[Cthulhu_]

I think age verification laws are good in principle - there's a lot of stuff on the internet that people should be protected from. But it's the manner of age verification that is the issue.

The EU has zero knowledge proof age verification systems, e.g. through your bank, which are secure and don't involve sending a copy of your ID and / or face scan to a dodgy US based 3rd party.

[djxfade]

I disagree. What if, hear me out, parents actually parent, instead of relegating the parenting to companies, and ruining the internet for the rest of us?

[orwin]

Of course! Age verification laws for buying alcohol, tobacco (and firearms in the US) should be removed! They ruin our experience.

The same way, keeping driver license behind an age gate is unnecessary, parents should parents! I was driving tractors at 12yo, why couldn't I drive a car?

Parents should be the one responsible if they give money or a car to their kid

[catlikesshrimp]

At least nobody is making a list of who, where and when bought the cigar. Now facebook wants to know at what time, for how much, which brand, from which referrer....

[wek]

I'm concerned about these laws and their implications for privacy, but as a parent, I'm not sure what you mean to say parents should parent. How? What should the parent do? How would you recommend a parent protect a 13 year old who spends their time in their room and out with their friends on their phones?

[Eldt]

Monitor computer activity, don't give them a smart phone at 13

[cycomanic]

Tell me you don't have children without saying you don't have children.

In many places it is essentially impossible for children (even younger than 13) to have a normal social live without access to a smart phone. Just some examples, many public transport providers are moving to apps as the only way to pay for fares, nearly all communication for sports clubs happens through messenger platforms, school information is typically distributed via apps as well and the list goes on (I have not even touched on the kids own social interactions).

The irony is that the people who say "parents should parent their kids online activities" the loudest, largely grew up with unrestricted computer use, in chat rooms, weird corners of the internet all by working around any restrictions that parents tried to put on them. Mainly because they were much more computer literate then the older generation.

[throwaway173738]

They get them from their friends at school. I can’t be with my son every waking moment of every day and it’s a ridiculous stance to tel me to do so. I’m also not the only parent I’ve met who wants to be able to limit my child’s access to garbage like social media and Youtube online.

What you’re proposing is similar to a “Google Free Village.” What we need is something that lets parents have some control by proxy without violating the privacy of the child or anyone else. I believe it’s possible to do so.

The Internet that we grew up on has been totally subsumed by scumbag marketing to the point that it’s unavoidable. It’s an addictive substance now. Stop pretending like the ways of the 90’s and 2000’s are still accessible.

[carlosjobim]

You should censor the Internet of your child, instead of having the government censor the Internet of everybody.

[behringer]

Translation: you can't parent your own child so you want the government to do it, as if they'll do it properly.

[mrguyorama]

Who needs age of consent laws, you should just parent your kids!

If they are having sex with people they shouldn't, you've just been a bad parent

[behringer]

Freedom of speech and freedom to read that speech is not the same as having sex with people you shouldn't.

[brainwad]

I have a different solution to your other repliers: do nothing, your kid will be fine in all likelihood. If you must satisfy the politician's syllogism, set some time limits and make them touch grass. But a thirteen year old oughtn't be parented like a three year old.

[Barbing]

Age verification kind of disgusts me and your kid will probably be fine

Isis did manage to recruit young men in the UK via telegram (OK, you just said “in all likelihood“, maybe I’m tossing you the exception that proves the rule)

[brainwad]

To be clear, I'm against age verification. Teenagers should just have access to all of the internet, like we did when we were teenagers.

> Isis did manage to recruit young men in the UK via telegram

Not sure why this is an age problem, and why it's ok for 18 year olds to be recruited to terrorist organisations but not 17 year olds...

[SkyBelow]

My main issue with this argument is that we never applied it to any other age gate created in the past. Why? Maybe part of it was control, but also because we know parents will fail their kids, and there were cases bad enough in the past that society decided to step in and protect kids even when parents fail.

If we really embraced this logic, then should we look at returning to the laws from before the 'protect the children' push of the 20th century. Compare this to some countries where kids can go buy beer. I've read stories from people in less regulated countries who use to buy beer for their parents when they were underage, and nothing was stopping them from buying it from themselves if their parents allowed it (or failed to stop it). Even a concept like child labor, why should we regulate that out to companies to control instead of depending upon parents to parent? When you consider web access as a person having some sort of transaction with a company, it generalizes to a very similar position of if a parent or the government should monitor that relationship for harm.

