5 ms·

Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet

38 points by GSSmarin 1y ago

neom 1y ago
https://archive.is/jQuvd https://archive.is/jQuvd
PieTime 1y ago
Maybe this will finally encourage us to move away from centralized services and create truly decentralized social networks outside of our own governments reach.
- 1W6MIC49CYX9GAP 1y ago
  They'll just ban those
  - impossiblefork 1y ago
    They probably won't be able to. There's a legal right to end-to-end encryption and there's nothing preventing you from making a system look like HTTPS.
    - exe34 1y ago
      It'll need to be developed extraterritorially, otherwise they'd just pick up the people developing it. They'll ban the original website, so you'll have to get it through dodgy means, which means they can insert backdoors for you (unless you're able to verify the code and compile it for yourself).
    - sunaookami 1y ago
      >there's nothing preventing you from making a system look like HTTPS. Did you hear about the Great Firewall? And they just have to say it's to protect "the children"/"democracy"/"to fight disinformation"/"hate speech". You can't beat politics with technology.
    - FMecha 1y ago
      Have you heard of the hush-hush over Chat Control, a recurring theme on this site? It's getting to the point that they could shoehorn that with age verification push.
      - impossiblefork 1y ago
        Yes, but they have to fit it around the judgements of the different European courts, and they really can't do it, so they try to say 'Oh, this is totally voluntary' and then when realise that that won't work they decide to go after companies, etc. They have some political power, but they don't have all of it and they are quite constrained.
amatecha 1y ago
Dunno, unless it's like, a bank or government service, no one is getting a copy of my ID or CC just so I can view their fkin website. I guess I'll just use the web even less than I already do. Oh yeah and despite all this BS security theatre to "protect the children", teenagers will still find ways to connect with whoever they want to and find whatever content they want online. Source: I was a 12-year-old with dialup internet and my own computer, once. Relevant nitpick: everywhere this article says "internet" they mean "web".
- lm28469 1y ago
  > Dunno, unless it's like, a bank or government service, no one is getting a copy of my ID or CC just so I can view their fkin website. Same, companies underestimate how interested I am in using their websites. Last month I uninstalled instagram because it asked me to pay or get more ads, every other post was already either an ad or a promotional post, I left. The vast majority of websites are already unusable or full of low value bot content, most search engines are useless, block behind paywalls, subscriptions, &c. Hopefully this will create a new ecosystem of tools for people who want to escape
  - profstasiak 1y ago
    so it's actually good for society? :) We can go outside and see a sun again
    - waste_monk 1y ago
      >We can go outside and see a sun again At least until they figure out how to put ads on it.
dyauspitr 1y ago
Probably for the best, the internet is a pretty shitty place now.
- aydyn 1y ago
  How is age verification going to make it any better? The internet is already segregated by age groups. The kids are on tiktok and discord, snapchat. You're not talking to any of them on HN or even Reddit.
- exe34 1y ago
  It's really important to make sure the 16 year olds that are about to get the vote in the UK remain uninformed about what's going on in the UK and the wider world - we don't want them to start voting the wrong way now, do we?
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    Why? What do you have against trans people?
    - exe34 1y ago
      I don't.
Madmallard 1y ago
I don't really like articles like this propagating it like it's just an inevitable thing that we should just accept. How about we don't? Where's the hacker news post of a GitHub repo with easy ways to bypass age verification and multiple mirrors and such so that it can't be wiped away. It'd be a new arms race. Parents should just be responsible for their kids. Really sick of the enshittification epidemic.
thinkingemote 1y ago
My theory: Age verification is essentially human verification. It is to stop AI. It's primarily for age of the human but more fundamentally it's about AI.
- ryan-c 1y ago
  AI generated images/video pass verification...
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  If that were the motivation I would find it acceptable, but it almost definitely isn't.
profstasiak 1y ago
I love this. I don't think children should be seeing what they can see on the Internet (we limit what movies or games they can buy, but hey - you can go online and watch hardcore porn, or people getting killed on video even when you are 12). I also love that EU is working on a digital wallet that can facilitate that age check - I would for someone to make a social media with only verified people living in EU. Why do I need to browse russian generated posts that try to pretend they are citizens of my country? I understand Internet has ideological foundations that are deeply entrenched in Sillicon Valley / American culture, but I don't but those anymore.
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  I don't understand how you can see it as okay from the point of view of European culture though. Age verification requires treating a website, not as some random person, but as a platform which has control of content and some responsibility. Age verification requires giving websites information that they should not have. Surely the European perspective should be that it is not Reddit's business whether I am 50 or 15. That they are just a website and should not care who I am and should not have that information. Furthermore, this violent images are reality. It should be possible to discuss war in public, and use first-hand information and discuss horrible pictures in detail.
  - profstasiak 1y ago
    it is societies business to limit certain illegal activities both online and offline. Most countries including USA have Indecent Exposure laws, prohibiting women for example from flashing their breasts on the street. Yet somehow online adult women are able to "flash" homemade videos of them making sex with multiple partners, and you somehow think it's ok for children age 11 to view this with no responsibility on reddit's part? Also most countries limit what children can do. It's illegal to drink even when you are 20 in USA. Why do we think children are mature enough when they are 11 to view unmoderated usergenerated content on tiktok? Many made by 18+ people driven by commercial interest and many of these videos dangerous for children (for example many challanges, where kids die after trying to do them). Obviously one can have this kind of naive liberalism view, that anything goes. I personally don't and that's why I shared my comment.
yesbut 1y ago
No thanks. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I will just stop using your service if you require age identification from me.
- blitzar 1y ago
  Thats exactly what "they" want.
  - yesbut 1y ago
    they also want me to stop using ad blockers.
d4rkn0d3z 1y ago
Right, because age verification has totally put a stop to underage drinking and drug use. Q: If I am a teenager wanting to access content that is prohibited by age verification, who is mostly likely the party that will provide access? A: The local drug dealer or extremist. This means a new market is born.
- profstasiak 1y ago
  we can obviously use highschool logic for that, or we can see studies. I don't really have time to go deeply into this, but here is your official government source saying that age limit for alcohol works by limiting deaths etc from alcohol use for people under 21 https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/underage-drinking/minimum-legal-drinking-age.html https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/underage-drinking/minimum-legal-...
  - d4rkn0d3z 1y ago
    This study says that when you tell young people underage drinking is illegal then underage people report their drinking less.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
rufw91 1y ago
Dummbass reporter

