6 ms·

> the thought of requiring others to show their faces never occurred to me at all I know you meant as a service provider, but as a avid IRC (and an online game

by pests 8mo ago

> the thought of requiring others to show their faces never occurred to me at all I know you meant as a service provider, but as a avid IRC (and an online game that conventionally alt-tabbed into a irc-like chat window) chatter as a young preteen in the 90s and 00s, I made a lot of online friends that I would not discover what they looked like IRL for decades, some never. People I was gaming with in the 90s, for the first time, I would see what they looked like over FB in a group made for the now-almost-dead game in the 10s. It was like "swordfish - man, where are you now? I don't even know your real name to find ya. shardz - you look exactly like I would picture ya!." Just some musings.

onetokeoverthe 8mo ago
[dead]
joe_mamba 8mo ago
>as a young preteen in the 90s and 00s, I made a lot of online friends As another 90s preteen, sure, but the internet today has a lot more pedos and groomers online than in the 90s, and preteens today easily share footage of themselves to those adult weirdos, which didn't happen in the 90s because mostly limitations of technology. BUt if you look at tiktok live it's full of preteen girls dancing, and creepy old men donating them money to the point where tiktok live is basically a preteen strip club. We can't ignore these obvious problems just because we grew up with internet in the 90s and turned out alright. We have to separate kids from adults on the internet somehow even though i distrust age-verifications systems as they basically remove your anonymity but a solution is inevitable even though it will be faulty and unpopular and people will try to bypass it.
- supermatt 8mo ago
  The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. If laws need to be made about something it should be to punish those parents who neglect to safeguard their children using the tools already available to them. If the parental controls currently provided aren’t sufficient then they should be modified to be so - in addition to filtering, they should probably send a header to websites and a flag to apps giving an age/rating.
  - stubish 8mo ago
    Australian laws decided to explicitly not blame the parents and place the responsibility on the platform. Turns out not all parents are responsible adults with a diploma in dark pattern navigation, and some kids don't even have parents. So if the goal is to help the kids, rather than have someone to blame when they get abused, you can't just pass the buck.
  - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
    Curious: are you ok with the other laws that are in place in the world to prevent underage people to engage with all sorts of activities? Like, for example, having to show an ID to being able to purchase alcohol?
    - HeckFeck 8mo ago
      They aren't comparable. Showing an ID to a staff member isn't stripping my anonymity. I know the retailer won't have that on file forever, tied to me on subsequent visits. Also they stop ID'ing you after a certain age ;) There isn't any way to achieve the same digitally.
      - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
        I know they're not compatible. I'm asking if you're also ok with those. There are also plenty of situations where you are asked to provide an ID, digitally, when above a certain age. For example booking hotels and other accommodations. Personally I'm still trying to figure out where my position is when it comes to this whole debate because both camps have obvious pros and cons.
        ongy 8mo ago
        Which hotel asks for id online..? I've only ever had to provide it once on-site and checking in. And when then, only when I'm in foreign countries.
        8mo ago
- throwaway_53123 8mo ago
  > As another 90s preteen, sure, but the internet today has a lot more pedos and groomers online than in the 90s There were not fewer pedos and groomers online in the 90s, you were just lucky to have avoided it.
  - ctz 8mo ago
    There were ~16mn users of the internet in 1995. As of 2025 there are 5.56bn. Are you saying paedophilia has dropped by 99.7% over 30 years? If so, please provide a source for that claim.
    - vladms 8mo ago
