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by bjackman 146 days ago
I don't think it's possible? You could imagine some sort of certificate scheme where the govt issues a thing that says to a 3rd party "we certify this person is 18 but in a way that doesn't reveal who they are". You could also implement that in a way where, even if the 3rd party reports the details of an authorisation to the govt, the govt can't say who was involved in that auth.

But in the latter case, the system is wildly open to abuse coz nobody can detect if every teenager in the country is using Auth Georg's cert. The only way for that to be possible is if the tokens let you psuedonymise Georg at which point it's no longer private.

The answer is to leave this shit to parents. It's not the government's job. It's not the government's business.
1 comments
chrisjj 145 days ago
> The answer is to leave this shit to parents.

See Australia. Many parents helped their children evade the ban.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/12/04/social-media-ban-parent...

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iamnothere 145 days ago
That should be the parent’s choice, no?
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chrisjj 145 days ago
That's what got us in to the current public health emergency. It is a luxury we cannot afford if we are to stand a chance to get out. https://www.bmj.com/content/392/bmj.s125
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iamnothere 145 days ago
If the parents don’t see it as an issue then the state should not be forcing its way in, especially considering the harm to privacy and free speech. This is an area where reasonable people can disagree as to what the correct parenting approach is, so the state should not enforce a particular approach. If anything they should focus on making it easier for parents to set their own limits at the device level.
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chrisjj 145 days ago
...except when the harm spreads far beyond the family.

"We have reached an inflection point. We are facing nothing short of a societal catastrophe caused by the fact that so many of our children are addicted to social media." says the Lord proposing the UK ban.

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iamnothere 145 days ago
Same moral panic that we had over TV, video games, and Pokemon cards.
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bjackman 145 days ago
> It is a luxury we cannot afford

Privacy is a luxury we cannot afford?

When it was a luxury we couldn't afford because of "terrorism" I was doubtful. Now that it's a luxury we cannot afford because of the "public health" effects of teenagers using TikTok, I am starting to struggle to identify a good-faith argument.

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chrisjj 145 days ago
No, parents' choice is the luxury we cannot afford.
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