38 points by GSSmarin 1y ago

neom 1y ago

https://archive.is/jQuvd https://archive.is/jQuvd

Maybe this will finally encourage us to move away from centralized services and create truly decentralized social networks outside of our own governments reach.

1W6MIC49CYX9GAP 1y ago
They'll just ban those
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  They probably won't be able to. There's a legal right to end-to-end encryption and there's nothing preventing you from making a system look like HTTPS.
  - exe34 1y ago
    It'll need to be developed extraterritorially, otherwise they'd just pick up the people developing it. They'll ban the original website, so you'll have to get it through dodgy means, which means they can insert backdoors for you (unless you're able to verify the code and compile it for yourself).
  - sunaookami 1y ago
    >there's nothing preventing you from making a system look like HTTPS. Did you hear about the Great Firewall? And they just have to say it's to protect "the children"/"democracy"/"to fight disinformation"/"hate speech". You can't beat politics with technology.
  - FMecha 1y ago
    Have you heard of the hush-hush over Chat Control, a recurring theme on this site? It's getting to the point that they could shoehorn that with age verification push.
    - impossiblefork 1y ago
      Yes, but they have to fit it around the judgements of the different European courts, and they really can't do it, so they try to say 'Oh, this is totally voluntary' and then when realise that that won't work they decide to go after companies, etc. They have some political power, but they don't have all of it and they are quite constrained.

amatecha 1y ago

Dunno, unless it's like, a bank or government service, no one is getting a copy of my ID or CC just so I can view their fkin website. I guess I'll just use the web even less than I already do. Oh yeah and despite all this BS security theatre to "protect the children", teenagers will still find ways to connect with whoever they want to and find whatever content they want online. Source: I was a 12-year-old with dialup internet and my own computer, once. Relevant nitpick: everywhere this article says "internet" they mean "web".

