A ten year old was already barred from using this social media. Generally you have to be over the age of 13 to engage with these social media platforms.
But the big take away here is that instead of these platforms making their product not-addictive and generally safer, they will use this as an opportunity to force legislation that allows them more access to everyone’s personal information (and invades everyone’s privacy) because the law says they have to to enforce age verification to "protect children’. And since that data is their main product that they sell outright or sell access to for ad aggregation, and because they have proven to be incredibly bad as anonymizing and safeguarding that information, this is literally worse for everyone, especially children who’s data is valuable because they don’t have bad credit or other marks on their identities yet and that means their identities (if stolen and used for illegal activities) can detrimentally effect them for the rest of their lifetime.
That’s what you’re advocating for when you agree with this kind of government overreach. The companies have this worked out. When your identity is stolen they give you some credit monitoring and go on operating as if nothing happened. Maybe (and that maybe is doing Atlas levels of heavy lifting here) they end up in a class action lawsuit and the people affected get $12.
I have seen literally no ID verification law that combats this or addresses it in any way. And that’s before we get to governments using this to surveil the general populace.
I lt feels like there’s two separate issues: whether children should be allowed on social media, and how age verification should be implemented.
It’s perfectly reasonable to be concerned about privacy, data collection, and mission creep. Those are legitimate concerns that any age-verification scheme should address. But it doesn’t follow that because some verification methods are bad, we should abandon the goal of keeping children off social media.
The fact that platforms already prohibit under-13s isn’t much of an argument when everyone knows those rules are routinely ignored. If a law is unenforced and ineffective, pointing to its existence doesn’t solve the problem.
You also seem to assume that age verification necessarily means handing social media companies copies of passports and driving licences. It doesn’t have to. There are privacy-preserving approaches where a third party verifies age and only returns a yes/no answer. Whether those systems are good enough is a fair debate, but it’s not accurate to suggest that the only option is mass identity collection by Facebook and similar companies.
I also don’t think it’s fair to characterise supporters of these measures as advocating government overreach or surveillance. Many parents simply look at the evidence around addictive design, bullying, self-harm content, and compulsive usage among children and conclude that some form of restriction is justified. They may be wrong about the solution, but they’re not necessarily indifferent to privacy or civil liberties.
Finally, if we accept that social media companies have failed to make their products safe for children, then regulation becomes the obvious next question. Saying that platforms should design better products doesn’t tell us what to do when they don’t.
lt feels like there’s two separate issues: whether children should be allowed on social media, and how age verification should be implemented.
Let’s take that at face value. There are portions of the internet that children absolutely shouldn’t have access to and that varies depending on age. But since this is about social media, let’s be realistic here. If it’s ‘bad’ for everyone regardless of age it should in theory just be banned outright? Or is this subjective. Is the fediverse better than Facebook and Instagram for the average teen?
How age verification should be implemented and how it is being "implemented’’ are two very different things and the main take away there is thus far it has been implemented by people with no technical knowledge of how such a thing should be implemented, and who have a vested interest in using any such framework for surveillance of the general population, and since we cannot trust them to do one without the other there should be a third option. What’s the third option? I have suggestions but people generally don’t like them.
It’s perfectly reasonable to be concerned about privacy, data collection, and mission creep. Those are legitimate concerns that any age-verification scheme should address. But it doesn’t follow that because some verification methods are bad, we should abandon the goal of keeping children off social media.
The fact is I would challenge the people of Lemmy to show me where this has been implemented thus that they do address privacy concerns. I have yet to see a government entity the world over who has done this properly.
People here do try to address them and brainstorm them here all the time and there are many suggestions but the fact is none of them are being used because the entities implementing them are not doing it for the reasons they say they are and the suggestions directly impact their ability to use such apparatus for their true purpose.
The fact that platforms already prohibit under-13s isn’t much of an argument when everyone knows those rules are routinely ignored. If a law is unenforced and ineffective, pointing to its existence doesn’t solve the problem.
