4 ms·

While I strongly disagree with this NC law, and others, your analogy is a bad one. As a society I think we've accepted that some things (cigarettes, alcohol, s

While I strongly disagree with this NC law, and others, your analogy is a bad one. As a society I think we've accepted that some things (cigarettes, alcohol, sex, etc.) should be restricted from children. That's a far cry from requiring ID every time I go to the grocery store. But, as long as I've been alive, you have had to show ID to purchase alcohol, and the sky hasn't fallen. Again, I think these types of laws are particularly poorly thought out, but I don't buy the "slippery slope into dystopia" arguments, and I think there are better arguments against it.

ImpostorKeanu 3y ago
The core of OPs argument is that tracking is bad, not that ID/age verification is bad.
hattmall 3y ago
You had to show ID to buy porn magazines, go in a strip club or even the adult video rental room. It's pretty insane that we have no check for an unlimited amount of free porn with all kinds of extremes. It fucks up a lot of kids (and adults). Showing porn to a random kid on the street would have you catch a charge if not something worse, but somehow on the Internet it's just fine?
- kazinator 3y ago
  > You had to show ID to buy porn magazines Not to someone wearing a Google Glass device, taking a snapshot of it.
- networkchad 3y ago
  [dead]
- whatshisface 3y ago
  They are leaving it out where anyone can get it (if their parents aren't watching), not showing it to unsuspecting pedestrians. Maybe teenagers have too much autonomy online but it's the place of their parents to take it away from them - not the state of North Carolina.
  - hattmall 3y ago
    I think a reasonable analogy would be putting TV's playing porn outside of a school and covered them with a cloth and sign that said adults only. What would my liability be then? And I also sell advertising on the side of the tvs?
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      Based on the growth of some "romance boutiques," who seem to be able to open chain stores anywhere, the liability is nil.
      - hattmall 3y ago
        They allow kids to go in?
        whatshisface 3y ago
        To be honest, I don't know - but the billboards are everywhere and not subtle at all.
        itishappy 3y ago
        No, they check IDs. Source: Was a kid.
    - JohnBooty 3y ago
      I think a reasonable analogy would be putting TV's playing porn outside of a school and covered them with a cloth and sign that said adults only. Well, no. Anybody entering or leaving the school would have no choice but to see the covered TVs. Whereas porn is generally not showing up online unless you are looking for it. Strongly suggest dropping the analogies entirely. Like many digital concepts this just will never map cleanly to a real-world analogue. This is like the millions of bad analogies related to music downloads back in the Napster days. Please, stop. This is an issue worth discussing, but every analogy is bad and every analogy pollutes and enshittifies the discussion.
- stickfigure 3y ago
  > It fucks up a lot of kids (and adults). That which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
- jzb 3y ago
  "It's pretty insane that we have no check for an unlimited amount of free porn with all kinds of extremes." And... we still don't. Porn is available through a lot of channels to anybody who knows how to look, all the NC law (and others) is doing is applying pressure to a handful of businesses and encouraging bad practices in the form of having to handle IDs. I'm the first to acknowledge it's sometimes worth doing something imperfect if it'll improve things, even if it's not 100% effective. But this isn't likely to be 10% effective, much less 90% or 100% effective. Anybody who wants to can dredge up tons of porn on any number of other sites, torrents, etc. As others have said, it's one thing to have to flash an ID at a convenience store or to enter a business where there's nudity, etc., but here you're requiring people to pass their info online. That's bad policy, and I doubt it's even in good faith that the legislators really think it'll do anything