[EpicQuest_246]

Which kills any sort of online anonymity as all social media posts will be directly linked to your ID. This will make it much easier to go after anyone that is a dissident in the UK.

Many these awful laws such as one being discussed are sold to us under the guise of protecting the children. The last time I checked 7 people a day were being prosecuted for speech related crimes in the UK (and I checked a while ago).

Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's social media usage.

[unethical_ban]

I think laws and regulations can be put in place that, while imperfect, would highly discourage the use of social media by minors.

I wouldn't want every user to validate their age with government ID.

But we can say schools should ban kids from using phones. We can say that large social media platforms need to whitelist content/creators that children are allowed to access. We can insist that social media companies throttle the ability for minors to scroll through videos at a dopamine addiction pace.

More generally and more applicable to the discussion, I think regulations for social media need to be applied proportional to the userbase and centralization of a platform, and target viral algorithms.

Old school message boards should be safe from government interference, broadly.

It may be time to research simpleX chat and Briar if we will maintain the ability to communicate without government filtering.

[EpicQuest_246]

> I wouldn't want every user to validate their age with government ID.

Well that is what will be required or a credit card.

> But we can say schools should ban kids from using phones. We can say that large social media platforms need to whitelist content/creators that children are allowed to access. We can insist that social media companies throttle the ability for minors to scroll through videos at a dopamine addiction pace.

Every argument around regulation around social media to protect children ignores that fact that parents are the ones closest to their children and their children is their responsibility. Some parents inability to control their children shouldn't infringe my rights as an adult.

> More generally and more applicable to the discussion, I think regulations for social media need to be applied proportional to the userbase and centralization of a platform, and target viral algorithms.

If I don't like how particular algorithms act on social media, I can simply opt out of using it. As an adult I have agency. I found that I was spending a disproportionate of my time using Twitter/X and as a result I deleted my account. I had problem with alcohol years ago, I stopped drinking after I accepted I had a problem. I have my own agency.

> It may be time to research simpleX chat and Briar if we will maintain the ability to communicate without government filtering.

The issue is that the vast majority of people I wish to talk to aren't tech savvy and are unwilling to use anything other than mainstream platforms. So you end up essentially walling yourself from everyone else. That isn't ideal.

[nottorp]

> This will make it much easier to go after anyone that is a dissident in the UK.

No need to go there. What about commenting anonymously on your work place?

[EpicQuest_246]

It wouldn't be anonymous then if it was in my work place.

[nottorp]

Yes, so no one will comment on their employer because they'd risk trouble.

[EpicQuest_246]

There are so many issues with stripping anonymity. TBH I will probably end up 100% either using a VPN or the darknet.

[herghost]

>Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's social media usage.

I guess we should stop checking age when buying alcohol in pubs (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's alcohol purchases_)

And stop checking age when buying cigarettes (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's tobacco purchases_)

etc.

It's illuminating that your post is both "tech can't solve it" and so brazenly pro-tech with manifestations of its laziest arguments each way.

Of course tech can solve the ID problem. It could solve it in a way that doesn't need to give ground to your slippery slope argument too. It just doesn't have the incentive model to do so. Any "control" in this space would reduce the marketable headcount and so it's not in tech's interests to solve - without government intervention.

[w4der]

But when I go and buy booze, I just show my ID and that's it, it isn't stored in a database with what I bought and then leaked on the internet.

[herghost]

The card you might have paid with is though. I can’t remember any instances of a card hack revealing transactions of customers though (I might be wrong, just doesn’t ring a bell).

It’s not a given that digital record must lead to compromise.

[EpicQuest_246]

They could have paid with a cash, crypto, store credit. You are trying to salami slice the point being made.

[wkat4242]

> I guess we should stop checking age when buying alcohol in pubs (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's alcohol purchases_)

> And stop checking age when buying cigarettes (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's tobacco purchases_)

Yes and yes. These measures are completely ineffective anyway. Who hasn't been drinking / watching porn underage? Smoking is less prevalent where I'm from but it's not for lack of availability of elf sticks etc.

Underage people have been exposed to (normal adult) porn for decades. And it hasn't caused any issues with our society. If anything it makes sexual morale more free and lets people discover themselves without moral judgement.

[EpicQuest_246]

If I choose to buy alcohol or cigarettes and I look over 25 in the UK I do not have to show any ID. If I do need to show ID, it doesn't get tracked by the government. It is only seen by the whoever is serving me at the checkout. I don't honestly believe that you don't understand how this is different.

> It's illuminating that your post is both "tech can't solve it" and so brazenly pro-tech with manifestations of its laziest arguments each way.

