Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for privacy. But between setting up the birthdate when creating my children’s local account on their computers, and having to send a copy of their ID to every platform under the sun, I’d easily chose the former.
I’d even agree to a simple protocol (HTTP X-Over-18 / X-Over-21 headers?) to that.
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Because it will only be a simple birthdate until they decide to use those laws to go even further.
I don’t wanr the device I own to enforce laws that I don’t get a say on.
Is it my device or am I renting it.
Should all cars have breathalyzers installed by default?
Should all cars have breathalyzers installed by default?
Yes!
But should all cars have a reader for your government ID and drivers license and immediately log every use of your car to $authority?
Show us your ID, then. Or even just your age. Now your children too.
Don’t want to? That’s why.
While an international cabal of rich white men participate in a pedophile club run by america/israeli rich white other men, we need to ensure that the youth of today don’t prematurely access “racy” pictures. Make it make sense.
Yes.
My conspiracy theory is their end goal is a full database of everyone’s children’s photos and locations, to they can window shop which of our kids they want to grab and take to Epstein Island 2.0, next.
I don’t necessarily have an issue with that - as long as it can truly be done in a way where the only information the platform gets about me is whether I’m of age (they don’t even need to know my exact age). But I don’t have faith that it can actually be done like that, and I see it as a slippery slope toward even more surveillance.
They can have one bit. I’m ok with one bit.
As soon as they ask for a byte, they are gathering too much information about me.
I can accept that this is a significant issue, and if knowing that I’m an adult is required for certain online activities, I’ll go along, but we all know damned well this will creep.
What ever elements need to verify who I am stay private client side, and they can have a single flag that verifies I’m what I claim to be.
So you’re ok about your official ID being broadcast everywhere you go on the internet? Every step you take can be tracked by the government, google, Meta and more? No more fucking privacy what so ever?
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
and to prove its not actually about safety and instead about control: parents are already responsible for what kids do online and could be charged using existing laws. but… where is the overreach in that?!
It can be done like that, but then it’d be (trivially) fake-able by anyone with root permissions on their own computer. But then, my point is that kids shouldn’t be root of their computers, so let’s just parents vouch for children’s age, and leave everything more complicated out.
From what I understood, the rules (in California?) would be : a) Every operating system provider must collect the user’s age or date of birth during the initial account setup process. b) The OS must classify the user into one of the four defined age brackets: under 13 years old, 13–15 years old, 16–17 years old, or 18 years and older. c) This information must be made available to application developers through a real-time API as soon as an application is launched or downloaded.
Unless I’ve missed something, I could definitely live with that. I haven’t seen anything more acceptable when it comes to age verification. Point a) doesn’t need to prove age or date of birth.
Now there is a small issue that came to my mind since my first post, which might be quite problematic : if ANY website is able to tell whether ANY user is a child, it’ll be as easy to keep children out of certain sites that it’ll be easy to keep adults out of others.
Imagine a bulletin board with highly disturbing/predatory content which would ONLY show to kids? Whenever mom or dad checks, website is all normal. And that would be real bad, probably worse than our current, no age verified situation.
OS defined does seem the best way, but I would prefer it wasn’t legislated. The people writing these rules have no clue about the real world, so they end up doing stupid things.
You aren’t setting up your childrens accounts. You’re setting up your accounts to show that you’re not a child. And suddenly, every single thing you use, from apps to websites, is gatekept behind an API that is controlled by the government. If checking age on social media is all it ever does, then sure, whatever. But that isn’t all it will ever do. It will creep further and further, and the details you need to provide will increase, one shitty government term at a time. And then one day, they’ll able able to decide that people in your country shouldn’t be able to see safe sex information, or abortion information, and the framework to deny the whole country access is already there, and just one small tweak away from locking you out of information that is deemed inappropriate.
Yep. This is pretty much it. Require having popular operating systems to have child accounts as an option would be reasonably ok. But regular accounts shouldn’t need any verification. ID checks wouldn’t need to be anywhere near this either. Its on the parents, they didn’t setup a child account? They are to blame.
, one shitty government term at a time
Just like your admining. One ban at a time without giving any chance to defend onself.
#HorseShoeTheory
Won’t someone think of the poor bigots! They’re getting banned without getting to defend their bigotry!
Ada is a fantastic admin and she does an incredible job keeping shitty people off of blahaj.zone. Sounds like you’re mad you got banned for being shitty.
Oh fuck off. She never pointed to any comment or post of mine for the reason. And she kept being weasely as fuck about it. Probably because she knows I’m right.