to curb access by those under 18. It's designed to target sites like PornHub and to give government a cudgel against all kinds of content that most wouldn't consider "porn" to begin with. And they want to go after LGBTQ+ content on the basis that it's LGBTQ+ -- not that it's necessarily adult in nature. [1] There's little chance that you're going to come anywhere close to preventing motivated people from seeing porn on the Internet laws and policy like this. If you have kids that you don't want accessing porn, then you need to take steps to monitor their access and have the hard conversations with them. (I am less alarmist about the "dangers" of kids accessing porn, but I will agree that unfettered access at a young age especially if parents aren't teaching their kids adequately about sexuality and that porn isn't a good representation is not great.) [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/17/masculine-policy-the-gops-plan-to-outlaw-porn-and-suspend-the-first-amendment/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/17/masculine-policy-the-gop...
  - dgacmu 3y ago
    "NC legislature accidentally endorses Mullvad VPN" could be a parallel article to this one. It would be interesting if someone analyzed the growth in VPN use following the enactment of this law.
    - jzb 3y ago
      Indeed. I'm pretty sure VPN subscriptions had a nice little spike at the end of December in NC.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- likeclockwork 3y ago
  If you give your kids unrestricted access to a gun they can shoot themselves. Why should minors be allowed on the internet unsupervised at all?
LammyL 3y ago
It is one thing to show ID. It is an other thing to show ID and have the details stored in a database in perpetuity by companies who don’t have huge budgets for data privacy and security.
- jxdxbx 3y ago
  Zero-knowledge methods for verifying age are possible but there is almost no political will or interest in them. Sites would get a “yes” or “no” as to whether someone is of age, and no other information.
  - nazka 3y ago
    I am curious how this would work. Could you put me in the right direction in how this is done?
    - miki123211 3y ago
      THe simplest way is as follows: 1. There's a provider that already has your data (it could be the government, a bank, a phone carrier etc). If more than one provider is supported, there's a list of trusted providers somewhere. 2. Whenever a website needs an age check, it asks you to authenticate with one of the trusted providers. The provider gets a challenge (a random string). 3. If you authenticate successfully, the provider uses their public key to provide a cryptographic signature of the challenge. This signed challenge is then transmitted back to the website. In a more advanced version of this system, the website also provides a boolean expression, like `country_of_residence not in forbidden_countries && (age > 21 || (age > 18 && country_of_residence != "us"))`, and providers promise not to return successful responses for users who don't fulfill the expression criteria.
  - Fatnino 3y ago
    California is trying out something like this with their digital drivers license. Basically, if you only want to verify age, you open the app in age verification mode. It will display your picture and a qr code but not your address and other sensitive info typically present on a drivers license. The participating* alcohol vendor then scans the qr code which only contains data like "over 21" and some sort of verification that the qr code isn't forged. I'm a bit hazy on how this last bit works but it really all pivots on how this bit is implemented. Could be good for privacy or a total nightmare. *there are only 3 locations participating in this test phase, afaik
stickfigure 3y ago
At least here in the US, we don't legally restrict minors from having sex (with others of the same age). The other two are physical goods with well-studied and proven health effects. Porn is not like these things.
ttymck 3y ago
You don't have to show ID if you look about 40 years old, generally.
- ImJamal 3y ago
  As far as I know most of the laws don't provide an exception if you look old enough.

