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This was never about "protecting children." It never is. It's always about censorship and control. The only time politicians ever see children is when they can

by Jigsy 1y ago

This was never about "protecting children." It never is. It's always about censorship and control. The only time politicians ever see children is when they can use them as a soapbox to push an agenda.

drcongo 1y ago
[flagged]
- churchill 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - loloquwowndueo 1y ago
    The fact that parent was ambiguous but _you_ immediately thought of Epstein is pretty telling - probably best not to forget.
    - bavent 1y ago
      They’re quoting what Donald Trump said when asked about him recently
      - blueflow 1y ago
        Man, posting on the internet becomes increasingly difficult without paying attention to whatever Trump is currently doing.
      - loloquwowndueo 1y ago
        Oh sorry, I ignore any news about what Trump said. (I know what he’s up to mostly from news about how my government reacts to what he says, but the Epstein stuff doesn’t qualify so I was totally in the dark about that hah)
bko 1y ago
There are things that are already illegal on the internet. Pirated media is generally illegal, which is meant to protect corporate profits. Most people are okay with such restrictions. But when it's actually about protecting children and forcing these shady companies to enforce their terms of service, it's censorship and control? The ironic thing is many people who decry forcing these companies to verify age, would be fine with such age verification restrictions on Insta or TikTok.
- random9749832 1y ago
  They are going to start restricting VPN usage as well [1] and I can't even click on a Reddit profile without getting age verification pop up because they commented on a dating advice subreddit once. At the same time I can go on Google images, type "porn" and click filter off without any problems. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
  - bko 1y ago
    > They are going to start restricting VPN usage as well [1] From your own source: > A government spokesperson said VPNs are legal tools for adults and there are no plans to ban them.
    - random9749832 1y ago
      Restrict != ban. "She wants ministers to explore requiring VPNs "to implement highly effective age assurances to stop underage users from accessing pornography.""
      - bko 1y ago
        I don't know, I just can't get fired up about this, I'm sorry. I don't think children have an absolute right to VPNs. There are a ton of things children can't have access to. They don't have full rights as adults, so I feel a bit ambivalent. As someone with kids I care deeply about the harmful stuff my children will get exposure to. And I'm worried about this as a negative influence, especially to boys, much more than I'm worried about smoking, vaping, drugs, guns, and most other things. This can absolutely wreck your relationships, and it's just not practical to control on a family level. Over 25% of teenagers have ED and it's going up. That can't be good. And for girls it can lead to risky or overall degenerate behavior due to changing expectations and influence. So many people here pretend like there's no problem.
jibe 1y ago
We have had age restrictions on physical pornography (magazines, dvd/vhs) and XXX movie theaters for a century, and it didn't threaten the book publishing industry or Hollywood.
- greesil 1y ago
  The internet includes porn, but is not limited to porn. Likewise the Internet allows the consuming of content, but also allows the production of content. This is where your analogy breaks down. The end user is both consumer and producer. Take this HN comment for example.
- init2null 1y ago
  You want the internet to work like book purchases at cash registers? It isn't. There is no real-world analog for what we've built. We will never get our privacy once this is widespread. Laws are too easy.
- wrs 1y ago
  As an adult I can’t remember ever having to put my face into a permanent database and be tracked every time I browsed in a bookstore. So this is not a helpful analogy.
  - tzs 1y ago
    There's no reason that online age verification has to require any of that, so your attempted proof that their analogy is not helpful fails.
    - rimunroe 1y ago
      Can you provide an example of how an age verification system wouldn’t require providing some identifying information to the government or a company when accessing content?
      - tzs 1y ago
        An example is the EU Digital Identity Wallet that the EU is in the midst of implementing. This is a system to allow you to store a copy of your ID documents on a device you own that included a secure element. Most people will use their smartphone. The agency that issues your documents can give you a digital copy that is cryptographically bound to the secure elements in your device. When you want to prove your age to a web site it uses a zero knowledge proof (ZKP) based protocol to prove to the site that the documents bound to your secure element show that age. Nothing but the fact that they show that age and that they are bound to your element is disclosed to the site. The ZKP proof protocol communication is just between your device the site. The government that issued your ID is not involved, so they don't know where you have used the ID or even if you have used the ID. BTW, this is not limited to age. It can be used with any data on your ID. For example if German political forum wanted to verify you were German before allowing you to post you could use this system to disclose to them that your ID has "Germany" in the country field and that would be all that is disclosed. For those outside the EU, Google has released an open source library for implementing things like this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44457390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44457390
slg 1y ago
>This was never about "protecting children." I feel like this narrative is counterproductive. Sure, it is true that some people advocating for this are doing it out of ulterior motives, but it certainly isn't true for all of them. Telling the people with legitimate concerns that they don't actually care about children is going to push them into the camp of the people who want to take advantage of their concern. In order to actually prevent the kind of damage that these censorship systems can inflict, there probably needs to be an actual discussion about the problem these systems are ostensibly designed to address. People have to remember this is a political issue and politics is about coalition building. Insulting large swaths of the general population as being nefarious liars isn't a great way to build coalitions.
- UncleMeat 1y ago
  It is more than some. When Project2025 talks about these laws it leads with keeping LGBT content away from children. They barely talk about actual porn.
- bediger4000 1y ago
  > Insulting large swaths of the general population as being nefarious liars isn't a great way to build coalitions. On the contrary! Look at Qanon. They've essentially taken over the Republican party. They not only insulted the bulk of the population, Qanons want them dead. It worked fine.
- krapp 1y ago
  The narrative is necessary because governments advocating for the safety of children are almost always doing so with an ulterior motive, and because people with legitimate concerns are often useful idiots for what turns out to be just another way to ratchet up surveillance and censorship and harass undesirables riding another fever wave of social panic and Christian moralizing. And large swaths of the general population are nefarious liars who don't actually care about children. If building coalitions requires ignoring that fact, then we're not going to build coalitions. The real world isn't HN, where you're expected to assume good faith at all times, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
- doom2 1y ago
grishka 1y ago
Internet censorship in Russia started around 10 years ago under the pretense of "protecting children". The initial law was kinda funny and relatively innocent: it banned information about drugs and suicide. Because if this information remains freely available, you know, children would get high and kill themselves. Today the internet in Russia is utterly broken. A VPN or a DPI bypass tool isn't something nice to have — it's an absolute necessity, especially if you communicate with people in other countries.
Henchman21 1y ago
> The only time politicians ever see children is when they can use them as a soapbox to push an agenda. That’s not true. Sometimes they see kids for sex. I mean, isn’t this what Epstein is all about?
duxup 1y ago
Naw I actually think there are orgs who really DO advocate for this stuff because of porn.