      I think what matters are the percentages. Out of the 16mn users where there more or less than in the general population? I think it is reasonable to think they were as many percentage wise, if not more - because internet provides anonymity which is an advantage. Nowadays with the number of users of the internet converging slowly to the total populations, the percentages are probably converging as well.
- vladms 8mo ago
  > but the internet today has a lot more pedos and groomers online than in the 90s Without some data analysis I honestly don't know. Even before Internet (ex: FidoNet) there was plenty of very bad stuff out there, I don't see any clear reason why the pedos and groomers would have avoided it. > We have to separate kids from adults on the internet somehow I think what is much worse than in other mediums is the actual lack of a community that observes. In real life, for many cases, you would have multiple people noticing interactions between kids and adults (sports, schools, parks, shops, etc.), so actions might be taken when/before things get strange. On some of the social networks on the internet it is too much one-to-one communication which avoids any oversight. So, for me, the idea of "more separation" seems to generate on the long term even more problems, because of lack of (healthy) interactions and a community.
- palata 8mo ago
  > i distrust age-verifications systems as they basically remove your anonymity I think it's technically possible to build a privacy-preserving age verification. I also think it should be done by the government, because the government already has this information.
- justkys 8mo ago
  [dead]
- wafflemaker 8mo ago
  Chat rooms in early 2000s were full pedos. And they didn't even try to hide very much. Look at the story from darknet diaries, where the interviewee talks about setting up an AOL account with girlie name and instantly getting flooded with messages, 9/10 of them being from pedos. https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/56/ https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/56/ Don't have any examples myself because I was a spectrum kid at that time, quite oblivious to the idea.
tuoret 8mo ago
In the early 2000s, the biggest social media (though we didn't call it that back then) in Finland was IRC-Galleria (IRC-Gallery). It was originally made for IRC users to upload pictures of themselves and see what fellow IRCers looked like. You'd create a profile, add pictures and tag which channels/servers you were on. Since there were no other websites like that back then, it was eventually overrun by non-IRC-users and transformed into what we'd now call a more generic social media platform. Something like the eternal September I guess. People started calling the gallery "IRC" as shorthand, which royally pissed off the original userbase. Fun times. Then Facebook appeared and everyone moved there. It's still up, but it's more of a historical relic these days. Not sure who, if anyone, still uses it: https://irc-galleria.net/ https://irc-galleria.net/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC-Galleria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC-Galleria
- miki123211 8mo ago
  It's weird how different and hyper-local the social media landscape was back then. It's not just that every country had their own thing, it's also that they were all very different concepts and ideas. Poland's social media of choice was "Nasza Klasa" (lit. "Our Class"), the American alternative was called "Classmates" as far as I know. It was intended as a service that let you re-unite with your old classmates, designed with the way the Polish school system worked in mind. It was used for far more than that though, and was quite popular among kids who were still at school. We're still in that era with messaging apps somehow. WHile the local alternatives have mostly died out, the world is now a patchwork of WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram, with islands of iMessage, Line, KakaoTalk and WeChat thrown into the mix. Most countries have basically standardized on one of these, but they can't agree on which one.
  - nvesp 8mo ago
    Most of my local friends here in the united states were really into LiveJournal and Xanga for a couple years before myspace went live. That might have been more the younger crowds scene though.
    - 8mo ago

