Comment by cromka
1 day ago
This is Nirvana/Perfect Solution fallacy. That's like saying limiting smoking to 18 y/o was futile because teenagers could always have some other adult buy them cigs, or use fake IDs.
Ridiculous take.
1 day ago
This is Nirvana/Perfect Solution fallacy. That's like saying limiting smoking to 18 y/o was futile because teenagers could always have some other adult buy them cigs, or use fake IDs.
Ridiculous take.
Well, age verification is the "we have to do something about this nebulous problem even if the best thing we can think of actually makes everything worse for everyone but it makes us feel better" fallacy, which is equally ridiculous.
No, it's not the same. There are anonymous solutions that solve this problem that are perfectly acceptable. Not perfect for prevention, but a good compromise nonetheless. Like cig/alcohol underage consumption prevention.
There is no such thing as anonymous age verification in practice.
I think we totally disagree on the degree of how much this is actually a problem compared to how much we're willing to invest in it. Those anonymous solutions are fairly idealistic and Nirvana-esque themselves, I don't think they'd see wide adoption. Beyond that I'm firmly in the camp that age verification for the kids is a complete smokescreen for the actual intent of these efforts, which is more surveillance, so on principal I'm opposed to any movement in this direction and doubt we'll find common ground.
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I'm saying that, in today's culture, age-gating the internet is likely to be much less effective than age-gating alcohol or tobacco. Most kids spend an appalling amount of time on social media (think, 5 hours/day*); most kids didn't spend this much time or invest this much of their lives into drugs.
* according to this survey from over 2 years ago: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/teen-social-use-mental-h...
not saying that I support age verification in any form, but you seen the vape sales?
I like to believe that, even with the amount of kids vaping, there aren't nearly as many as kids on social media.
To give perspective: in my high school, there were a few kids who vaped in bathrooms, but the majority (including me) did not; we were told many times that it was unhealthy, and anyone caught vaping would be suspended. Everyone I know (including me) had social media, we were not told it was unhealthy (only to not use it too much, not give out PII, avoid bullying, etc.), and it wasn't even policed in some classrooms.
For the smoking analogy to fit, you'd have to have parents giving their children packs of cigarettes to play with and then being mad at Marlboro they figured out how to smoke them.