Anyway, I’m not going to tell you what it was that I suspect got me banned. Go fucking suck her toes or whatever.
Oh fuck off. She never pointed to any comment or post of mine for the reason. And she kept being weasely as fuck about it. Probably because she knows I’m right.
Modlogs are public, and come with removal reasons
Your only removal reason was ‘racism/bigotry’ without any explanation. Go fuck yourself and the high horse you ride on.
I haven’t banned any blahaj based accounts with that ban reason in the last 12 months.
To give a summary of the remote accounts I’ve banned in that time though…
- Said that “all land is stolen” and then called people delusional when another person said that doesn’t make it ok.
- A troll with a mile long modlog who said that arab community “got what they deserved” when Trump implemented a travel ban
- Another person in the same thread as person number 2 who said basically the same thing
- Same as person 2 and 3
There were a couple of accounts that had been deleted, and no history was available. And a couple of accounts where content was removed, and/or a community ban was implemented, but no other instance bans.
I’m quite happy to stand by all of those bans. And if you aren’t sure why they’re ban worthy, well, banning you was the right choice…
There were a couple of accounts that had been deleted
Including mine. And you were shifty as fuck when I asked for reasons from that account.
Anyway,
Said that “all land is stolen” and then called people delusional when another person said that doesn’t make it ok.
This deserves instance ban?
A troll with a mile long modlog who said that arab community “got what they deserved” when Trump implemented a travel ban
And “White community is getting what they deserve” is perfectly ok to say? Maybe even “Asian community” or “Indian community”? They are honorary whites when it comes to oppression olympics.
Finally you’ve recently instance banned someone for misogyny and I went to that person’s profile and didn’t find anything. Slimey as fuck to allude you’re only banning racists.
I’m quite happy to stand by all of those bans. And if you aren’t sure why they’re ban worthy, well, banning you was the right choice…
As I said, the ultimate arbiter of morality and ethics. You can do nothing wrong. Go fuck yourself and the high horse you ride on.
And yeah don’t bother replying. I’m going to burn this account.
If checking age on social media is all it ever does, then sure, whatever.
You’re forgetting an important detail: you submitted an official ID to prove your age. Which means your face, address, and legal name are also on record. So every time you get age-verified, you’re basically checking in with your full legal identity, leaving a breadcrumb path across the Internet of everything you do. That data can be used to track your online activities and build a database on who you are as a person, based on the things you access.
THIS is why age verification is a terrifying thing for computer access. It’s a form of government tracking that should be illegal. Cops can’t legally barge into your home anytime they want and go through your stuff. They can’t take your computer and scan it for data collection. Not without a court order.
With age verification embedded within your OS, it won’t matter if there’s a court order or not. If your computer is connected to the Internet, you’ve just publicly broadcast all your data to the world, and anyone - cops or not - can tap into that data and build a profile on you. You don’t even need to be browsing the Internet; if your OS is verifying your age, it could also be broadcasting that verification for every program you use locally on your computer. None of your data is safe; it’s all tied to your legal identity and trackable.
Thats not what the current OS-level age gating is though. Its literally pick what age the account user is on account creation. You could set yourself to be 120 and that would be valid.
“current” is not what the lawmakers are thinking of though.
Nice to see lots of downvotes for stating factually correct statements while the parent post is literally all conjecture based on “well they would do that wouldnt they?” but is upvoted.
If they were planning on doing ID verification for this why would they take this half step? It doesnt make it easier for them down the road, if anything it makes it harder as there’s the ability to say “but we already have that”. If the plan was to mandate face ID why wouldnt they just go straight for that like the UK and Australia have for porn?
mlem is not showing me votes. so dunno what you are talking abt.
my point is that we have laws already that are perfectly appropriate to the “concern” stated, “child safety.”
any new laws will only give more access to important data to corporations who are known to do bad things with it.
that does not make it worth it. my opinion would change if there was a legit large inrush of charges using exiting laws that then did nothing to help, then one could argue we need more law. but thats just not the case today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
And there are several states that do have the age thing for porn here in the US, the biggest of which is Texas.
So exactly the same argument, while referencing an experiment where the frogs did jump out of the boiling water unless they were lobotomised. Very convincing.
No, I don’t believe you’re actually this stupid, sealion
C’mon, don’t be that dense, it’s is a metaphor explaining that people are more likely to accept change if done gradually as opposed to all at once.
unless they were lobotomised.
Look around. Think of the average person, half of the people are below that person’s intelligence and a good number of them vote.
