Comment by michaelt
13 days ago
> I really don’t think any platform will be able to counter this.
Do platforms want to counter it?
Seems to me with an unreliable video selfie age verification:
* Reasonable people with common sense don't need to upload scans of their driving licenses and passports
* The platform gets to retain users without too much hassle
* Porn site users are forced to create accounts; this enables tracking, boosting ad revenue and growth numbers.
* Politicians get to announce that they have introduced age controls.
* People who claimed age checks wouldn't invade people's privacy don't get proven wrong
* Teens can sidestep the age checks and retain their access; teens trying to hide their porn from their parents is an age-old tradition.
* Parents don't see their teens accessing porn. They feel reassured without having to have any awkward conversations or figure out any baffling smartphone parental controls.
Everyone wins.
I think you forgot :
* authorities get to selectively crack down on sites for not implementing "proper" age verification. The sites never had a widespread problem with grooming to begin with but just so happened to have a lot of other activity that the authorities didn't like.
Having everyone operate in a gray area is dangerous and threatens the rule of law.
Discord does have a problem with grooming.
I did not mean to talk about Discord specifically but all sites which will be required to do age verification.
It wouldn't be hard to imagine a situation where social media sites leaning towards the government (e.g. Truth Social, X or the like) will be getting a free pass on using age verification methods which are easy to bypass while social media sites that are more critical (e.g. Reddit) will be sanctioned into implementing the strictest and most privacy invading measures. The end result is that people choosing the path of least resistance will be lead to the government-leaning sites.
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It depends. If the law says "you must perform such-and-such steps to verify age" then no, they don't care if you can counter it. If the law says "you must use an approach that is at least x% effective" then yes they do care if enough people counter it.
We already had a half-assed solution, where websites would require you to press the button that says "I am over 18". Clearly somebody decided that wasn't good enough. That person is not going to stop until good enough is achieved.
How about just requiring browser, OS vendors, and phone makers to give parents real child accounts that are easy to use and keep kids off the Internet?
There are a lot of actual solutions that could be implemented that don't invade privacy, but that's the point. These rules are all designed TO invade your privacy. They're designed for you to give up your online anonymity and make you accountable for your speech and actions online.
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I would rather avoid having the government decide what I should run on my devices, private companies are already bad enough.
I'm becoming increasingly cynical that the lack of privacy in online communication is what most of the sponsors of these bills are after, and people thinking of the real harms to children are useful to them.
This would suddenly mean no more custom browsers, no more custom OSes, and I doubt they'd cater to the Linux and BSD crowds with this one. It's something the OSS community has been trying to fight for the last 4 decades. With a full-on government requirement this would lock you to the vetted platforms while letting anything other get in would be illegal for the site owners.
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Until somebody (likely a politician or anti-porn advocacy group) decides to poke the bear and ruin it
[dead]
If we normalize this shit everyone will lose.
> Reasonable people with common sense don't need to upload scans of their driving licenses and passports
Cue random bans.
> People who claimed age checks wouldn't invade people's privacy don't get proven wrong
And? Is that supposed to change anything?
> Everyone wins.
Only if the lawmakers agreed.
> Porn site users are forced to create accounts
I'm curious the sites that enforce this like 'your state has banned...' what traffic loss they have. Because I'm not gonna sign up for a porn site lmao, the stigma