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Comment by IanCal

4 hours ago

Are there ways of doing age gating while preserving privacy? For whom? How many people need that kind of privacy, would it impact lots of (say) teens seeking help or is this about whistleblowers? Are many under 18s using VPNs for porn? Or have they just shifted to other platforms anyway? If we implemented it “perfectly” would it even do the thing we wanted?

What are the actual numbers here? If there’s lots of fuss about vpns but actually while there’s been a big jump in use it’s not under 18s anyway it wouldn’t help.

> Privacy is a human right, and one which is essential for effective democracy.

And does this get broken enough for age gating something? We age gate alcohol to reasonable success, sometimes that involves showing id.

I’m not arguing for age gating here but I do think understanding the tradeoffs may require more evidence.

>We age gate alcohol to reasonable success,

We shouldn't.

>sometimes that involves showing id.

Then the yokel checkout attendant proceeds to punch the 8 digit birthday into the keyboard, which serializes you as one of less than 30,000 customers in the area. Birthdays are leaky identifiers.