New U.S laws designed to protect minors are pulling millions of adult Americans into mandatory age-verification gates to access online content, leading to backlash from users and criticism from privacy advocates that a free and open internet is at stake. Roughly half of U.S. states have enacted or are advancing laws requiring platforms — including adult content sites, online gaming services, and social media apps — to block underage users, forcing companies to screen everyone who approaches these digital gates.
Yep, you’re not wrong. The people currently pushing for age verification are specifically doing it to destroy online anonymity, because they realise what a threat it is to them. I just want people to understand that they are peddling a false necessity. You do NOT need to give up privacy or anonymity to have a viable age verification system. Like I said in another comment:
At some point, I sincerely hope that the current regime will end and be replaced by something more sane. At that point, I don’t want people to immediately think “age verification = bad”
I think easiest method is one that has already existed before. Just do a blanket parental internet block for ISPs and mobile providers.
Account holders who want it lifted can contact the company providing them their Internet access to do it. Or leave it in place and use a login whenever they attempt to access blocked sites.
But, there’s a reason that’s not the method proposed or used as an example with it already existing. Government wants surveillance like 1984 over their citizens and companies want to collect and sell data like Meta.
What you’re describing is essentially the Great Firewall with an exemption form. It wouldn’t solve the problem of underage access to social media, and it would cause a whole slew of other, worse problems in it’s place. For so many reasons I don’t even know where to start, no!! Don’t do this!!
Just starting it at the ISP level than a site by site basis handing over info for every site seems better to me. Its already a utility to begin with where people have to give their info, address, and payment method when they sign up. Its already a verification system to begin with.
Let households themselves decide if they want parental lock or not, and ISPs already offer parental block.
And I dont care about the social media justifications for verification anymore. You, me, and many other people accessed the Internet at a young age and turned out fine.
This hysteria of parents not wanting to take responsibility for raising and monitoring their own kids and demanding the government remove everything seems like boomers back in the day wanting games banned.
Ok, lets start from an age verification POV: What you’re suggesting is at the account level. If YOU want to access social media, then everyone in your household gets access to is as well. Even if YOU decide you don’t want it, nothing stops your kid from connecting to your neighbours wifi, or going to their friends house, or even public library/cafe wifi. It will not address the core issue.
On the flip side, you’ve now given your ISP permission to decide what information you are allowed to see. Sure they may block porn, and social media, but hey, maybe “kids” shouldn’t be allowed to access information on LGBT issues, or political ideologies, or “upsetting” news about unrest at home or abroad. If YOU want to access that information, well that’s ok, we’ll just add you, along with the address of service, and all your contact information to our “whitelist”
Believe me, it’s the wrong approach
Actually there’s mountains of evidence to the contrary here. It’s pretty widely accepted now that social media is not a place for children.
In an ideal world, you’re right, parents would be responsible for protecting their kids, but we’re not in anything remotely like an ideal world. You could say the same about anything. It’s the parents responsibility to prevent underage drinking or smoking too, yet we still do what we can to restrict those at the point of sale, rather than just shrugging and going “Not my problem”
People will find a way around verification. I definitely would when I was little. To have a perfect system you’d need an authoritarian approach of complete surveillance.
You either accept that system isn’t perfect or push for complete surveillance.
You seem willing to risk what will turn out to be surveillance in hopes of a perfect verification system. While I’m more skeptical and not trusting of those in charge that trying to protect people is even the goal.
Maybe it’s the difference between how much someone trusts their government and corporations.
Your arguments seem more founded on an ideal government and corporate landscape to trust handing over oversight to them than what we actually have. Biggest red flag being some European countries making deals with Palantir.
Sure, but that’s true regardless of implementation. Your Great Firewall approach is by far the easiest to circumvent, and comes with by far the biggest drawbacks. Even worse than handing a face scan and a copy of your ID to every website that asks.
Who said anything about perfect? The system is NOT perfect. What it IS though, is private, and better than the alternatives.
Says who? It doesn’t have to be that black and white. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” as the saying goes. You don’t have to accept your privacy being violated, AND you don’t have to just roll over, give up, and let kids access anything they want.
No. My whole point is that the privacy/anonymity and age verification are NOT mutually exclusive. You CAN have both.
Your idea LITERALLY lets those in charge decide what information you get access to, so maybe you should be a little more skeptical.
I trust neither. That’s why I like the system I’m describing. It puts ME in charge of MY data, and gives me controll over who gets to use it, and exactly what they’re allowed to do with it
My idea is already in place. When you log into your ISP to pay bills or manage your plan you can already toggle on or off parental control. Its just changing it so its enabled by default since so many parents seem clueless it even exists.
Turn it off and its just the way it already is now.
Your new additional system puts trust that those who wrote the system will not end up exposing which tokens were used for your accounts by your ID that is linked to it. Either because the program was written for the government or corporations to do so, or eventually incompetence leading to exploit that exposes it.
Only proposal I’ve liked is being able to buy tokens at a store without any ID being logged and buying new ones when it expires. Like the mullvad VPN gift cards.
Yes, and by turning it on you are opting in to allowing your ISP to decide what information you get access to. Making that the default is a TERRIBLE idea.
There is nothing linking your account to you IRL. This is what I’m having a really hard time getting through to people. That situation cannot happen. “The people who wrote the system” don’t at any stage get access to information that could expose you. Your data never leaves your sphere of influence. That’s what makes the system so great.
Yes! What I’m trying to describe is that process, but in a digital space. Swap the store with a LOCAL app (ie: one that doesn’t phone home, and can generate the tokens on your device), and swap the ID with the cert file, and you’ve got the same process in the digital space, with all the same benefits