Comment by applfanboysbgon
6 hours ago
Ah yes, the most pressing issue of our times. Mandatory surveillance of every person's activities is a reasonable solution to the critical issue of teenagers watching porn, who totally won't be able to bypass this by... grabbing Dad's phone.
Obviously, it's not about the children. It was never about the children. If I had my way every one of these people would be taken to a gulag, because they are evil, have evil intentions, and blatantly lie to further their evil goals. I am tired of the intolerant being tolerated, and by allowing this to fester we are headed for a much worse totalitarian dystopia.
All accounts and that are important to kids have are being tied to their real identity and they won’t be able to get a new one if they’re banned. The potential for social engineering is insane.
All of these ID laws are going to make it more dangerous for kids online IMO.
“Hi I’m a Roblox moderator. Your account was reported for X and you’ve been temp banned. Come to platform Y to appeal. Start by submitting all your personal info and a selfie.”
And it’ll be completely normalized by big tech. Seriously. WTF are they thinking?
First, I should say that I am against online age identification. But if we are going to get age verification because the larger population wants it, I definitely prefer the EU's privacy-preserving age verification that uses zero knowledge proofs (yes, they have issues too) over private companies doing age verification, requiring uploading scans of your ID, filming your face, etc. For the reasons that you mention (people can easily be tricked into giving information to the wrong people), but also because I simply do not want my data to be in the hands of random private companies that will sell the data, give it to Palantir, etc.
That makes this fight so annoying, we have to fight age identification, while at the same time also promoting privacy-preserving age verification for the case it happens anyway.
I think this is folly. You cannot communicate this level of nuance at scale, especially when faced with opposition that actively lies to achieve their goals.
Quoting an older post...
> In a benevolent dictatorship, sure, go for a zero-knowledge proof verification as your solution. In the reality of democracy, where politicians are corporate puppets who cloak surveillance laws in "think of the children" to rally support from the masses, we need to convince people to see through the lie and reject the proposals outright while reassuring them that they can protect the children themselves via parental controls. You will never be able to sufficiently inform 50.1% of the population of any country of what zero-knowledge proof even means, let alone convince them to support age verification laws but strictly conditional on ZKP requirements. That level of nuance is far too much to ask of millions of people who are not technically-informed, and idealism needs to give way to pragmatism if we wish to avoid the worst-case scenario.
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> grabbing Dad's phone
That will only very rarely happen. Do you actually know people that will just give you their phone so you can watch porn? For more than one minute? People are so addicted to their phones.
> it's not about the children
It's also about the children, but there surely are parties which use the process to further their own goals.
> I am tired of the intolerant being tolerated
That's not the right quote for this case.
> Do you actually know people that will just give you their phone so you can watch porn?
They don't ask for it, they take it when you're busy or sleeping. Teens certainly weren't asking for Dad's VHS tapes or magazines when I was a kid. I suppose this problem is solveable, too, though. Mandatory biometric locks on every device capable of accessing the internet, why not?
> That's not the right quote for this case.
It is. These people are fascists. Their goal is to create a society where the government has a permanent record of everything every person is doing, monitored 24/7 so nobody can defy it. The point about tolerating intolerance is that by abiding such people, you allow them to create an intolerant society, thus it is prudent even in a tolerant society to be intolerant specifically towards those whose goal is intolerance.
> they take it when you're busy or sleeping
That will be quite noticeable. And tricky if it's face or fingerprint locked, something I see in all phones around me are. Daddy likes his privacy too.
For the rest: rant on, but it'll only reduce your audience. One thing we can learn from history: calling people fascists doesn't work.
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By your logic, my kids are going to find a way to smoke weed anyway so I might as well give them some, right?
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