by pests 8mo ago

onetokeoverthe 8mo ago

[dead]

joe_mamba 8mo ago

>as a young preteen in the 90s and 00s, I made a lot of online friends As another 90s preteen, sure, but the internet today has a lot more pedos and groomers online than in the 90s, and preteens today easily share footage of themselves to those adult weirdos, which didn't happen in the 90s because mostly limitations of technology. BUt if you look at tiktok live it's full of preteen girls dancing, and creepy old men donating them money to the point where tiktok live is basically a preteen strip club. We can't ignore these obvious problems just because we grew up with internet in the 90s and turned out alright. We have to separate kids from adults on the internet somehow even though i distrust age-verifications systems as they basically remove your anonymity but a solution is inevitable even though it will be faulty and unpopular and people will try to bypass it.

supermatt 8mo ago
The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. If laws need to be made about something it should be to punish those parents who neglect to safeguard their children using the tools already available to them. If the parental controls currently provided aren’t sufficient then they should be modified to be so - in addition to filtering, they should probably send a header to websites and a flag to apps giving an age/rating.
- stubish 8mo ago
  Australian laws decided to explicitly not blame the parents and place the responsibility on the platform. Turns out not all parents are responsible adults with a diploma in dark pattern navigation, and some kids don't even have parents. So if the goal is to help the kids, rather than have someone to blame when they get abused, you can't just pass the buck.
- manuelmoreale 8mo ago
  Curious: are you ok with the other laws that are in place in the world to prevent underage people to engage with all sorts of activities? Like, for example, having to show an ID to being able to purchase alcohol?
  - HeckFeck 8mo ago
    They aren't comparable. Showing an ID to a staff member isn't stripping my anonymity. I know the retailer won't have that on file forever, tied to me on subsequent visits. Also they stop ID'ing you after a certain age ;) There isn't any way to achieve the same digitally.
    - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
      I know they're not compatible. I'm asking if you're also ok with those. There are also plenty of situations where you are asked to provide an ID, digitally, when above a certain age. For example booking hotels and other accommodations. Personally I'm still trying to figure out where my position is when it comes to this whole debate because both camps have obvious pros and cons.
      - ongy 8mo ago
        Which hotel asks for id online..? I've only ever had to provide it once on-site and checking in. And when then, only when I'm in foreign countries.
        8mo ago
throwaway_53123 8mo ago
> As another 90s preteen, sure, but the internet today has a lot more pedos and groomers online than in the 90s There were not fewer pedos and groomers online in the 90s, you were just lucky to have avoided it.
- ctz 8mo ago
  There were ~16mn users of the internet in 1995. As of 2025 there are 5.56bn. Are you saying paedophilia has dropped by 99.7% over 30 years? If so, please provide a source for that claim.
  - vladms 8mo ago
    I think what matters are the percentages. Out of the 16mn users where there more or less than in the general population? I think it is reasonable to think they were as many percentage wise, if not more - because internet provides anonymity which is an advantage. Nowadays with the number of users of the internet converging slowly to the total populations, the percentages are probably converging as well.
vladms 8mo ago
> but the internet today has a lot more pedos and groomers online than in the 90s Without some data analysis I honestly don't know. Even before Internet (ex: FidoNet) there was plenty of very bad stuff out there, I don't see any clear reason why the pedos and groomers would have avoided it. > We have to separate kids from adults on the internet somehow I think what is much worse than in other mediums is the actual lack of a community that observes. In real life, for many cases, you would have multiple people noticing interactions between kids and adults (sports, schools, parks, shops, etc.), so actions might be taken when/before things get strange. On some of the social networks on the internet it is too much one-to-one communication which avoids any oversight. So, for me, the idea of "more separation" seems to generate on the long term even more problems, because of lack of (healthy) interactions and a community.
palata 8mo ago
> i distrust age-verifications systems as they basically remove your anonymity I think it's technically possible to build a privacy-preserving age verification. I also think it should be done by the government, because the government already has this information.
justkys 8mo ago
[dead]
wafflemaker 8mo ago
Chat rooms in early 2000s were full pedos. And they didn't even try to hide very much. Look at the story from darknet diaries, where the interviewee talks about setting up an AOL account with girlie name and instantly getting flooded with messages, 9/10 of them being from pedos. https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/56/ https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/56/ Don't have any examples myself because I was a spectrum kid at that time, quite oblivious to the idea.

tuoret 8mo ago

In the early 2000s, the biggest social media (though we didn't call it that back then) in Finland was IRC-Galleria (IRC-Gallery). It was originally made for IRC users to upload pictures of themselves and see what fellow IRCers looked like. You'd create a profile, add pictures and tag which channels/servers you were on. Since there were no other websites like that back then, it was eventually overrun by non-IRC-users and transformed into what we'd now call a more generic social media platform. Something like the eternal September I guess. People started calling the gallery "IRC" as shorthand, which royally pissed off the original userbase. Fun times. Then Facebook appeared and everyone moved there. It's still up, but it's more of a historical relic these days. Not sure who, if anyone, still uses it: https://irc-galleria.net/ https://irc-galleria.net/ Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC-Galleria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC-Galleria

miki123211 8mo ago
It's weird how different and hyper-local the social media landscape was back then. It's not just that every country had their own thing, it's also that they were all very different concepts and ideas. Poland's social media of choice was "Nasza Klasa" (lit. "Our Class"), the American alternative was called "Classmates" as far as I know. It was intended as a service that let you re-unite with your old classmates, designed with the way the Polish school system worked in mind. It was used for far more than that though, and was quite popular among kids who were still at school. We're still in that era with messaging apps somehow. WHile the local alternatives have mostly died out, the world is now a patchwork of WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram, with islands of iMessage, Line, KakaoTalk and WeChat thrown into the mix. Most countries have basically standardized on one of these, but they can't agree on which one.
- nvesp 8mo ago
  Most of my local friends here in the united states were really into LiveJournal and Xanga for a couple years before myspace went live. That might have been more the younger crowds scene though.
  - 8mo ago