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IMO slippery slope is a fallacy when the small step only supports the big step symbolically, shifting the “Overton Window”. It’s true that the Overton Window ha
by armchairhacker 2y ago
IMO slippery slope is a fallacy when the small step only supports the big step symbolically, shifting the “Overton Window”. It’s true that the Overton Window has some effect, but we shouldn’t avoid taking a step towards the middle just because it’s also a step towards the opposite bad side, if the middle is good.
Wrt. privacy, the real issue is that the small step helps the big step not just symbolically. ID-based age-verification, even when used for good reasons, gives the state and government access to its people’s history of age-restricted content. If this government decides to, say, prosecute anyone who viewed/bought/consumed (inane) X, it’s far easier vs. a government that doesn’t have age-verification. Both governments face major opposition, but the latter government’s opposition is more effective, because the former’s has already shared their history.
One thing the article doesn’t state but implies, that I don’t agree with, is: the slippery slope is still a fallacy, when a government first decides to age-gate reasonable X (e.g. porn) then unreasonable Y (e.g. history books). Because said government will receive almost as much opposition and people doing work-arounds for Y, as if they went straight to age-gating Y; although not exactly as much, I generally assume (and hope) the difference doesn't outweigh the benefits of "stepping towards the middle". In the article, X is porn, and Y is facial cream, dating apps, and diet pills. But these things arguably should be age-gated; and even the article’s talking points are not that these are OK for children, but that gating them gives the government data on more people (which is a real slippery-slope, not a fallacy, as explained in the above paragraph), specifically people who don’t watch porn (perhaps some of the readers don’t mind porn viewers being monitored because they aren’t one of them). If states were to actually start age-gating history books, I guarantee there would be serious opposition, including from people who are completely fine with age-gating porn.
- miki123211 2y agoIMO the problem isn't ID-based age verification specifically, it's that such verification is usually impelemnted in a way where the service in question gets a lot more data than they need, with no real control over how that data is kept and processed. It would absolutely be possible to implement that stuff in a fully privacy-preserving way, with nothing but basic cryptography, and the government could absolutely enforce that implementation. Nobody is actually interested in promoting that though, the anti-big-tech crowd just wants verification no matter what, and the pro-privacy crowd just wants something to get angry about. Nobody is looking for a reasonable compromise here.
- devilbunny 2y agoYeah, the whole “we have to scan your driver’s license” which has my name, address, etc., encoded is way more than I want to share. I am mostly bald and even my beard is gray. There is no plausible situation where you think I might be under 21.
- genewitch 2y agoI've been gray for over a decade and get carded every time, because my state tries to enforce age restrictions. Minors don't seem to have much of a problem, though?
- devilbunny 2y agoNor would you if you sought the slummiest stores and gave some old wino $10 to go buy it for you.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago> It would absolutely be possible to implement that stuff in a fully privacy-preserving way, with nothing but basic cryptography, and the government could absolutely enforce that implementation. There are ways to do this which are less bad, but there is no way to do it "in a fully privacy-preserving way" without also making it fully ineffective, because if there is no way to prove who someone is then there is no way to catch anyone providing false age verification as a service to minors. But if there a way to prove that, you've demonstrated the existence of a privacy failure because you could then use the same mechanism to determine what someone is looking at.
- consteval 2y agoYou can verify who someone is without knowing specifically who "who" refers to. We do it all the time. I give a one-time code to service X and it knows I am who I say I am, but the code I gave is virtually worthless information. All it knows is that I have credentials, and I am the authorized person to have those credentials because I have physical access to some device, unknown, which is known to belong to said person.