4 ms·

I don't like this whole thing, but compared to what I was fearing would happen, this idea is nowhere near as bad. What I expected was that we'd end up with the

I don't like this whole thing, but compared to what I was fearing would happen, this idea is nowhere near as bad. What I expected was that we'd end up with the OS vendors actually being mandated to really do age verification, and then submitting that using Web Credentials and Secure Attestation so that the far end could trust the whole thing, locking open-source OS's out of the mix and creating more of a walled garden online than we already have. I was guessing it would become a simple checkbox on e.g. Cloudflare - "[ ] allow adult users only" or whatever - and that it would end up with vast swathes of the internet going off limits for anyone not on closed-source systems. Now, it looks like this is just a way for parents to tell the OS "this is a kid account" and have it flow through to websites so they can easily proactively block kids from connecting without having to implement any of that crap. Yes, it's much potentially easier for a child to circumvent; but any kid who can get around that sort of thing from within an OS could probably just wipe/reinstall anyway, so who cares? As a parent whose kids are continually trying to see what trouble they can get into, I appreciate that I will get one more potential weapon in the fight. Can someone tell me whether I am being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way?

tracker1 7mo ago
What do you think comes after this? This is just a first step towards exactly requiring age verification at the OS/Store level... Then comes ever more restrictive and intrusive tracking and eliminating all anonymity as a final goal. Time to start throwing up hobby BBS sites... and I think in this case text mode interfaces over web might be an advantage.
Larrikin 7mo ago
Websites can send down a single header indicating adult content. The device, the parent setup to indicate the users age, can respect that. Legitimate adult websites will not show the content. There is no need for any verification beyond that or it's just government mandated surveillance.
- jacobgkau 7mo ago
  > There is no need for any verification beyond that or it's just government mandated surveillance. There is no verification beyond that in these sorts of bills (CA, CO, IL). It's the parent's responsibility to watch their kids when they set up an account. > Legitimate adult websites will not show the content. This is a big problem (that won't necessarily be solved by this particular legislation, granted). There are already voluntary rating HTML tags websites can add to indicate parental control software should block them, but they're voluntary and non-standardized. Websites can choose not to comply with no real-world consequences. And I don't think platforms like Reddit or X, which are ostensibly all-ages social media but also have an abundance of adult content, are properly set up to serve tags like that on NSFW posts but not other ones. It's a tricky problem to solve, and, imo, it's one the tech industry has demonstrated it doesn't have any desire to solve itself, hence legislation starting to get involved. > Websites can send down a single header indicating adult content. It sounds at first glance like a no-brainer that websites shouldn't have access to any information and the enforcement should be done at a local level (like the current voluntary HTML tags that locally installed parental control software can sometimes read). But some websites might want to display alternate content to minors-- e.g. a Wikipedia article with some images withheld, or Reddit sending a user back to an all-ages subreddit instead of just fully breaking or failing to load when the user stumbles upon something 18+. For anything like that, the website will need to know in some form that the user isn't able to see 18+ content.
jacobgkau 7mo ago
Yeah, the laws in CA, CO, and now IL are essentially just mandating generally available OS's implement a standardized, local parental control system. Detractors will say parents should just install existing parental control software, even though it's existed in its current form for decades and is obviously not effective. And they'll say it should be the parents' responsibility to enforce what their kids are doing with computers, while ignoring the fact that these laws provide tools allowing parents to do just that (the parents are the ones responsible for supervising their kids when they create accounts to ensure they're not lying about their age-- if the kids lie during setup, it's on the parents). Anyone with kids will probably acknowledge that it's much easier supervising your kid once when they first set up an account on a new device than it would be to supervise them 24/7 when they're using the internet. But for some reason, lots of people without kids are in a panic about having to type in any date older than 18 years ago. The arguments I've heard against it are almost all slippery-slope (e.g. "they're gonna do this first, and then add ID requirements next year, because that's what I fear will happen.")
- LooseMarmoset 7mo ago
  > The arguments I've heard against it are almost all slippery-slope (e.g. "they're gonna do this first, and then add ID requirements next year, because that's what I fear will happen.") Because that's exactly what will happen. This is battlespace preparation for the destruction of anonymity on the internet, because politicians find this inconvenient.
- dormento 7mo ago
  The parents can already do that. Its called "parenting". The fact that they won't even though there are (non-required!) tools they could be using to do so is baffling to me. > if the kids lie during setup, it's on the parents Pretty much a "Yes, and?" scenario. See above. > The arguments I've heard against it are almost all slippery-slope (e.g. "they're gonna do this first, and then add ID requirements next year, because that's what I fear will happen.") I get where you're going, but precisely this. These things always start slow... then fast. The old adage "first they came for x, then y" is not a joke or an exaggeration. It is pretty much historic observation. I've lived long enough to know that whenever someone invokes the "think of the children" defense, there's always a catch.
shit_game 7mo ago
> Can someone tell me whether I am being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way? You're being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way. These bills are meant to nudge the overton window[0] of digital politics in the direction of mandating realtime identity verification for all forms of computing. Advertisers want it, governments want it, _bad people and bad governments want it_. By pushing a very small and "weak" legally-required form of user identification on everything under the guise of "saving the kids", all involved parties can point at those who disagree and say "Look, if you disagree you must want to hurt children!" And so the bills pass, and a weak form of identity verification passes and is enforced. Then it'll be shown it doesn't work, and the proposed solution will be to make these identity verification laws more intrusive and more restrictive. Repeat ad-nauseum. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- LooseMarmoset 7mo ago
  You shouldn't be downvoted for this, the problem is exactly as you described.
- pooooka 7mo ago
  LOL. Well said...Seems as if we're on some dystopian track that's eventually going to transform a RealID card into something like a Common Access Card (or worse).
- mikestorrent 7mo ago
  Well, ok. That is what I was fearing, after all. Perhaps I was anchored into the worse position and now am accepting a slight erosion of rights since it's not the entire thing, all at once... the slippery slope is not always a fallacy, after all.
dizhn 7mo ago
Next thing you know they'll stamp your ID at the hardware level at point of purchase.
- mikestorrent 7mo ago
  Well, your MAC is already stamped, and is on the outside label of the box sometimes...

