6 ms·

The court reasoned sensibly: it's wrong to violate the rights of all citizens just to weed out a small group of violators. This is contrary to data protection r

The court reasoned sensibly: it's wrong to violate the rights of all citizens just to weed out a small group of violators. This is contrary to data protection regulations. The controversial Chat Control law follows the same logic: to find criminals, they propose monitoring everyone. The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes. The only secure way is to verify not the person's identity, but the device's status (for example, that it's a children's device). This is called age assurance: we confirm age without knowing who exactly is in front of us.

pbkompasz 1mo ago
> The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes. source?
- jbuhbjlnjbn 1mo ago
  Source for this ever not being the case?
- big85 1mo ago
  XKEYSCORE, the UK system brought in to allow warrantless surveillance for national security purposes and child abuse prevention, ended up being used for such minor offences as catching people dumping rubbish in other people's bin, or parents lying about their child's address to get into a better school district. In the United States, the same system was used for low-level offences like cannabis possession.
  - anthk 1mo ago
    That name looks 100% like an X11 based snooping tool.
- astrobe_ 1mo ago
  No source but a possible counter-example: SIM card carries the date-of-birth of the user (because, really, part of the problem is that you cannot supervise what a kid does with their phone 24/7), age-restricted websites have a flag in their HTTP headers, browser get age from SIM card through the OS. Same goes with app stores etc. Like copy-protection there's always a way to circumvent it, the name of the game is to make it difficult enough. And for parents, to make it very easy to set-up.
pmontra 1mo ago
Or realize that there is no way to know who is using a device without looking at the device holders for all the time they use the device. It's like ordering alcoholics or cigarettes: the seller looks at you see the white hairs (OK) or see a 16yo face (documents please.) A device registered to an adult can be used by a child. I know, it's a failure of parental control, but how many teenagers managed to get adult magazines in the last 100 years? They will get adult devices too. So there is no way to create a 100% effective system. Kids and teenagers will find workarounds, everybody else will live a worse life.
- UpsideDownRide 1mo ago
  This logic is sus. Just because we cannot have a oerfect system doesn't mean we shouldn't have it at all. Like alcohol age limitations, they can be worked around and wont ever be 100 percent perfect but I see regularly teens bouncing off the register at my local store. So the metric should be case by case for each proposed solution. Most of things proposed are no good, but that doesn't mean there is not a sensible solution out there to limit net for teens.
- forgetfreeman 1mo ago
  1990s: ~%36 of all teens smoked 2020s: >%2 of all teens smoke Kinda suggests that putting limitations in place actually produces results. Crazy innit?
  - triceratops 1mo ago
    It also means we don't need identity verification. Anonymous scratch-off cards sold in stores to adults, just like cigarettes, can be used to verify age. Or alternatively, device-only attestation. There's no reason to verify age upon every use of the product; only when it's sold.
    - forgetfreeman 1mo ago
      Nah, we definitely need identity and age verification, if for no other reason than it strips tech companies and data brokers of plausible deniability. They already know who you are and by extension your age, this fight is very much about tech companies avoiding consequences.
dathinab 1mo ago
> age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. this is fundamentally wrong and accepting this as an industry will only lead to required identity verification becoming the norm sooner or later the important realization is age verification is in the end "just" a form of parenting tool this means - it doesn't need to be a "perfect", glancing at the age of a passport when buying adult products isn't perfect either, but it's good enough. And it doesn't require seeing the address, name, (in most cases) day and month, gender etc. on a id, nor any form of "noting them down". - it doesn't need to be attestation based, unhackable or anything like that. It complements parenting, not replaces it. - in turn it also shouldn't need anyones id, in most places children below 18 don't need any id but 16+ is still a age barrier or to lay it out in rough design - require multimedia devices sold to have a child "mode" functionality - allow setting a age category or age (to auto determine and update the category), require a age set for this purpose to be kept private on the device and not shared, analyzed etc. - require web sites and apps to have voluntary min age limits, similar to other products, block access _client side_ based on this information. The standard should allow region/country specific limits and reason tags. - There are a bunch of edge cases omitted, like sites serving dynamic content/platforms in general. Requirements for parents to be allowed to define exceptions (in both directions) and handling of sides not having your countries age gating. Etc. - properly educate parent about it this provides sufficient functionality to support parents in parenting without requiring any identity verification or overriding the parents right to parent yes, it's not perfect in many ways. But it doesn't need to perfect, it's "just fine" for what it tries to archive.