by Jigsy 1y ago

drcongo 1y ago

[flagged]

churchill 1y ago
[flagged]
- loloquwowndueo 1y ago
  The fact that parent was ambiguous but _you_ immediately thought of Epstein is pretty telling - probably best not to forget.
  - bavent 1y ago
    They’re quoting what Donald Trump said when asked about him recently
    - blueflow 1y ago
      Man, posting on the internet becomes increasingly difficult without paying attention to whatever Trump is currently doing.
    - loloquwowndueo 1y ago
      Oh sorry, I ignore any news about what Trump said. (I know what he’s up to mostly from news about how my government reacts to what he says, but the Epstein stuff doesn’t qualify so I was totally in the dark about that hah)

bko 1y ago

There are things that are already illegal on the internet. Pirated media is generally illegal, which is meant to protect corporate profits. Most people are okay with such restrictions. But when it's actually about protecting children and forcing these shady companies to enforce their terms of service, it's censorship and control? The ironic thing is many people who decry forcing these companies to verify age, would be fine with such age verification restrictions on Insta or TikTok.

random9749832 1y ago
They are going to start restricting VPN usage as well [1] and I can't even click on a Reddit profile without getting age verification pop up because they commented on a dating advice subreddit once. At the same time I can go on Google images, type "porn" and click filter off without any problems. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn438z3ejxyo
- bko 1y ago
  > They are going to start restricting VPN usage as well [1] From your own source: > A government spokesperson said VPNs are legal tools for adults and there are no plans to ban them.
  - random9749832 1y ago
    Restrict != ban. "She wants ministers to explore requiring VPNs "to implement highly effective age assurances to stop underage users from accessing pornography.""
    - bko 1y ago
      I don't know, I just can't get fired up about this, I'm sorry. I don't think children have an absolute right to VPNs. There are a ton of things children can't have access to. They don't have full rights as adults, so I feel a bit ambivalent. As someone with kids I care deeply about the harmful stuff my children will get exposure to. And I'm worried about this as a negative influence, especially to boys, much more than I'm worried about smoking, vaping, drugs, guns, and most other things. This can absolutely wreck your relationships, and it's just not practical to control on a family level. Over 25% of teenagers have ED and it's going up. That can't be good. And for girls it can lead to risky or overall degenerate behavior due to changing expectations and influence. So many people here pretend like there's no problem.

