On the other hand, setting up a public website/app and trying to lure children to it is expensive, risky, and unlikely to succeed on the modern internet.
Right, when has any website become a platform where kids gather and regularly self-identify?
You’re completely ignoring my argument. How many of these websites where children gather and self-identity are created and maintained by paedophiles specifically to prey on childen? So far as I know, there has never been a site like this on the modern internet, nonetheless one that remains up and has been running for an extended period. I don’t see any reason to expect this to change.
How many of these websites where children gather and self-identity are created and maintained by paedophiles specifically to prey on childen?
In light of the Epstein files I would hesitate to say that number is zero. Nevermind that most such platforms are smaller than the giants you mentioned. Or that anyone working for or with kid-filled sites of any size could make it incidentally about preying on said kids. Apparently people manage when they’re just anonymous users.
Or that anyone working for or with kid-filled sites of any size could make it incidentally about preying on said kids. Apparently people manage when they’re just anonymous users.
But like, thats exactly my point. Its platforms like Roblox that predators seek out to prey on children. They don’t create their own. An age verification law will have no effect on that. A hidden backend value thats illegal to share doesn’t make it significantly easier for predators. Even if they did have unrestricted access to user data, wouldn’t a hundred other variables better identify vulnerable users, like use of voice chat and past text messages? Hell, I would expect children with the age flag left at a default value to be more vulnerable, given that it would likely mean the parent is less likely to be tech-savy and/or less likely to be paying attention to their child, but again, its ambiguous.
‘This law is fine because it won’t affect child predators’ is a brave argument.
What is it for? You’ve found so many ways to say it’s toothless, optional, trivially dodged. So why fucking bother? Critics seem to agree, it’s a foot in the door for all of the other privacy-defeating efforts going on, now running in protection ring zero. What does this nonsense do, besides set off those red flags? What impact do you honestly expect, versus telling websites to have an ‘18+ only’ click-through?
‘This law is fine because it won’t affect child predators’ is a brave argument.
This obviously isn’t the argument I’m making. This law obviously isn’t meant to stop predators. Its meant to provide a parental control option for parents to limit their own children’s access to potentially harmfull or mature materials.
Critics seem to agree, it’s a foot in the door for all of the other privacy-defeating efforts going on, now running in protection ring zero. What does this nonsense do, besides set off those red flags?
This huge uproar is the point of my confusion. You and others in the field seem certain that this is a direct first step towards ID and AI data collection. Meanwhile, before this, I actually saw this occasionally proposed as a good option in privacy-related blogs/communities specifically because it was optional and entirely handled by the users.
What impact do you honestly expect, versus telling websites to have an ‘18+ only’ click-through?
More convenience for adults (not having to click “yes” every time), and having a more effective way of slowing down children accessing content that might be dangerous. For example, if I was a parent who had access to this, I’d likely set up two accounts for my kids: one set to 18+ for when I’m directly supervising them, and one set to under 18 for when I’m supervising them less thoroughly.
Software freely adding an option to somehow report ‘this user is underage’ is unavoidably distinct from the government mandating any form of requesting, storing, or sharing the user’s age.
Even if you honestly believe there’s no connection to states demanding ID collection before looking at porn - how can you not understand the people recoiling at this? ‘I get it but you’re mistaken’ would see a polite argument. Your apparent bewilderment is inexplicable. ‘Microsoft legally requires your birthdate before you boot up and the internet will work differently based on that’ must be a dark aside in some Cory Doctorow story. How is it our actual reality, which some people think is normal?
Well, from a privacy/freedom standpoint, how is this different from a website requiring you to enter your age and/or asking you to confirm that you’re 18? They record your age, store it with your data, then let you continue (or don’t). The fact that baffles me is that this is widely accepted as standard practice, and not a significant privacy concern, while having an account-level flag that does the exact same thing isn’t. Like, is it because its managed by the browser/OS/app store? In that case, why isn’t there the same backlash against the existance of things like system theme flags, user agents, and even usernames.
As if there’s no backlash for those things! No popular culture reflecting the baby boom on January 1st, 1900. No widespread browser plugins to make e-mail nags and sign-in pop-ups fuck off.
As if legally mandatory age reporting is in any way the same thing as haphazard adoption of a Dark Mode flag. Wikipedia’s not even smart enough to make Automatic the default.