Why is that law unenforceable and what makes this law particularly more enforceable?
You also seem to assume that age verification necessarily means handing social media companies copies of passports and driving licences. It doesn’t have to. There are privacy-preserving approaches where a third party verifies age and only returns a yes/no answer. Whether those systems are good enough is a fair debate, but it’s not accurate to suggest that the only option is mass identity collection by Facebook and similar companies.
I am aware that it doesn’t have to, but I am also aware that this far it has generally done that, either by providing that information to a third party for verification or by requiring the use of biometric data to do the same. For the same reason I don’t want my or my kids ID being uploaded to a cloud service for verification, I also don’t want my or my child’s face scans being sent to entities that will face no repercussions when the fault I safeguard that information. Doesn’t matter if that third party is a government service or not.
I also don’t think it’s fair to characterise supporters of these measures as advocating government overreach or surveillance. Many parents simply look at the evidence around addictive design, bullying, self-harm content, and compulsive usage among children and conclude that some form of restriction is justified. They may be wrong about the solution, but they’re not necessarily indifferent to privacy or civil liberties
They do though either because they are unaware of what such measure actually entail and think that it sounds good so it must be good, or because they are willing to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of the children possibly because they believe there’s no other way. I didn’t make a statement in favor of such measures without looking into it but lots of people do.
Finally, if we accept that social media companies have failed to make their products safe for children, then regulation becomes the obvious next question. Saying that platforms should design better products doesn’t tell us what to do when they don’t.
I don’t think most social media companies failed so much as they did exactly what they set out to do. They want their products to be addictive and bad for you because they can keep you in that loop using their products if they do and that means they can profit off all the information they already collect about you.
But further, why is it that laws prohibiting access to social media for those 13 and under are routinely ignored? If they already can’t enforce the law they have, what makes this law more enforceable?
Why don’t they develope and enforce laws about parental control use? Why not limit the access parents are allowed to give their children to the internet?
Why not educate people as a whole on internet use, parental controls, and social media literacy/ social media data collection?
Why not use anonymized tokens instead of ID verification or facial recognition/biometric data collection?
This isn’t me saying that governments shouldn’t make laws to regulate social media or protect their people, including their children. It’s me noting that they are going about it the way they are because they have an ulterior motive that cannot be achieved without invasive data collection that violates privacy.
There are no privacy preserving age verification methods beyond “just trust us we pinky promise we won’t track you or keep your data”. And I certainly don’t trust the government that tried to backdoor iCloud and is currently trying to mandate government spyware to be installed on all devices
This is nonsense. “Social networks” started off as homebrew unregulated unmoderated forums, and there’s arguably more ways than ever to spin up your own. This is what kids will do if we ban rather than regulate. It’s literally the same for every prohibition.
People are arguing that these measures are not only myopic and pointless, but they are dangerously stupid to support wrt government overreach and surveillance. And that affects everyone, especially the children they are so keen on “protecting” right now.
It’s entirely reasonable to worry about privacy, data collection, and government overreach. Any age-verification system creates new infrastructure for proving identity or age online, and people are right to scrutinise that. But it also doesn’t follow that every attempt at age restriction is therefore equivalent to mass surveillance or should be dismissed out of hand.
Likewise, pointing out that children will find ways around restrictions isn’t, by itself, an argument against having restrictions. Kids have always circumvented rules. The relevant question is whether a measure meaningfully reduces access or harm, not whether it is perfectly enforceable.
I also don’t think it’s accurate to frame support for these measures as inherently “dangerously stupid”. Many supporters are responding to concerns about addictive platform design, bullying, self-harm content, algorithmic recommendation systems, and the amount of time children spend on these services. You can disagree with their proposed solution without assuming bad motives or indifference to civil liberties.