I believe that the only way to stop enforcement is to make it impossible to enforce. This would require new software that is easy to use by the majority of people. I don't see this happening in the near term.

> Of course tech can solve the ID problem. It could solve it in a way that doesn't need to give ground to your slippery slope argument too. It just doesn't have the incentive model to do so. Any "control" in this space would reduce the marketable headcount and so it's not in tech's interests to solve - without government intervention.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. The fact is that some sort of government ID will be required or a credit card and that would be directly linked to any accounts you may have. Simply this is a bad idea for my own security, I don't want to be giving my government ID to some social media company in the first place or a third party that I maybe unfamiliar with. That before we get into any other wider reaching concerns.

[herghost]

The problem is you’re simultaneously arguing two points and relying on whichever point gives you the most leverage at each juncture.

If .gov == bad guy then you’re screwed whether or not you leave a digital trail on social media because you’re already leaving one anyway (unless you’re a marginal outlier that isn’t worth considering for this “problem”). If that’s your threat model then you’re either super-important or I worry you’ve been sold a scary story by social media algorithms.

On the other hand, the idea that this is an impossible tech problem to solve is also disingenuous. My point is that it could be solved. And quickly and easily too. If the incentive model were there. And whilst I’ve not given the solution a huge amount of thought (I’m not actually that interested in solving it) I’m certain that an authenticated assertion could be made that wasn’t directly attributable to an individual - i.e., a mechanism could be developed that would solve for both problems.

Which brings us back to the fundamental point here: the people who would need to implement the solution have no incentive model in place to motivate them to do so.

[EpicQuest_246]

> The problem is you’re simultaneously arguing two points and relying on whichever point gives you the most leverage at each juncture.

No I am not.

> If .gov == bad guy then you’re screwed whether or not you leave a digital trail on social media because you’re already leaving one anyway (unless you’re a marginal outlier that isn’t worth considering for this “problem”). If that’s your threat model then you’re either super-important or I worry you’ve been sold a scary story by social media algorithms.

You are pretending as if one would need perfect op-sec (which is impossible). If you have a throwaway email, a sim paid for via cash and a VPN/Tor will make you much more difficult to track down and most of this can be learned via watching a few YouTube videos. You don't even have to do the more crazy stuff like running Tails.

Having an ID requirement will make it much more difficult as I suspect other regions will soon follow suite in implementing something similar.

There are also benefits to pseudo-anonymity. I want to keep my online life and my real life separate. This will mean that they can never be separate.

> On the other hand, the idea that this is an impossible tech problem to solve is also disingenuous. My point is that it could be solved. And quickly and easily too. If the incentive model were there. And whilst I’ve not given the solution a huge amount of thought (I’m not actually that interested in solving it) I’m certain that an authenticated assertion could be made that wasn’t directly attributable to an individual - i.e., a mechanism could be developed that would solve for both problems.

I never said that the tech problem was impossible to resolve. Again that is your assertion. I simply stated what I believe is most likely to happen in the near to medium term.

[ccozan]

Ok but UK is not an oppresive regime, so that we talk about "dissidents" in UK. As anywhere, the freedom of speech is regulated. But even if you spout racist or other nonsense, you are not a dissident, you are just breaking the law, to which I agree, hate speech, racism should not be openly promoted.

[pjc50]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/11/britain-...

Certain types of demonstrator get very heavily cracked down on, and it's not usually the anti-immigrant ones.

[EpicQuest_246]

The definition of hate speech used to be centered around terrorism and was initially sold to the UK public as stopping "Islamic hate preachers and stopping terrorism". This has now expanded far past that and people are being investigated and arrested for simply opposing immigration (which is often conflated with racism disingenuously), or criticising the actions of Israel, teenagers posting rap lyrics on facebook, and numerous others that I have forgotten about.

If you are not bothered by the expansion of these powers because some people have said things you disapprove of there is nothing I can say to convince you.

[owisd]

It's not that hard to create privacy friendly age verification. Have a system like Sign in with Apple vouch that you're over 18. Go to Apple store to flash your ID and they just set a flag on your account. Apple doesn't give the site any personal info when you use Sign in with Apple. Apple isn't giving the government any of your details without a warrant. No Apple store nearby? It doesn't have to be Apple, licence it out to a few companies.

[EpicQuest_246]

I don't want to use Apple anything, or Google anything anymore. I want to be able to make an account with my email and not give my ID to any third party. I've spent the last 8 years removing my dependence on big-tech (I self host, run a Linux desktop and use Graphene OS).