You are a sealion. “Factually correct” but still acting like a shitbird
Funny huh
It seems obvious to me that, invasive as it is - an OS-level “are you 18 yes/no” check at installation would not satisfy the “protect the children” crowd at all, nevermind too that immediately when/if it goes into action - every single user would suddenly have their OS downgraded to the kiddy-level unless they declare their age.
It doesnt make it easier for them down the road, if anything it makes it harder as there’s the ability to say “but we already have that”.
This is perfectly reasonable, but my feeling is that the real world isn’t reasonable in this way.
Consider all the infractions of liberty that have been approved in the name of combating “terrorism.” The no-fly lists. The universal warrant-less searches. All domestic communications recorded and archived for who-knows how long. The pervasive surveillance. The huge extension of CBP power to do things like raid Greyhound busses that aren’t even crossing borders.
None of these steps were prevented with the argument “But we’re already doing something about that issue.” That argument never even came up, to any noteworthy degree, in the public discourse.
Look at it this way: All sorts of websites that aren’t for kids already have banners requiring the visitor to affirm that they’re legal adults. So, we’re there: “We already have that.” But no one is seriously making that argument. Because, of course, those banners do next to nothing: Visitors can just lie. So it will probably be for OS level age verification. Thus, in creating a system that doesn’t work, the excuse for extending the system, to exert more control in the future, is built in from the start.
People who are interested in asserting more control over others are never content with the amount of control they have. They always want more. It is the gaining of more control that motivates them.
I actually used this same example further up. Yes the GWOT made some terrible legislation that has done real damage, but it wasnt a slippery slope. They didnt make laws a little bit invasive but generally ok before slowly nudging it further until it got to the point where it was able to be used for ill. They went in hard and fast with abusable legislation which could be criticised for what it actually was, not what it would lead to in further legislation down the line (and it was criticised at the time).
…it wasnt a slippery slope. They didnt make laws a little bit invasive … before slowly nudging it further
I disagree.
There was a certain (large) amount of government surveillance and eavesdropping going on before the GWOT, which was used as an excuse to massively expand it. There was already inspection and security and traveler record-keeping at airports before the GWOT, which was used as an excuse to expand those. CBP had long had the legislative authority to do all kinds of nastiness within 100 miles of a border before the GWOT, which was used as an excuse to step their activities up, to legal limits and beyond.
In every case, an initial claim of urgent, exceptional authority was used to create both the physical infrastructure and the cultural permission required to make later, expanded claims of urgent, exceptional authority much easier to implement when an excuse presented itself. That is the slippery slope, we really slid way down it, it’s a real phenomenon. It doesn’t have to be smooth or gradual, it can happen in jerks and waves. It doesn’t have to come as a result of a plot, a plan, a deliberate conspiracy, it can be an accretion of individually opportunistic acts.
“You gave us that previous bit of private information what’s a little bit more. You can trust us”
You’re forgetting an important detail
I wasn’t forgetting it. As it stands, at the OS level, you aren’t supplying anything to prove your age. It’s just a data field that software can read. And my point was that if that field, and social media was all it ever was, then, it’s not great, but I can understand why the OP isn’t too upset by it.
My point was more that it will never be just that.
The issue in general is that there is no organization that can be trusted to verify the age, but not find a way to leverage that into gathering some info about the child and selling it.
That aside. Age is mostly meaningless. Everyone matures at different rates. The difference in rate between girls and boys results in effectively several years meaningful difference. Like a 10 year old female muturity is more similar to a 13 years old boy than a 10 year old boy. And 18 is just an arbitrary number that happens to coincide with finishing high school. And has no actual association to maturity. This is why car rental places won’t rent to under 21s most of the time. Some hotels won’t let you have a room until 25. So trying to decide what content should be available based on age is pointless. And they know that. So they aren’t tryi g to protect anyone. They are trying to extract information they can sell.
Will you be allowed to lie about the age? If yes, then it’s a pointless law. If no, then whoever is checking needs to have more control over your device than you do, DRM style. That’s gives them an entry point through which they can put whatever they want without you being able to control it.
The Califirnia law, at least, states the age flag should be set when the account is created, presumably by the controller of the computer, and holds that controller responsible for setting it correctly, and the developer responsible for ensuring it’s set and works correctly, at least, that’s my reading of it. If it’s your computer, that makes you resoonsible for setting your age and that of accounts you create for your children.
So that means that kids can’t buy computers?
Can’t buy a cheap used raspberry pi or old laptop/desktop in order to set up as a server?I don’t think there would be any difficulty with a kid setting up a computer, as in most juristictions the parents are responsible for their childrens’ actions until they are adults themselves. So the oarents would still be responsible for what the kid did with the computer in the same way they often are now.