Where I think the debate should focus is on effectiveness and proportionality. If age-verification systems are ineffective, easily bypassed, or require unacceptable levels of data collection, then that’s a strong argument against them.
But that’s different from arguing that any attempt to restrict children’s access is necessarily an attack on privacy or freedom.
And if we agree that major platforms have not done a particularly good job of protecting children, then “people will just use something else” doesn’t fully answer the policy question. It simply shifts the discussion to what, if anything, should be done instead.
The damage is done in the UK. The regulation needs to be written with privacy first, or it will undoubtedly be taken advantage of by bad actors. To think anything else is possible under capitalism is dangerously stupid.
A ten year old was already barred from using this social media. Generally you have to be over the age of 13 to engage with these social media platforms.
But the big take away here is that instead of these platforms making their product not-addictive and generally safer, they will use this as an opportunity to force legislation that allows them more access to everyone’s personal information (and invades everyone’s privacy) because the law says they have to to enforce age verification to "protect children’. And since that data is their main product that they sell outright or sell access to for ad aggregation, and because they have proven to be incredibly bad as anonymizing and safeguarding that information, this is literally worse for everyone, especially children who’s data is valuable because they don’t have bad credit or other marks on their identities yet and that means their identities (if stolen and used for illegal activities) can detrimentally effect them for the rest of their lifetime.
That’s what you’re advocating for when you agree with this kind of government overreach. The companies have this worked out. When your identity is stolen they give you some credit monitoring and go on operating as if nothing happened. Maybe (and that maybe is doing Atlas levels of heavy lifting here) they end up in a class action lawsuit and the people affected get $12.
I have seen literally no ID verification law that combats this or addresses it in any way. And that’s before we get to governments using this to surveil the general populace.
I lt feels like there’s two separate issues: whether children should be allowed on social media, and how age verification should be implemented.
It’s perfectly reasonable to be concerned about privacy, data collection, and mission creep. Those are legitimate concerns that any age-verification scheme should address. But it doesn’t follow that because some verification methods are bad, we should abandon the goal of keeping children off social media.
The fact that platforms already prohibit under-13s isn’t much of an argument when everyone knows those rules are routinely ignored. If a law is unenforced and ineffective, pointing to its existence doesn’t solve the problem.
You also seem to assume that age verification necessarily means handing social media companies copies of passports and driving licences. It doesn’t have to. There are privacy-preserving approaches where a third party verifies age and only returns a yes/no answer. Whether those systems are good enough is a fair debate, but it’s not accurate to suggest that the only option is mass identity collection by Facebook and similar companies.
I also don’t think it’s fair to characterise supporters of these measures as advocating government overreach or surveillance. Many parents simply look at the evidence around addictive design, bullying, self-harm content, and compulsive usage among children and conclude that some form of restriction is justified. They may be wrong about the solution, but they’re not necessarily indifferent to privacy or civil liberties.
Finally, if we accept that social media companies have failed to make their products safe for children, then regulation becomes the obvious next question. Saying that platforms should design better products doesn’t tell us what to do when they don’t.
Let’s take that at face value. There are portions of the internet that children absolutely shouldn’t have access to and that varies depending on age. But since this is about social media, let’s be realistic here. If it’s ‘bad’ for everyone regardless of age it should in theory just be banned outright? Or is this subjective. Is the fediverse better than Facebook and Instagram for the average teen?
How age verification should be implemented and how it is being "implemented’’ are two very different things and the main take away there is thus far it has been implemented by people with no technical knowledge of how such a thing should be implemented, and who have a vested interest in using any such framework for surveillance of the general population, and since we cannot trust them to do one without the other there should be a third option. What’s the third option? I have suggestions but people generally don’t like them.
The fact is I would challenge the people of Lemmy to show me where this has been implemented thus that they do address privacy concerns. I have yet to see a government entity the world over who has done this properly.
