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> I know a lot of tech people like to assume that government wants to control everything and these parents are fake front groups established to manufacture con
by esseph 2mo ago
> I know a lot of tech people like to assume that government wants to control everything and these parents are fake front groups established to manufacture consent, but this is infowars-type conspiracy thinking
You may not be aware of this, but Meta has been actively spending millions of dollars to redirect the rage against their algorithms and addictive harms, especially against children, and one of their strategies to try and help avoid liability is to put the onus on the federal government to pass ID legislation, to literally make it easier for Meta and similar companies to age gate most content under simple blanket policies. The way that they are doing this is by funding otherwise very small "parents rights organizations" with money and connections they otherwise wouldn't have. What does Meta gain from this? Less liability and lower cost in content moderation. What do the parents rights groups get? "Check ID laws".
That's enough motivation for both groups, it's very simple.
Now where do you get into "conspiracy theory" territory? Well thetr are also other groups that want online ID for their own purposes, and they are more than happy to help fund these groups to get something they also want.
All of this is very easy to provide backing links for with a simple Google search, if you're interested.
- anigbrowl 2mo agoI'm very aware of that. As I said in another comment, 'ID checks to exclude minors' is a simple and intuitive idea that's very easy to sell; qualities that are singularly lacking in alternative proposals. How should online services be regulated to mitigate algorithmic harms? To get something over the line politically, it needs to be simple enough that it can be articulated in a few sentences.
- esseph 2mo ago> How should online services be regulated to mitigate algorithmic harms? That would be a good conversation to have! Instead what is happening is moneyed interests are inputting hundreds of millions of dollars into organizations that otherwise wouldn't have it, which is giving an "unnatural" amount of political influence to those groups, which is changing our country, and not just on this issue. They're literally doing it just to keep their money, and ID checks let them keep it without actually reducing the harms.
- anigbrowl 2mo agoThey are, but the tech community (ie the group that cares about anonymity privacy on principle) is not making a good counter-argument. To the general public, it comes off as a bunch of trolls and/or conmen arguing in favor of what's convenient for them. Pro-anonymity arguments need to address internet harms and suggest remedies that preserve anonymity. The problem I'm at pains to points out is that many people show up in threads like this saying that aany 'think of the children' argument is fake and a cover for government intrusion, to the point of ignoring actual concerns about actual harms to actual children. I'm guessing that people saying that are not currently (or ever) interested in having children, but seem to have fallen into a pattern of thinking that the concerns of people who do have children somehow aren't real.
- esseph 2mo agoThere is no room for honest discussion when a bag of money is laying on the scales. Siding with Meta here is going to look ridiculous in hindsight. (It already does tbh) - signed, parent with 3 adult children