So then the law is pointless as implemented, since parents can already do this. Which leads to the conclusion that there must be some other motivation
So these “os reporting age bands” laws are useless then.
Cause either the parents are being responsible, at which point there are many parental tools for network and device control.
Or they aren’t being responsible, and the kid can easily bypass it or just buy their own device.These age band laws basically work in the opposite way to the usual parental controls. Rather than having to install and maintain the control software and having the filtering at the client end of the connection, parents need only set a flag and filtering will occur at the source end of the connection.
Will these laws provide perfect protection that eliminates the need for parental oversight of childrens’ internet access? No. Will they help stop kids accidentally stumbling into unsuitable content, reducing harm overall? Yes. As a parent, one of the things I worry about is my kids browsing sites such as youtube. Even if they’re using it for research for school projects, I can never be certain it wont prompt them to watch an unsuitable video. With a simple “this user is a child, don’t show them anything unsuitable” flag, I wouldn’t have to spend so much energy monitoring everything and could spend more energy talking to them about what they’re actually watching.
One of the key parts of the Californian law is that if the client machine sends the flag, the service must treat it as authoratative, and should not use other means of checking. That is good news, as it means there is no incentive for sites to integrate more intrusive measures such as third parties scanning givernment issued ID.
and to prove its not actually about safety and instead about control: parents are already responsible for what kids do online and could be charged using existing laws. but… where is the overreach in that?!
Just because they are responsible doesn’t mean the have the means to exert their responsibility. Demanding birth-date upon (local) account creation would allow them to better exert that responsiblity.
no it wont. kids get around shit easier than ever especially with luddite parents.
if the gov actually cared they’d take to charging using existing laws.
Parents of current 8-18 year olds are gen X and millenials, who every survey shows are (on average) significantly more tech literate than gen Z and Alpha.
correct. i am a gen x software engineer and I know for a fact my kid who is now 25 would always find ways around firewalls when he was 14 and horned up.
my point is that we have laws already that are perfectly appropriate to the “concern” stated, “child safety.”
any new laws will only give more access to important data to corporations who are known to do bad things with it.
that does not make it worth it. my opinion would change if there was a legit large inrush of charges using exiting laws that then did nothing to help, then one could argue we need more law. but thats just not the case today.
Whilst parents absolutely should be guiding and helping the kids determine where they go online, and what they look at, I’m trying to envision where, or how, parents would be liable for them looking at something inappropriately “adult”, barring actual child neglect.
A system like this would actually help parents be more confident that little Johnny wasn’t going to stumble across something in appropriate, because, yes, in a way this is about control. It’s about controlling what kids are exposed to before they are intellectually ready for it. Yes, there are potentially serious issues around that, such as limiting access to LGBTQ+ or other helpful material for young adults, but that should be a discussion around what information is needed at each age, rather than how to indicate that age.
Age gating on the open internet will happen, I don’t see any way that it wont, what matters is how it is implemented. We know that submitting government issued ID to every site with potentially contentious content is a terrible idea; this neatly sidesteps the need for that, and actually forbids it.
for ex: if you let your kid look at porn, in the US, the parents are absolutely liable for various forms of “risk of injury to a child “ laws.
To bring charges under those sorts of laws there’s going to have to be some external evidence of harm. Either the kid is acting in a way that causes an agency sufficient concern that they investigate the family, or the government mandate much stricter monitoring of exactly who is doing what online. The former case is unlikely, but should probably be persued vigerously when it does hapoen, and the latter case is something I imagine we all very much want to avoid.
By providing a simple, privacy conscious, way of taking some of the burden of vigilence off of the parents (the child is less likely to stumble on inappropriate material) it makes it easier for them to provide actually beneficial guidance, and reduces the risk of law enforecement getting involved to investigate minor transgressions.
if they are claiming the new laws are for kid safety there must be existing already some external evidence of the need, no?
There’s fairly clear evidence at a societal level that access to, for instance, hardcore pornigraphic material is harmful to children, but that is very different to having evidence that a particular child is currently being exposed to it.
putting burden for safety on corps is not a healthy thing.
The burden is still on the parents, but this would actually provide a useful tool for them to address that burden.
Right, so the law is pointless, since there is already a thousand different ways to control what children see on the Internet.
Lots of people are about to be born on 01-01-1900. I guess 01-01-2000 works now though. Man, I’m old.
As others have said
It has nothing to do with age checking, protecting the children, or security. NOTHING.