People here do try to address them and brainstorm them here all the time and there are many suggestions but the fact is none of them are being used because the entities implementing them are not doing it for the reasons they say they are and the suggestions directly impact their ability to use such apparatus for their true purpose.
Why is that law unenforceable and what makes this law particularly more enforceable?
I am aware that it doesn’t have to, but I am also aware that this far it has generally done that, either by providing that information to a third party for verification or by requiring the use of biometric data to do the same. For the same reason I don’t want my or my kids ID being uploaded to a cloud service for verification, I also don’t want my or my child’s face scans being sent to entities that will face no repercussions when the fault I safeguard that information. Doesn’t matter if that third party is a government service or not.
They do though either because they are unaware of what such measure actually entail and think that it sounds good so it must be good, or because they are willing to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of the children possibly because they believe there’s no other way. I didn’t make a statement in favor of such measures without looking into it but lots of people do.
I don’t think most social media companies failed so much as they did exactly what they set out to do. They want their products to be addictive and bad for you because they can keep you in that loop using their products if they do and that means they can profit off all the information they already collect about you.
But further, why is it that laws prohibiting access to social media for those 13 and under are routinely ignored? If they already can’t enforce the law they have, what makes this law more enforceable?
Why don’t they develope and enforce laws about parental control use? Why not limit the access parents are allowed to give their children to the internet?
Why not educate people as a whole on internet use, parental controls, and social media literacy/ social media data collection?
Why not use anonymized tokens instead of ID verification or facial recognition/biometric data collection?
This isn’t me saying that governments shouldn’t make laws to regulate social media or protect their people, including their children. It’s me noting that they are going about it the way they are because they have an ulterior motive that cannot be achieved without invasive data collection that violates privacy.
There are no privacy preserving age verification methods beyond “just trust us we pinky promise we won’t track you or keep your data”. And I certainly don’t trust the government that tried to backdoor iCloud and is currently trying to mandate government spyware to be installed on all devices
This is nonsense. “Social networks” started off as homebrew unregulated unmoderated forums, and there’s arguably more ways than ever to spin up your own. This is what kids will do if we ban rather than regulate. It’s literally the same for every prohibition.
People are arguing that these measures are not only myopic and pointless, but they are dangerously stupid to support wrt government overreach and surveillance. And that affects everyone, especially the children they are so keen on “protecting” right now.
That doesn’t address the argument being made.
It’s entirely reasonable to worry about privacy, data collection, and government overreach. Any age-verification system creates new infrastructure for proving identity or age online, and people are right to scrutinise that. But it also doesn’t follow that every attempt at age restriction is therefore equivalent to mass surveillance or should be dismissed out of hand.
Likewise, pointing out that children will find ways around restrictions isn’t, by itself, an argument against having restrictions. Kids have always circumvented rules. The relevant question is whether a measure meaningfully reduces access or harm, not whether it is perfectly enforceable.
I also don’t think it’s accurate to frame support for these measures as inherently “dangerously stupid”. Many supporters are responding to concerns about addictive platform design, bullying, self-harm content, algorithmic recommendation systems, and the amount of time children spend on these services. You can disagree with their proposed solution without assuming bad motives or indifference to civil liberties.
Where I think the debate should focus is on effectiveness and proportionality. If age-verification systems are ineffective, easily bypassed, or require unacceptable levels of data collection, then that’s a strong argument against them.
But that’s different from arguing that any attempt to restrict children’s access is necessarily an attack on privacy or freedom.
And if we agree that major platforms have not done a particularly good job of protecting children, then “people will just use something else” doesn’t fully answer the policy question. It simply shifts the discussion to what, if anything, should be done instead.
The damage is done in the UK. The regulation needs to be written with privacy first, or it will undoubtedly be taken advantage of by bad actors. To think anything else is possible under capitalism is dangerously stupid.
Australia’s social media ban – is it working?
Obviously regulation has been and is always better than prohibition. Prohibition is a lazy “quick win” political move and always has been.