lm28469 1y ago
> Dunno, unless it's like, a bank or government service, no one is getting a copy of my ID or CC just so I can view their fkin website. Same, companies underestimate how interested I am in using their websites. Last month I uninstalled instagram because it asked me to pay or get more ads, every other post was already either an ad or a promotional post, I left. The vast majority of websites are already unusable or full of low value bot content, most search engines are useless, block behind paywalls, subscriptions, &c. Hopefully this will create a new ecosystem of tools for people who want to escape
- profstasiak 1y ago
  so it's actually good for society? :) We can go outside and see a sun again
  - waste_monk 1y ago
    >We can go outside and see a sun again At least until they figure out how to put ads on it.

dyauspitr 1y ago

Probably for the best, the internet is a pretty shitty place now.

aydyn 1y ago
How is age verification going to make it any better? The internet is already segregated by age groups. The kids are on tiktok and discord, snapchat. You're not talking to any of them on HN or even Reddit.
exe34 1y ago
It's really important to make sure the 16 year olds that are about to get the vote in the UK remain uninformed about what's going on in the UK and the wider world - we don't want them to start voting the wrong way now, do we?
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  Why? What do you have against trans people?
  - exe34 1y ago
    I don't.

Madmallard 1y ago

I don't really like articles like this propagating it like it's just an inevitable thing that we should just accept. How about we don't? Where's the hacker news post of a GitHub repo with easy ways to bypass age verification and multiple mirrors and such so that it can't be wiped away. It'd be a new arms race. Parents should just be responsible for their kids. Really sick of the enshittification epidemic.

thinkingemote 1y ago

My theory: Age verification is essentially human verification. It is to stop AI. It's primarily for age of the human but more fundamentally it's about AI.

ryan-c 1y ago
AI generated images/video pass verification...
impossiblefork 1y ago
If that were the motivation I would find it acceptable, but it almost definitely isn't.

profstasiak 1y ago

I love this. I don't think children should be seeing what they can see on the Internet (we limit what movies or games they can buy, but hey - you can go online and watch hardcore porn, or people getting killed on video even when you are 12). I also love that EU is working on a digital wallet that can facilitate that age check - I would for someone to make a social media with only verified people living in EU. Why do I need to browse russian generated posts that try to pretend they are citizens of my country? I understand Internet has ideological foundations that are deeply entrenched in Sillicon Valley / American culture, but I don't but those anymore.

impossiblefork 1y ago
I don't understand how you can see it as okay from the point of view of European culture though. Age verification requires treating a website, not as some random person, but as a platform which has control of content and some responsibility. Age verification requires giving websites information that they should not have. Surely the European perspective should be that it is not Reddit's business whether I am 50 or 15. That they are just a website and should not care who I am and should not have that information. Furthermore, this violent images are reality. It should be possible to discuss war in public, and use first-hand information and discuss horrible pictures in detail.
- profstasiak 1y ago
  it is societies business to limit certain illegal activities both online and offline. Most countries including USA have Indecent Exposure laws, prohibiting women for example from flashing their breasts on the street. Yet somehow online adult women are able to "flash" homemade videos of them making sex with multiple partners, and you somehow think it's ok for children age 11 to view this with no responsibility on reddit's part? Also most countries limit what children can do. It's illegal to drink even when you are 20 in USA. Why do we think children are mature enough when they are 11 to view unmoderated usergenerated content on tiktok? Many made by 18+ people driven by commercial interest and many of these videos dangerous for children (for example many challanges, where kids die after trying to do them). Obviously one can have this kind of naive liberalism view, that anything goes. I personally don't and that's why I shared my comment.

yesbut 1y ago

No thanks. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I will just stop using your service if you require age identification from me.

blitzar 1y ago
Thats exactly what "they" want.
- yesbut 1y ago
  they also want me to stop using ad blockers.

d4rkn0d3z 1y ago

Right, because age verification has totally put a stop to underage drinking and drug use. Q: If I am a teenager wanting to access content that is prohibited by age verification, who is mostly likely the party that will provide access? A: The local drug dealer or extremist. This means a new market is born.

profstasiak 1y ago
we can obviously use highschool logic for that, or we can see studies. I don't really have time to go deeply into this, but here is your official government source saying that age limit for alcohol works by limiting deaths etc from alcohol use for people under 21 https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/underage-drinking/minimum-legal-drinking-age.html https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/underage-drinking/minimum-legal-...
- d4rkn0d3z 1y ago
  This study says that when you tell young people underage drinking is illegal then underage people report their drinking less.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

rufw91 1y ago

Dummbass reporter