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> How do you imagine that will be enforced? Perhaps by... ID? Emphasis mine. It's that that which I'm disputing. This law does not require you to have an acco

> How do you imagine that will be enforced? Perhaps by... ID? Emphasis mine. It's that that which I'm disputing. This law does not require you to have an account to go onto a website. It is a law that requires you are age-checked to hold an account on social media platforms. These are different things. Holding an account —broadly speaking— allows you to post, like, comment, follow and be profiled in an enduring fashion. Some of these can have life-long implications that 12 year olds aren't equipped to evaluate. How many adults can identify unhealthy social media usage and do something to stop it? I don't know how age verification will work in practice. Checking a government ID is one way but if you're handing that off to a third party service, it's expensive. They don't need to know who you are for certain. A similar check is when you buy alcohol. If you look young, you're asked for ID. When I buy alcohol, I'm not because I look like a man with kids nearing his forties. It would be far cheaper for Facebook to have an AI watch a video of you speaking to camera, with ID as a fallback. Many social media platforms are ingesting gigabytes of our faces every day so. They probably already know the rough ages of their users. But going on a website (eg Youtube) doesn't require you have a profile. Going on Facebook business pages doesn't require it. If anything, laws like this might mean that things like Instagram have to be more open to preserve their reach. Not a bad outcome, IMO.

scarface_74 3y ago
When you buy alcohol, it’s very easy to see whether they are taking and storing your picture. You can also buy alcohol with cash leaving no digital footprint. And is AI the new blockchain that will magically solve every problem? And most children over 14 don’t have government IDs either. If you don’t want your kids to be on Facebook, use parental controls. It’s the parents responsibility. I live in Florida for context. The same government officials talk out of the left side of their mouths about “parental choice” and now this law says children can’t be on social media even with parental consent.
- oliwarner 3y ago
  Parental choice exists where parents can make informed choices. You don't know how much their child is being affected by platforms that have been designed to be addictive, that go out of their way to spur conflict and argument (sorry, "engagement"), and that have so few parental controls that it's near impossible for a parent to actually vet what's going on, who's interacting with them. You're not even allowed to give your kids alcohol. There's clearly some precedence for protecting kids from their parents' inability to make informed choices. And ML models for detecting age have existed for a long time. It's not magic unicorn dust. It's just one way to avoid this ID stuff that everybody is upset about.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Then educate the parents and tell them about parental controls. But would you be okay if I used that same argument about why open computing platforms are bad because adults don’t know enough about computers to avoid malware and ransomware?

scarface_74 3y ago

When you buy alcohol, it’s very easy to see whether they are taking and storing your picture. You can also buy alcohol with cash leaving no digital footprint. And is AI the new blockchain that will magically solve every problem? And most children over 14 don’t have government IDs either. If you don’t want your kids to be on Facebook, use parental controls. It’s the parents responsibility. I live in Florida for context. The same government officials talk out of the left side of their mouths about “parental choice” and now this law says children can’t be on social media even with parental consent.

oliwarner 3y ago
Parental choice exists where parents can make informed choices. You don't know how much their child is being affected by platforms that have been designed to be addictive, that go out of their way to spur conflict and argument (sorry, "engagement"), and that have so few parental controls that it's near impossible for a parent to actually vet what's going on, who's interacting with them. You're not even allowed to give your kids alcohol. There's clearly some precedence for protecting kids from their parents' inability to make informed choices. And ML models for detecting age have existed for a long time. It's not magic unicorn dust. It's just one way to avoid this ID stuff that everybody is upset about.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Then educate the parents and tell them about parental controls. But would you be okay if I used that same argument about why open computing platforms are bad because adults don’t know enough about computers to avoid malware and ransomware?