- bauldursdev 1mo ago
  If you don't verify identity it's easy to fake.
  - paulsutter 1mo ago
    Giving parents control of child mode is much better than the state deciding. If Parents want to fake the ages of their child, that sounds good to me.
  - dathinab 1mo ago
throw-the-towel 1mo ago
This user is known to the state of California to post LLM text.
braiamp 1mo ago
> The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes. The only secure way is to verify not the person's identity, but the device's status (for example, that it's a children's device). This is called age assurance: we confirm age without knowing who exactly is in front of us. Age assurance is still treating the symptom. If the platform is designed to addict and radicalize, a children's device getting in doesn't help the child, it just means the harmful design now has a younger victim. The only fix that actually works is making the platform safe for everyone, which means regulating what these services are allowed to do to users in the first place, not building better gates around them.
- cromka 1mo ago
  Bingo. This is meta pulling a page from Green Washing book, i.e. how big corp made regular people be responsible for all the waste and recycling instead of being liable of it themselves.
- iamnothere 1mo ago
  What is “harmful behavior” when it comes to words? You may have your own definition, but I guarantee that you can’t get a supermajority to agree with it. (There are some basic things like fraud and such that are already illegal.) Most people don’t actually want to ban “harmful” speech except for the speech of their political enemies.
  - braiamp 1mo ago
    Nobody mentioned speech. Infinite scroll isn't speech. Engagement-maximizing algorithms that push increasingly extreme content to keep you on the app longer ain't speech. The business model that makes outrage more profitable than accuracy isn't speech. You can have complete freedom of expression and still regulate that a platform isn't designed to psychologically exploit the people using it. These are not the same thing
    - shevy-java 1mo ago
GeekyBear 1mo ago
Parents already have the ability to control what their children can do on their personal devices. It would be better to use public resources to educate parents on how to use those existing controls, if that is something those parents choose to do with their own children.
- ElProlactin 1mo ago
  This comes up in every discussion but the argument rests on pretending that we live in a fantasy world. 1. Parents can't monitor their children 24/7. 2. The evidence leaves little doubt: social media platforms have been designed to be ridiculously addictive, with the companies running them choosing to ignore the harms they know they cause. 3. Because these platforms are highly addictive, many parents themselves are addicts and probably ignorant to or in denial about the harms they and their children are being exposed to. 4. Even children who don't use social media can be bullied on social platforms by their peers, and not being allowed to have a phone or social media is itself a characteristic on which children might be bullied.
  - GeekyBear 1mo ago
    Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so. That's not a fantasy. It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy.
    - ElProlactin 1mo ago
      > Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so. You ignored three of my points: 1. These platforms are highly addictive, and designed to be highly addictive. Just because these are digital services doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't be regulated like, say, addictive substances. 2. Many parents are themselves addicted and don't understand the harms or choose to ignore them. There are numerous areas where society decides that regulation is appropriate because a product or service is so detrimental and/or being offered predatorily. 3. Even children who don't use social media can be harmed by these platforms. Very few people want to acknowledge that these platforms are being abused in ways that allow users to cause immense harm to non-users. > It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy. You already have no privacy online and these social platforms are among the biggest privacy violators. Why do so many people pretend this isn't the case? Facebook, for instance, has "shadow profiles" of non-users created based on the collection of data from tracking tools (like Meta Pixel) that the vast majority of people don't even know exist. If you're pro-privacy, would you support laws that ban companies from doing this?
duxup 1mo ago
Amen. And hey if social media is bad for everyone ... put that on social media companies. Not everyone else. Stupid cookie banners is my favorite example. I don't need to make a legal agreement with every website... if they wanted websites to not do a bad thing, make them, or a mechanism in browsers or something.

