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Here’s how you fix the web, protect the children and ruin the economy at the same time: make online advertising to children illegal, full stop. This does (at l

Here’s how you fix the web, protect the children and ruin the economy at the same time: make online advertising to children illegal, full stop. This does (at least) three things: 1.) Drives down the value of minors’ attention to zero, 2.) Forces all websites to do an age check if they want to advertise, 3.) Obliterates the influencer scheme because they can’t verify the age of their followers This would significantly diminish the value of operating platforms that derive value from the attention of minors. It also allows websites to continue to operate for adults, who we should all agree are obligated to make their own choices about what (legal) content they’re allowed to consume.

DeathArrow 4y ago
> Here’s how you fix the web, protect the children and ruin unhealthy parts of the economy at the same time: make online advertising to children illegal, full stop. Here, I fixed it for you.
euroderf 4y ago
For privacy, you'll want to decouple the identity that is being age-checked from the destination address & content.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sph 4y ago
Why would it ruin the economy? It would in theory kill any company that makes money from advertising to and exploiting children attention, and that is a good thing. The rest of the world will be fine.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  Parent poster and many in their peer group would lose their jobs. It would ruin their economy. The rest of the world will be better off.
- _heimdall 4y ago
  If children-targeted advertising is a big enough problem to relate it had to be driving a lot of value. Value that funds jobs, but also value that is only worth it because the advertising is creating an even larger revenue stream in sales of whatever product is being pushed.
blackpill0w 4y ago
>Forces all websites to do an age check if they want to advertise How do you do that though, a popup that asks you if you're over 18? I used to ignore those all the time when I was young. On Facebook I was a 60 years old man playing children games and following the silliest pages. >make online advertising to children illegal It is not always easy to tell the difference between advertising and someone talking about something they like and use.
- bitlax 4y ago
  > How do you do that though, a popup that asks you if you're over 18? I used to ignore those all the time when I was young. On Facebook I was a 60 years old man playing children games and following the silliest pages. It would probably be similar to GDPR, and would have the immediate effect of removing a lot of garbage from the internet.
tjpnz 4y ago
Adults aren't immune to inluencers either. Look how many fall for crypto scams or QAnon.
_heimdall 4y ago
Why should advertising to children be illegal online but legal everywhere else? TV commercials have long leveraged advertising to children - cereal brands don't have cartoon mascots because it brings in adult customers. If we want to ban advertising it should be by fundamentally changing how the web works. If we all want an internet that serves content instead of ads that is doable, the problem is that would sacrifice convenience and our society has been picking convenience above all else for decades.

DeathArrow 4y ago

> Here’s how you fix the web, protect the children and ruin unhealthy parts of the economy at the same time: make online advertising to children illegal, full stop. Here, I fixed it for you.

euroderf 4y ago

For privacy, you'll want to decouple the identity that is being age-checked from the destination address & content.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sph 4y ago

Why would it ruin the economy? It would in theory kill any company that makes money from advertising to and exploiting children attention, and that is a good thing. The rest of the world will be fine.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
Parent poster and many in their peer group would lose their jobs. It would ruin their economy. The rest of the world will be better off.
_heimdall 4y ago
If children-targeted advertising is a big enough problem to relate it had to be driving a lot of value. Value that funds jobs, but also value that is only worth it because the advertising is creating an even larger revenue stream in sales of whatever product is being pushed.

blackpill0w 4y ago

>Forces all websites to do an age check if they want to advertise How do you do that though, a popup that asks you if you're over 18? I used to ignore those all the time when I was young. On Facebook I was a 60 years old man playing children games and following the silliest pages. >make online advertising to children illegal It is not always easy to tell the difference between advertising and someone talking about something they like and use.

bitlax 4y ago
> How do you do that though, a popup that asks you if you're over 18? I used to ignore those all the time when I was young. On Facebook I was a 60 years old man playing children games and following the silliest pages. It would probably be similar to GDPR, and would have the immediate effect of removing a lot of garbage from the internet.

tjpnz 4y ago

Adults aren't immune to inluencers either. Look how many fall for crypto scams or QAnon.

_heimdall 4y ago

Why should advertising to children be illegal online but legal everywhere else? TV commercials have long leveraged advertising to children - cereal brands don't have cartoon mascots because it brings in adult customers. If we want to ban advertising it should be by fundamentally changing how the web works. If we all want an internet that serves content instead of ads that is doable, the problem is that would sacrifice convenience and our society has been picking convenience above all else for decades.