On some level, a website named Porn Hub needing an interstitial that says ‘btw, you might see tits’ is the original sin of the internet. It’s borne of the same puritanical horseshit that tried banning pornography entirely. It’s not about children. They’re the excuse. This ongoing moral panic uses them in a widespread and not entirely unsuccessful effort to deny adult-ass adults the things that most of them want. This has been happening my entire life, and yours, and is why I cannot respect the hair-splitting insistence that forcing your OS to report your age is - somehow! - totally unrelated, utterly disconnected, having nothing to do with the many conservative governments who want to track every video you ever jerked off to.
Right, when has any website become a platform where kids gather and regularly self-identify?
You’re completely ignoring my argument. How many of these websites where children gather and self-identity are created and maintained by paedophiles specifically to prey on childen? So far as I know, there has never been a site like this on the modern internet, nonetheless one that remains up and has been running for an extended period. I don’t see any reason to expect this to change.
In light of the Epstein files I would hesitate to say that number is zero. Nevermind that most such platforms are smaller than the giants you mentioned. Or that anyone working for or with kid-filled sites of any size could make it incidentally about preying on said kids. Apparently people manage when they’re just anonymous users.
But like, thats exactly my point. Its platforms like Roblox that predators seek out to prey on children. They don’t create their own. An age verification law will have no effect on that. A hidden backend value thats illegal to share doesn’t make it significantly easier for predators. Even if they did have unrestricted access to user data, wouldn’t a hundred other variables better identify vulnerable users, like use of voice chat and past text messages? Hell, I would expect children with the age flag left at a default value to be more vulnerable, given that it would likely mean the parent is less likely to be tech-savy and/or less likely to be paying attention to their child, but again, its ambiguous.
‘This law is fine because it won’t affect child predators’ is a brave argument.
What is it for? You’ve found so many ways to say it’s toothless, optional, trivially dodged. So why fucking bother? Critics seem to agree, it’s a foot in the door for all of the other privacy-defeating efforts going on, now running in protection ring zero. What does this nonsense do, besides set off those red flags? What impact do you honestly expect, versus telling websites to have an ‘18+ only’ click-through?
This obviously isn’t the argument I’m making. This law obviously isn’t meant to stop predators. Its meant to provide a parental control option for parents to limit their own children’s access to potentially harmfull or mature materials.
This huge uproar is the point of my confusion. You and others in the field seem certain that this is a direct first step towards ID and AI data collection. Meanwhile, before this, I actually saw this occasionally proposed as a good option in privacy-related blogs/communities specifically because it was optional and entirely handled by the users.
More convenience for adults (not having to click “yes” every time), and having a more effective way of slowing down children accessing content that might be dangerous. For example, if I was a parent who had access to this, I’d likely set up two accounts for my kids: one set to 18+ for when I’m directly supervising them, and one set to under 18 for when I’m supervising them less thoroughly.
Software freely adding an option to somehow report ‘this user is underage’ is unavoidably distinct from the government mandating any form of requesting, storing, or sharing the user’s age.
Even if you honestly believe there’s no connection to states demanding ID collection before looking at porn - how can you not understand the people recoiling at this? ‘I get it but you’re mistaken’ would see a polite argument. Your apparent bewilderment is inexplicable. ‘Microsoft legally requires your birthdate before you boot up and the internet will work differently based on that’ must be a dark aside in some Cory Doctorow story. How is it our actual reality, which some people think is normal?
Well, from a privacy/freedom standpoint, how is this different from a website requiring you to enter your age and/or asking you to confirm that you’re 18? They record your age, store it with your data, then let you continue (or don’t). The fact that baffles me is that this is widely accepted as standard practice, and not a significant privacy concern, while having an account-level flag that does the exact same thing isn’t. Like, is it because its managed by the browser/OS/app store? In that case, why isn’t there the same backlash against the existance of things like system theme flags, user agents, and even usernames.
As if there’s no backlash for those things! No popular culture reflecting the baby boom on January 1st, 1900. No widespread browser plugins to make e-mail nags and sign-in pop-ups fuck off.
As if legally mandatory age reporting is in any way the same thing as haphazard adoption of a Dark Mode flag. Wikipedia’s not even smart enough to make Automatic the default.
On some level, a website named Porn Hub needing an interstitial that says ‘btw, you might see tits’ is the original sin of the internet. It’s borne of the same puritanical horseshit that tried banning pornography entirely. It’s not about children. They’re the excuse. This ongoing moral panic uses them in a widespread and not entirely unsuccessful effort to deny adult-ass adults the things that most of them want. This has been happening my entire life, and yours, and is why I cannot respect the hair-splitting insistence that forcing your OS to report your age is - somehow! - totally unrelated, utterly disconnected, having nothing to do with the many conservative governments who want to track every video you ever jerked off to.
For the children.
roblox