ImpostorKeanu 3y ago

The core of OPs argument is that tracking is bad, not that ID/age verification is bad.

hattmall 3y ago

You had to show ID to buy porn magazines, go in a strip club or even the adult video rental room. It's pretty insane that we have no check for an unlimited amount of free porn with all kinds of extremes. It fucks up a lot of kids (and adults). Showing porn to a random kid on the street would have you catch a charge if not something worse, but somehow on the Internet it's just fine?

kazinator 3y ago
> You had to show ID to buy porn magazines Not to someone wearing a Google Glass device, taking a snapshot of it.
networkchad 3y ago
[dead]
whatshisface 3y ago
They are leaving it out where anyone can get it (if their parents aren't watching), not showing it to unsuspecting pedestrians. Maybe teenagers have too much autonomy online but it's the place of their parents to take it away from them - not the state of North Carolina.
- hattmall 3y ago
  I think a reasonable analogy would be putting TV's playing porn outside of a school and covered them with a cloth and sign that said adults only. What would my liability be then? And I also sell advertising on the side of the tvs?
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    Based on the growth of some "romance boutiques," who seem to be able to open chain stores anywhere, the liability is nil.
    - hattmall 3y ago
      They allow kids to go in?
      - whatshisface 3y ago
        To be honest, I don't know - but the billboards are everywhere and not subtle at all.
      - itishappy 3y ago
        No, they check IDs. Source: Was a kid.
  - JohnBooty 3y ago
    I think a reasonable analogy would be putting TV's playing porn outside of a school and covered them with a cloth and sign that said adults only. Well, no. Anybody entering or leaving the school would have no choice but to see the covered TVs. Whereas porn is generally not showing up online unless you are looking for it. Strongly suggest dropping the analogies entirely. Like many digital concepts this just will never map cleanly to a real-world analogue. This is like the millions of bad analogies related to music downloads back in the Napster days. Please, stop. This is an issue worth discussing, but every analogy is bad and every analogy pollutes and enshittifies the discussion.
stickfigure 3y ago
> It fucks up a lot of kids (and adults). That which is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
jzb 3y ago
"It's pretty insane that we have no check for an unlimited amount of free porn with all kinds of extremes." And... we still don't. Porn is available through a lot of channels to anybody who knows how to look, all the NC law (and others) is doing is applying pressure to a handful of businesses and encouraging bad practices in the form of having to handle IDs. I'm the first to acknowledge it's sometimes worth doing something imperfect if it'll improve things, even if it's not 100% effective. But this isn't likely to be 10% effective, much less 90% or 100% effective. Anybody who wants to can dredge up tons of porn on any number of other sites, torrents, etc. As others have said, it's one thing to have to flash an ID at a convenience store or to enter a business where there's nudity, etc., but here you're requiring people to pass their info online. That's bad policy, and I doubt it's even in good faith that the legislators really think it'll do anything to curb access by those under 18. It's designed to target sites like PornHub and to give government a cudgel against all kinds of content that most wouldn't consider "porn" to begin with. And they want to go after LGBTQ+ content on the basis that it's LGBTQ+ -- not that it's necessarily adult in nature. [1] There's little chance that you're going to come anywhere close to preventing motivated people from seeing porn on the Internet laws and policy like this. If you have kids that you don't want accessing porn, then you need to take steps to monitor their access and have the hard conversations with them. (I am less alarmist about the "dangers" of kids accessing porn, but I will agree that unfettered access at a young age especially if parents aren't teaching their kids adequately about sexuality and that porn isn't a good representation is not great.) [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/17/masculine-policy-the-gops-plan-to-outlaw-porn-and-suspend-the-first-amendment/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/17/masculine-policy-the-gop...
- dgacmu 3y ago
  "NC legislature accidentally endorses Mullvad VPN" could be a parallel article to this one. It would be interesting if someone analyzed the growth in VPN use following the enactment of this law.
  - jzb 3y ago
    Indeed. I'm pretty sure VPN subscriptions had a nice little spike at the end of December in NC.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
likeclockwork 3y ago
If you give your kids unrestricted access to a gun they can shoot themselves. Why should minors be allowed on the internet unsupervised at all?

LammyL 3y ago

It is one thing to show ID. It is an other thing to show ID and have the details stored in a database in perpetuity by companies who don’t have huge budgets for data privacy and security.

jxdxbx 3y ago
Zero-knowledge methods for verifying age are possible but there is almost no political will or interest in them. Sites would get a “yes” or “no” as to whether someone is of age, and no other information.
- nazka 3y ago
  I am curious how this would work. Could you put me in the right direction in how this is done?
  - miki123211 3y ago
    THe simplest way is as follows: 1. There's a provider that already has your data (it could be the government, a bank, a phone carrier etc). If more than one provider is supported, there's a list of trusted providers somewhere. 2. Whenever a website needs an age check, it asks you to authenticate with one of the trusted providers. The provider gets a challenge (a random string). 3. If you authenticate successfully, the provider uses their public key to provide a cryptographic signature of the challenge. This signed challenge is then transmitted back to the website. In a more advanced version of this system, the website also provides a boolean expression, like `country_of_residence not in forbidden_countries && (age > 21 || (age > 18 && country_of_residence != "us"))`, and providers promise not to return successful responses for users who don't fulfill the expression criteria.
- Fatnino 3y ago
  California is trying out something like this with their digital drivers license. Basically, if you only want to verify age, you open the app in age verification mode. It will display your picture and a qr code but not your address and other sensitive info typically present on a drivers license. The participating* alcohol vendor then scans the qr code which only contains data like "over 21" and some sort of verification that the qr code isn't forged. I'm a bit hazy on how this last bit works but it really all pivots on how this bit is implemented. Could be good for privacy or a total nightmare. *there are only 3 locations participating in this test phase, afaik

stickfigure 3y ago

At least here in the US, we don't legally restrict minors from having sex (with others of the same age). The other two are physical goods with well-studied and proven health effects. Porn is not like these things.

ttymck 3y ago

You don't have to show ID if you look about 40 years old, generally.

ImJamal 3y ago
As far as I know most of the laws don't provide an exception if you look old enough.