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I don’t see what the big deal is. Nobody has ground to stand on in asserting that minors have a moral right to an “online life”. On the other hand, there are

I don’t see what the big deal is. Nobody has ground to stand on in asserting that minors have a moral right to an “online life”. On the other hand, there are tons of good reasons to disallow minors from participating in the free online commons. I’m not saying I necessarily support it in all cases, but I definitely don’t think it’s necessarily a bad or immoral thing either, and it’s a bit surprising that a bunch of extremely online tech jockeys seem to.

Avamander 1y ago
The deal is that everyone shouldn't be subjected to invasive identity verification just to not be considered children. Not only is this process generally vaguely specified in depth, it's a massive (financial) burden for most online platforms. The effect this kind of legislation has, has not been properly thought out. Large corporations' eagerness to implement this legislation should be a MASSIVE red flag alone. How do they benefit from this? I can think of a few ways. Track record also shows that we can't properly do biometric data collection like this. This will end up in massive data leaks, if not people's IDs then at least faces. Congrats, you've given some scammers a full dataset for impersonating people. Not only that, most noninvasive methods for age verification are dumb and ineffective with the AI options available today. Not to mention five or ten years. So now you've got a vague unspecified and relatively nanny-state goal combined with ineffective and invasive methods and malicious compliance with immensely negative side effects. It is not worth it. It's akin to wanting every restaurant that sells beer to card everyone at the entrance and store it in a database. Do we perhaps also want lists of minorities to better "protect" them? "Oh, you bought lava cake? That's children's favourite, please show us your ID to see that you're not a child or we'll take the cake away."
jackdawipper 1y ago
yea but that isnt why they are doing it. they dont gaf about kids, they want total control of the populace online behaviour and this is steps in that direction. what fascinates me most, is when people dont realise this.
Barrin92 1y ago
> there are tons of good reasons to disallow minors from participating in the free online commons. there isn't unless you're a neurotic helicopter parent who wants to infantilize people up until they're adults. I'm only in my early thirties but I thank god that I have a dad who bought me Doom when the store owner didn't want to sell it to me, we shocked the crap out of each other with gore sites in school and when our parents caught us looking at boobs they didn't have a moral panic because unlike now teenagers being hormonal was still considered normal I literally pity the kids who are raised by people who give Victorian Englanders a run for their money. Forget this argument that the adults are the ones suffering under "legitimate concerns for kids", the kids are the actual losers here
- hollerith 1y ago
  I think most people abandon views like yours when they become a parent. Are you a parent?
  - Barrin92 1y ago
    Very recently actually yes. Not that it mattered if I wasn't, because I was a kid and I know how important freedom was to my development, as does everyone who had it, that's sufficient to be inoculated against this safetyism. And yes most people now have abandoned it, that's exactly what I'm complaining about. Not just with their kids mind you but even with themselves, that's why we have people in their late 20s and 30s who talk about how they're learning "adulting". Like, we have an entire generation now of people well into adult live who act like angsty teenagers because what they should have learned at 14 they learned ten years later
    - thombles 1y ago
      Have a look at Jon Haidt's book The Anxious Generation. He makes the case rather well that we need to cut out the safetyism in the physical world while getting serious about it in the online world. It's not some abstract matter of the morality of kids' digital freedom, it's the tanking of mental health and increase in self-harm and attempted suicide since smartphones came along.

Avamander 1y ago

The deal is that everyone shouldn't be subjected to invasive identity verification just to not be considered children. Not only is this process generally vaguely specified in depth, it's a massive (financial) burden for most online platforms. The effect this kind of legislation has, has not been properly thought out. Large corporations' eagerness to implement this legislation should be a MASSIVE red flag alone. How do they benefit from this? I can think of a few ways. Track record also shows that we can't properly do biometric data collection like this. This will end up in massive data leaks, if not people's IDs then at least faces. Congrats, you've given some scammers a full dataset for impersonating people. Not only that, most noninvasive methods for age verification are dumb and ineffective with the AI options available today. Not to mention five or ten years. So now you've got a vague unspecified and relatively nanny-state goal combined with ineffective and invasive methods and malicious compliance with immensely negative side effects. It is not worth it. It's akin to wanting every restaurant that sells beer to card everyone at the entrance and store it in a database. Do we perhaps also want lists of minorities to better "protect" them? "Oh, you bought lava cake? That's children's favourite, please show us your ID to see that you're not a child or we'll take the cake away."

jackdawipper 1y ago

yea but that isnt why they are doing it. they dont gaf about kids, they want total control of the populace online behaviour and this is steps in that direction. what fascinates me most, is when people dont realise this.

Barrin92 1y ago

> there are tons of good reasons to disallow minors from participating in the free online commons. there isn't unless you're a neurotic helicopter parent who wants to infantilize people up until they're adults. I'm only in my early thirties but I thank god that I have a dad who bought me Doom when the store owner didn't want to sell it to me, we shocked the crap out of each other with gore sites in school and when our parents caught us looking at boobs they didn't have a moral panic because unlike now teenagers being hormonal was still considered normal I literally pity the kids who are raised by people who give Victorian Englanders a run for their money. Forget this argument that the adults are the ones suffering under "legitimate concerns for kids", the kids are the actual losers here

hollerith 1y ago
I think most people abandon views like yours when they become a parent. Are you a parent?
- Barrin92 1y ago
  Very recently actually yes. Not that it mattered if I wasn't, because I was a kid and I know how important freedom was to my development, as does everyone who had it, that's sufficient to be inoculated against this safetyism. And yes most people now have abandoned it, that's exactly what I'm complaining about. Not just with their kids mind you but even with themselves, that's why we have people in their late 20s and 30s who talk about how they're learning "adulting". Like, we have an entire generation now of people well into adult live who act like angsty teenagers because what they should have learned at 14 they learned ten years later
  - thombles 1y ago
    Have a look at Jon Haidt's book The Anxious Generation. He makes the case rather well that we need to cut out the safetyism in the physical world while getting serious about it in the online world. It's not some abstract matter of the morality of kids' digital freedom, it's the tanking of mental health and increase in self-harm and attempted suicide since smartphones came along.