it is impossible to give access "only to the good guys"), it is possible to implement age verification in a privacy-preserving manner. And look at the ChatControl fight: even though it is not possible, we are still struggling to convince politicians of it. Good luck with age verification where it is actually possible to do something.
It should be a public service: just like the government issues IDs already, it should run the privacy-preserving system that allows citizens to prove their age. We should fight for that, otherwise we will get non-privacy-preserving systems managed by private companies (which is already starting).
A lot of people mentioning off-license/booze/tobacco like that was a success story. It isn’t. Outside main/high streets, kids manage to buy stuff just fine. Success requires enforcement, constant vigilance and heavy penalties. Not applicable to Meta at al.
Social media is a drug. Just like crack, making it illegal won’t make it go away. Only education can change this. Unfortunately, we now have multiple generations hooked on it, so I’m not sure this is even possible anymore.
I blocked all social media on my daughter’s phone until she turned 17. I am/was a massive control freak. Guess what happened after that?
I still have control over her apps. I still won’t let install snapchat and every other crap app she asks for. She understands it is for her own good, but none of that matters when “all her friends use it.”
The first iPhone went on sale when she was born. Obama was elected when she was a baby. The world sucks right now.
Rant over.