That’s one of the main things to me. The argument jumps directly to drivers license / DOB collection, but makes no conclusions about how it would protect children. It is OVERTLY, 100%, about feeding lists of targets to the pedophiles that run the biggest tech companies.
They claim it’s to protect the children, when in reality, they will target everyone that DOESN’T have CP on their phones.
Because I don’t give a shit what your kids do on the Internet, and there are already plenty of tools for you to curate the experience for them.
But between setting up the birthdate when creating my children’s local account on their computers, and having to send a copy of their ID to every platform under the sun, I’d easily chose the former.
This is how they move the goalpost. They changed the argument.
You currently can just create a local account - period. It’s yours. No tracking. No personal info.
But now you’re accepting that you’re willing to give a third party information, even just a little.
The next argument is: “If giving your age is okay, why not your home address?”
This is what police do to fish information out of you.
I’d even agree to a simple protocol (HTTP X-Over-18 / X-Over-21 headers?) to that.
In a era where privacy conscious people don’t even connect their TV to the internet… This is okay to you?
You went from “Why do they want my information?”
To
“I’m not concerned with sharing my age. But how should we do it?”
And that itself is the root issue.
Also this goalpost will move almost immediately. What if the parent doesn’t understand why the OS is asking for a DOB and they type whatever? What if the parent doesn’t log out and the kids use the adult account? What if the kid is really smart and bypasses the check (I think this could actually get bypassed easily)?
Rather than rolling back this rule they’ll just go even further and say the OS must analyze every action and utilize every input (e.g. microphone, camera) to determine the age of the current user and that controls need to be at the hardware level and OSes need to get state certified, etc. Before long only Windows, Apple, Google, and maybe RedHat can comply. An entire community of Linux enthusiasts destroyed. And as some bills have stated, rather vaguely, this can apply to something as simple as a calculator!
Also this goalpost will move almost immediately. What if the parent doesn’t understand why the OS is asking for a DOB and they type whatever?
Which we have already seen with content ratings. Instead of using the rating to inform themselves on what content to allow their child, they basically relied on the retailers/theatres not selling access to people below the age.
But between setting up the birthdate when creating my children’s local account on their computers, and having to send a copy of their ID to every platform under the sun, I’d easily chose the former.
That’s your decision. The rest of us shouldn’t be forced into it just because you’re to lazy to watch what your kids are doing online. If a website thinks they need to my my age they can ask me and I’ll decide if I want to provide it or not. I don’t want my OS just handing it out to anyone who asks.
Come on, it’s not about tending to a selected group of people, it’s about mandating more surveillance. OP has done nothing to deserve this anger
Read his fucking post. He said he wants this so he doesn’t have to put in ID every time his kids want to use a new service online. What do you call that if not laziness?
not what OOP said. why is this such a trigger for you that basic reading comprehension goes out the door?
You idiot or brain-damaged? Is OP the person proposing/lobbying the legislation? Read his fucking post yourself, dumbass. He said he’d easily choose the option and asks why it can be a bad thing to do
Doesn’t matter if they’re the one proposing it, they’re arguing in favor of it, that makes them part of the problem. People like that saying “well, this gross invasion of privacy isn’t that bad for me” are why we have so much invasive bullshit going on in the first place.
Bullshit. But you are welcome to remain in your bubble, useful idiot that you are
What fucking bubble? Who am I a useful idiot to? People that are against this shit fucking legislation? Good. I’ll gladly oppose this garbage at every turn, and anyone who isn’t against it can go fuck themselves.
Genuine question, what if the only information it hands out is that you are over 18? Would it be different if all it was able to say is you aren’t a child?
You got the framing question wrong. You should have been asking if age limits should be implemented at all, and then whether the current proposals will work (which they won’t), and then whether they cause side damage (which they do).
And then you must understand the key point: once you build these surveillance tools, they will be expanded. You say “only 18” but once the framework is in place, why not add in “credit check” or “gender” or “nationality”.
And actually, we already know how the checks are implemented: they involve identifying people specifically. There is actually no way to do “only 18” checks; it is a physical impossibility. You always have to gather more data.
And finally, the basics of individual liberty as well as safe computing involve you choosing what software you want to run on your computer, and that you have control of your machine. For this type of age checking to work, it must take control away from you, the end user. And companies like Windows and OS X love it, because that would destroy the FOSS world.
Because you’re going down what they call a slippery slope.
This shouldn’t even be a thing. This shouldn’t even be a conversation.
We were doing just fine before the Epstein Republicans got their matching orders.
It’s a slippery slope and also regulatory capture as the only ones with the means to actually pull this off are the Big Tech companies.