pbkompasz 1mo ago

jbuhbjlnjbn 1mo ago
Source for this ever not being the case?
big85 1mo ago
XKEYSCORE, the UK system brought in to allow warrantless surveillance for national security purposes and child abuse prevention, ended up being used for such minor offences as catching people dumping rubbish in other people's bin, or parents lying about their child's address to get into a better school district. In the United States, the same system was used for low-level offences like cannabis possession.
- anthk 1mo ago
  That name looks 100% like an X11 based snooping tool.
astrobe_ 1mo ago
No source but a possible counter-example: SIM card carries the date-of-birth of the user (because, really, part of the problem is that you cannot supervise what a kid does with their phone 24/7), age-restricted websites have a flag in their HTTP headers, browser get age from SIM card through the OS. Same goes with app stores etc. Like copy-protection there's always a way to circumvent it, the name of the game is to make it difficult enough. And for parents, to make it very easy to set-up.

pmontra 1mo ago

Or realize that there is no way to know who is using a device without looking at the device holders for all the time they use the device. It's like ordering alcoholics or cigarettes: the seller looks at you see the white hairs (OK) or see a 16yo face (documents please.) A device registered to an adult can be used by a child. I know, it's a failure of parental control, but how many teenagers managed to get adult magazines in the last 100 years? They will get adult devices too. So there is no way to create a 100% effective system. Kids and teenagers will find workarounds, everybody else will live a worse life.

UpsideDownRide 1mo ago
This logic is sus. Just because we cannot have a oerfect system doesn't mean we shouldn't have it at all. Like alcohol age limitations, they can be worked around and wont ever be 100 percent perfect but I see regularly teens bouncing off the register at my local store. So the metric should be case by case for each proposed solution. Most of things proposed are no good, but that doesn't mean there is not a sensible solution out there to limit net for teens.
forgetfreeman 1mo ago
1990s: ~%36 of all teens smoked 2020s: >%2 of all teens smoke Kinda suggests that putting limitations in place actually produces results. Crazy innit?
- triceratops 1mo ago
  It also means we don't need identity verification. Anonymous scratch-off cards sold in stores to adults, just like cigarettes, can be used to verify age. Or alternatively, device-only attestation. There's no reason to verify age upon every use of the product; only when it's sold.
  - forgetfreeman 1mo ago
    Nah, we definitely need identity and age verification, if for no other reason than it strips tech companies and data brokers of plausible deniability. They already know who you are and by extension your age, this fight is very much about tech companies avoiding consequences.

dathinab 1mo ago

> age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. this is fundamentally wrong and accepting this as an industry will only lead to required identity verification becoming the norm sooner or later the important realization is age verification is in the end "just" a form of parenting tool this means - it doesn't need to be a "perfect", glancing at the age of a passport when buying adult products isn't perfect either, but it's good enough. And it doesn't require seeing the address, name, (in most cases) day and month, gender etc. on a id, nor any form of "noting them down". - it doesn't need to be attestation based, unhackable or anything like that. It complements parenting, not replaces it. - in turn it also shouldn't need anyones id, in most places children below 18 don't need any id but 16+ is still a age barrier or to lay it out in rough design - require multimedia devices sold to have a child "mode" functionality - allow setting a age category or age (to auto determine and update the category), require a age set for this purpose to be kept private on the device and not shared, analyzed etc. - require web sites and apps to have voluntary min age limits, similar to other products, block access _client side_ based on this information. The standard should allow region/country specific limits and reason tags. - There are a bunch of edge cases omitted, like sites serving dynamic content/platforms in general. Requirements for parents to be allowed to define exceptions (in both directions) and handling of sides not having your countries age gating. Etc. - properly educate parent about it this provides sufficient functionality to support parents in parenting without requiring any identity verification or overriding the parents right to parent yes, it's not perfect in many ways. But it doesn't need to perfect, it's "just fine" for what it tries to archive.