jibe 1y ago

We have had age restrictions on physical pornography (magazines, dvd/vhs) and XXX movie theaters for a century, and it didn't threaten the book publishing industry or Hollywood.

greesil 1y ago
The internet includes porn, but is not limited to porn. Likewise the Internet allows the consuming of content, but also allows the production of content. This is where your analogy breaks down. The end user is both consumer and producer. Take this HN comment for example.
init2null 1y ago
You want the internet to work like book purchases at cash registers? It isn't. There is no real-world analog for what we've built. We will never get our privacy once this is widespread. Laws are too easy.
wrs 1y ago
As an adult I can’t remember ever having to put my face into a permanent database and be tracked every time I browsed in a bookstore. So this is not a helpful analogy.
- tzs 1y ago
  There's no reason that online age verification has to require any of that, so your attempted proof that their analogy is not helpful fails.
  - rimunroe 1y ago
    Can you provide an example of how an age verification system wouldn’t require providing some identifying information to the government or a company when accessing content?
    - tzs 1y ago
      An example is the EU Digital Identity Wallet that the EU is in the midst of implementing. This is a system to allow you to store a copy of your ID documents on a device you own that included a secure element. Most people will use their smartphone. The agency that issues your documents can give you a digital copy that is cryptographically bound to the secure elements in your device. When you want to prove your age to a web site it uses a zero knowledge proof (ZKP) based protocol to prove to the site that the documents bound to your secure element show that age. Nothing but the fact that they show that age and that they are bound to your element is disclosed to the site. The ZKP proof protocol communication is just between your device the site. The government that issued your ID is not involved, so they don't know where you have used the ID or even if you have used the ID. BTW, this is not limited to age. It can be used with any data on your ID. For example if German political forum wanted to verify you were German before allowing you to post you could use this system to disclose to them that your ID has "Germany" in the country field and that would be all that is disclosed. For those outside the EU, Google has released an open source library for implementing things like this [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44457390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44457390

slg 1y ago

>This was never about "protecting children." I feel like this narrative is counterproductive. Sure, it is true that some people advocating for this are doing it out of ulterior motives, but it certainly isn't true for all of them. Telling the people with legitimate concerns that they don't actually care about children is going to push them into the camp of the people who want to take advantage of their concern. In order to actually prevent the kind of damage that these censorship systems can inflict, there probably needs to be an actual discussion about the problem these systems are ostensibly designed to address. People have to remember this is a political issue and politics is about coalition building. Insulting large swaths of the general population as being nefarious liars isn't a great way to build coalitions.

UncleMeat 1y ago
It is more than some. When Project2025 talks about these laws it leads with keeping LGBT content away from children. They barely talk about actual porn.
bediger4000 1y ago
> Insulting large swaths of the general population as being nefarious liars isn't a great way to build coalitions. On the contrary! Look at Qanon. They've essentially taken over the Republican party. They not only insulted the bulk of the population, Qanons want them dead. It worked fine.
krapp 1y ago
The narrative is necessary because governments advocating for the safety of children are almost always doing so with an ulterior motive, and because people with legitimate concerns are often useful idiots for what turns out to be just another way to ratchet up surveillance and censorship and harass undesirables riding another fever wave of social panic and Christian moralizing. And large swaths of the general population are nefarious liars who don't actually care about children. If building coalitions requires ignoring that fact, then we're not going to build coalitions. The real world isn't HN, where you're expected to assume good faith at all times, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
doom2 1y ago

grishka 1y ago

Internet censorship in Russia started around 10 years ago under the pretense of "protecting children". The initial law was kinda funny and relatively innocent: it banned information about drugs and suicide. Because if this information remains freely available, you know, children would get high and kill themselves. Today the internet in Russia is utterly broken. A VPN or a DPI bypass tool isn't something nice to have — it's an absolute necessity, especially if you communicate with people in other countries.

Henchman21 1y ago

> The only time politicians ever see children is when they can use them as a soapbox to push an agenda. That’s not true. Sometimes they see kids for sex. I mean, isn’t this what Epstein is all about?

duxup 1y ago

Naw I actually think there are orgs who really DO advocate for this stuff because of porn.