39 ms·

Pretty wild to watch the basic rights of people in red states backslide in real time. Now there is the (what should be unnecessary) legal question of whether yo

Pretty wild to watch the basic rights of people in red states backslide in real time. Now there is the (what should be unnecessary) legal question of whether you can even run a social media platform with anonymous users in the state of Florida. Needing de facto governmental verification to communicate with people on the internet is something I had hoped I would never live to see in America. Hopefully it will not be fully enforced to the letter of the law.

lolinder 3y ago
There isn't really such a question. The law explicitly requires anonymous third-party age verification to be offered as an option. There are definitely concerns about how well that will work in practice, and I would definitely want to wait and see how it works in Florida before advocating for a wider rollout, but this Florida bill is actually the most reasonable of these age verification requirements rolled out to date. I'm all for a healthy skepticism of government intervention, but my feeling is let's let Florida try this out and see what happens.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  If you think kids won’t route around this then you don’t know kids. Its a political move for desantis to rally his base, nothing more.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Like I said, let's wait and see. I don't expect all kids to keep off social media—not all kids stay away from alcohol either—what I'd hope is that a significant enough percentage of them stay off that kids who do stay off have an easier time setting up healthier interaction patterns among their friend groups.
  - hackable_sand 3y ago
    The more insidious undertone is that Florida is (or is establishing legal precedence for) policing information access. If anything is detrimental to the health of a child, it's a restricted worldview.
- evantbyrne 3y ago
  You say there is no question, but it is already being raised by social media companies as an issue with the law. Anonymous age _verification_ is not something that exists. This requires government documentation, which means any solution that involves storing identity verification information would de facto allow the government to unmask users. This raises serious free speech concerns for everyone that uses these websites in Florida.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    1) 3rd party service (Verifier) receives government documentation proving that the owner of {{account ID}} is over the age of 21. 2) Verifier records the fact that the owner of {{account ID}} has proven they are of the age of majority. They throw away all other identifying information, including their exact age. 3) The individual logs in to Verifier from Social Media. Verifier certifies to Social Media that the individual is over the age of majority. There's no technical barrier preventing this outcome, and if you read the text of the law this is very clearly what the legislature envisions. Will it work? I don't know. Let's wait and see.
    - evantbyrne 3y ago
      Let's just ignore the fact this doesn't exist for the sake of going through the mental exercise. Whether identity services are allowed to discard the logs is a legal question. The time in which a user makes a verification request for a website is de-anonymizing in of itself. The government could access both services either in real-time (remember this has already happened here) or depending on how things are stored at a later date to link identities to accounts. So the government has ways get all the information it needs to de-anonymize people who use social media in Florida if enforced.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      You skipped over the Verifier expecting to be paid in some manner, being very likely to be paid using credit card, and thus having to retain those logs. Thus still making it easy to unmask users.
- dbbk 3y ago
  "Anonymous third-party age verification" is an oxymoron. You can't verify age anonymously.
deleted 3y ago
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lolinder 3y ago

There isn't really such a question. The law explicitly requires anonymous third-party age verification to be offered as an option. There are definitely concerns about how well that will work in practice, and I would definitely want to wait and see how it works in Florida before advocating for a wider rollout, but this Florida bill is actually the most reasonable of these age verification requirements rolled out to date. I'm all for a healthy skepticism of government intervention, but my feeling is let's let Florida try this out and see what happens.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
If you think kids won’t route around this then you don’t know kids. Its a political move for desantis to rally his base, nothing more.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Like I said, let's wait and see. I don't expect all kids to keep off social media—not all kids stay away from alcohol either—what I'd hope is that a significant enough percentage of them stay off that kids who do stay off have an easier time setting up healthier interaction patterns among their friend groups.
- hackable_sand 3y ago
  The more insidious undertone is that Florida is (or is establishing legal precedence for) policing information access. If anything is detrimental to the health of a child, it's a restricted worldview.
evantbyrne 3y ago
You say there is no question, but it is already being raised by social media companies as an issue with the law. Anonymous age _verification_ is not something that exists. This requires government documentation, which means any solution that involves storing identity verification information would de facto allow the government to unmask users. This raises serious free speech concerns for everyone that uses these websites in Florida.
- lolinder 3y ago
  1) 3rd party service (Verifier) receives government documentation proving that the owner of {{account ID}} is over the age of 21. 2) Verifier records the fact that the owner of {{account ID}} has proven they are of the age of majority. They throw away all other identifying information, including their exact age. 3) The individual logs in to Verifier from Social Media. Verifier certifies to Social Media that the individual is over the age of majority. There's no technical barrier preventing this outcome, and if you read the text of the law this is very clearly what the legislature envisions. Will it work? I don't know. Let's wait and see.
  - evantbyrne 3y ago
    Let's just ignore the fact this doesn't exist for the sake of going through the mental exercise. Whether identity services are allowed to discard the logs is a legal question. The time in which a user makes a verification request for a website is de-anonymizing in of itself. The government could access both services either in real-time (remember this has already happened here) or depending on how things are stored at a later date to link identities to accounts. So the government has ways get all the information it needs to de-anonymize people who use social media in Florida if enforced.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    You skipped over the Verifier expecting to be paid in some manner, being very likely to be paid using credit card, and thus having to retain those logs. Thus still making it easy to unmask users.
dbbk 3y ago
"Anonymous third-party age verification" is an oxymoron. You can't verify age anonymously.

deleted 3y ago

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