tracker1 7mo ago

What do you think comes after this? This is just a first step towards exactly requiring age verification at the OS/Store level... Then comes ever more restrictive and intrusive tracking and eliminating all anonymity as a final goal. Time to start throwing up hobby BBS sites... and I think in this case text mode interfaces over web might be an advantage.

Larrikin 7mo ago

Websites can send down a single header indicating adult content. The device, the parent setup to indicate the users age, can respect that. Legitimate adult websites will not show the content. There is no need for any verification beyond that or it's just government mandated surveillance.

jacobgkau 7mo ago
> There is no need for any verification beyond that or it's just government mandated surveillance. There is no verification beyond that in these sorts of bills (CA, CO, IL). It's the parent's responsibility to watch their kids when they set up an account. > Legitimate adult websites will not show the content. This is a big problem (that won't necessarily be solved by this particular legislation, granted). There are already voluntary rating HTML tags websites can add to indicate parental control software should block them, but they're voluntary and non-standardized. Websites can choose not to comply with no real-world consequences. And I don't think platforms like Reddit or X, which are ostensibly all-ages social media but also have an abundance of adult content, are properly set up to serve tags like that on NSFW posts but not other ones. It's a tricky problem to solve, and, imo, it's one the tech industry has demonstrated it doesn't have any desire to solve itself, hence legislation starting to get involved. > Websites can send down a single header indicating adult content. It sounds at first glance like a no-brainer that websites shouldn't have access to any information and the enforcement should be done at a local level (like the current voluntary HTML tags that locally installed parental control software can sometimes read). But some websites might want to display alternate content to minors-- e.g. a Wikipedia article with some images withheld, or Reddit sending a user back to an all-ages subreddit instead of just fully breaking or failing to load when the user stumbles upon something 18+. For anything like that, the website will need to know in some form that the user isn't able to see 18+ content.

jacobgkau 7mo ago

Yeah, the laws in CA, CO, and now IL are essentially just mandating generally available OS's implement a standardized, local parental control system. Detractors will say parents should just install existing parental control software, even though it's existed in its current form for decades and is obviously not effective. And they'll say it should be the parents' responsibility to enforce what their kids are doing with computers, while ignoring the fact that these laws provide tools allowing parents to do just that (the parents are the ones responsible for supervising their kids when they create accounts to ensure they're not lying about their age-- if the kids lie during setup, it's on the parents). Anyone with kids will probably acknowledge that it's much easier supervising your kid once when they first set up an account on a new device than it would be to supervise them 24/7 when they're using the internet. But for some reason, lots of people without kids are in a panic about having to type in any date older than 18 years ago. The arguments I've heard against it are almost all slippery-slope (e.g. "they're gonna do this first, and then add ID requirements next year, because that's what I fear will happen.")

LooseMarmoset 7mo ago
> The arguments I've heard against it are almost all slippery-slope (e.g. "they're gonna do this first, and then add ID requirements next year, because that's what I fear will happen.") Because that's exactly what will happen. This is battlespace preparation for the destruction of anonymity on the internet, because politicians find this inconvenient.
dormento 7mo ago
The parents can already do that. Its called "parenting". The fact that they won't even though there are (non-required!) tools they could be using to do so is baffling to me. > if the kids lie during setup, it's on the parents Pretty much a "Yes, and?" scenario. See above. > The arguments I've heard against it are almost all slippery-slope (e.g. "they're gonna do this first, and then add ID requirements next year, because that's what I fear will happen.") I get where you're going, but precisely this. These things always start slow... then fast. The old adage "first they came for x, then y" is not a joke or an exaggeration. It is pretty much historic observation. I've lived long enough to know that whenever someone invokes the "think of the children" defense, there's always a catch.

shit_game 7mo ago

> Can someone tell me whether I am being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way? You're being a fool by actually being a bit relieved it's going this way. These bills are meant to nudge the overton window[0] of digital politics in the direction of mandating realtime identity verification for all forms of computing. Advertisers want it, governments want it, _bad people and bad governments want it_. By pushing a very small and "weak" legally-required form of user identification on everything under the guise of "saving the kids", all involved parties can point at those who disagree and say "Look, if you disagree you must want to hurt children!" And so the bills pass, and a weak form of identity verification passes and is enforced. Then it'll be shown it doesn't work, and the proposed solution will be to make these identity verification laws more intrusive and more restrictive. Repeat ad-nauseum. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

LooseMarmoset 7mo ago
You shouldn't be downvoted for this, the problem is exactly as you described.
pooooka 7mo ago
LOL. Well said...Seems as if we're on some dystopian track that's eventually going to transform a RealID card into something like a Common Access Card (or worse).
mikestorrent 7mo ago
Well, ok. That is what I was fearing, after all. Perhaps I was anchored into the worse position and now am accepting a slight erosion of rights since it's not the entire thing, all at once... the slippery slope is not always a fallacy, after all.

dizhn 7mo ago

Next thing you know they'll stamp your ID at the hardware level at point of purchase.

mikestorrent 7mo ago
Well, your MAC is already stamped, and is on the outside label of the box sometimes...