bauldursdev 1mo ago
If you don't verify identity it's easy to fake.
- paulsutter 1mo ago
  Giving parents control of child mode is much better than the state deciding. If Parents want to fake the ages of their child, that sounds good to me.
- dathinab 1mo ago

throw-the-towel 1mo ago

This user is known to the state of California to post LLM text.

braiamp 1mo ago

> The problem is that any age verification system effectively becomes an identity verification system. And such tools rarely remain "just for kids"—they quickly become used for other purposes. The only secure way is to verify not the person's identity, but the device's status (for example, that it's a children's device). This is called age assurance: we confirm age without knowing who exactly is in front of us. Age assurance is still treating the symptom. If the platform is designed to addict and radicalize, a children's device getting in doesn't help the child, it just means the harmful design now has a younger victim. The only fix that actually works is making the platform safe for everyone, which means regulating what these services are allowed to do to users in the first place, not building better gates around them.

cromka 1mo ago
Bingo. This is meta pulling a page from Green Washing book, i.e. how big corp made regular people be responsible for all the waste and recycling instead of being liable of it themselves.
iamnothere 1mo ago
What is “harmful behavior” when it comes to words? You may have your own definition, but I guarantee that you can’t get a supermajority to agree with it. (There are some basic things like fraud and such that are already illegal.) Most people don’t actually want to ban “harmful” speech except for the speech of their political enemies.
- braiamp 1mo ago
  Nobody mentioned speech. Infinite scroll isn't speech. Engagement-maximizing algorithms that push increasingly extreme content to keep you on the app longer ain't speech. The business model that makes outrage more profitable than accuracy isn't speech. You can have complete freedom of expression and still regulate that a platform isn't designed to psychologically exploit the people using it. These are not the same thing
  - shevy-java 1mo ago

GeekyBear 1mo ago

Parents already have the ability to control what their children can do on their personal devices. It would be better to use public resources to educate parents on how to use those existing controls, if that is something those parents choose to do with their own children.

ElProlactin 1mo ago
This comes up in every discussion but the argument rests on pretending that we live in a fantasy world. 1. Parents can't monitor their children 24/7. 2. The evidence leaves little doubt: social media platforms have been designed to be ridiculously addictive, with the companies running them choosing to ignore the harms they know they cause. 3. Because these platforms are highly addictive, many parents themselves are addicts and probably ignorant to or in denial about the harms they and their children are being exposed to. 4. Even children who don't use social media can be bullied on social platforms by their peers, and not being allowed to have a phone or social media is itself a characteristic on which children might be bullied.
- GeekyBear 1mo ago
  Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so. That's not a fantasy. It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy.
  - ElProlactin 1mo ago
    > Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so. You ignored three of my points: 1. These platforms are highly addictive, and designed to be highly addictive. Just because these are digital services doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't be regulated like, say, addictive substances. 2. Many parents are themselves addicted and don't understand the harms or choose to ignore them. There are numerous areas where society decides that regulation is appropriate because a product or service is so detrimental and/or being offered predatorily. 3. Even children who don't use social media can be harmed by these platforms. Very few people want to acknowledge that these platforms are being abused in ways that allow users to cause immense harm to non-users. > It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy. You already have no privacy online and these social platforms are among the biggest privacy violators. Why do so many people pretend this isn't the case? Facebook, for instance, has "shadow profiles" of non-users created based on the collection of data from tracking tools (like Meta Pixel) that the vast majority of people don't even know exist. If you're pro-privacy, would you support laws that ban companies from doing this?

duxup 1mo ago

Amen. And hey if social media is bad for everyone ... put that on social media companies. Not everyone else. Stupid cookie banners is my favorite example. I don't need to make a legal agreement with every website... if they wanted websites to not do a bad thing, make them, or a mechanism in browsers or something.