[raverbashing]

This is a common argument, but the problem is the kids who have deadbeat parents

Or even kids whose parents don't have the technical knowledge needed

Yes I do agree the responsibility is with the parents, but it's these kids who are majoritarily affected by (bad internet actors) AND (bad offline actors)

[pzo]

agree, also they should take into account that their children will be eventually an adult and will be living in such system. Goverments should only focus on educating parents (available tools, recommendations) and maybe provide some open source tooling for parents.

[II2II]

> agree, also they should take into account that their children will be eventually an adult and will be living in such system

We also have to consider that "children" covers anywhere from birth to approximately 18 years old.

It is reasonable to expect a parent or their proxy (e.g. caregivers and teachers) to moderate access to the Internet in the early years. Yet older children and teenagers gradually gain more independence. For example: they are able to go places on their own, get their own phone, etc.. In the physical world, we have laws that recognize this, things like forbidding the sale of alcohol and tobacco to minors. Responsibility is placed on the vendor to check identification when selling such products and the customer's age is suspect. It would be absurd to place responsibility on parents in this case since the most a parent can do is educate their child.

Now I understand the Internet poses problems when it comes to similar transactions. For face to face transactions, appearing old enough is often sufficient (perhaps with a buffer to avoid liability) for access without presenting identification. While it isn't truly anonymous, there are cases where it can be reasonably anonymous. Unfortunately, transactions are mediated by machines on the Internet. You cannot make any assumptions about the other person. Making matters worse: it is extraordinarily difficult to do age verification without disclosing identify information, and to do so in a manner that is easily recorded. Whether that information is provided directly or through a third party is a moot point. It is still being provided.

I don't know how we go about solving this problem, but I do know two things:

- Placing all responsibility into the hands of parents is absurd, and would ultimately prove harmful to adolescents. It is creating a nanny-state where the nanny is the parent. The youth would be unable to gradually gain independence, nor develop an identity independent of their parents' whims.

- We live in a world which is eager to age-gate things that should not be. Sometimes this is for semi-legitimate reasons due to how the Internet is structured. For example: there is no good reasons why children and youth cannot participate in things like discussion forums, but those forums definitely cannot look like the "social media" we have today. Other times it is for despicable reasons, such as making value based judgements based upon ideology. (The left and right are both guilty of this.)

[pzo]

> Placing all responsibility into the hands of parents is absurd, and would ultimately prove harmful to adolescents. It is creating a nanny-state where the nanny is the parent. The youth would be unable to gradually gain independence, nor develop an identity independent of their parents' whims.

Nonsense. What kind of nanny state? Of course parent is a nanny because they growing and taking care of their own children. This has been for this way for centuries. Nanny state is the oppposite when state is reponsible for growing your kids.

You didn't explain how "Placing all responsibility into the hands of parents is absurd," or how "would ultimately prove harmful to adolescents".

> It is reasonable to expect a parent or their proxy (e.g. caregivers and teachers) to moderate access to the Internet in the early years. Yet older children and teenagers gradually gain more independence.

its easy to moderate or at least limit access to internet for kids. - less than 5 years then have no own phone - less than 10 years most likely also don't have own phone if have don't need sim but only wifi (parent control wifi and router) - more than 15 years -> no control anyway and this age limitation trying not to limit above 15 years in most countries anyway - between 10-15 you can just not sell simcards for those ages less than 15. Parents decide if will buy such simcard for their kids. Allow buy kid like simcard that restrict access to social media. You need unrestricted simcard that you can get only if you are >15 years old or your parent will buy for you. Sure it wont restrict everything but will limit access significantly

Other solutios are treating flu with HIV.

[pbhjpbhj]

Anyone should be allowed to buy/do anything at any age, why have any restrictions that's a parent's responsibility! /s

A proper society raises their new generations.

Yes, rights and responsibilities fall mostly to parents, but I see no reason to make licentious activities difficult for parents to inhibit.

What is it you want to do on the internet?

We can have systems that allow anonymity (between client and server), but still put hardcore porn, gore, financial frauds and such out of reach of those without proof they're over 18.

Now, don't get me wrong, Palantir and it's ilk are a danger to society. But just because the military-industrial complex wants to use any excuse to control people, doesn't mean all of those excuses are wrong.

[abc123abc123]

Zero knowledge is not true. All chains rely, ultimately, on a place where ID:s are stored, and from there, they will leak. That place can also be engineered to undo the zero knowledge design. Couple that with the already in place, surveillance by ISP:s within the EU, and it becomes obvious that zero knowledge is a scam, and only valid under unreal conditions that will never apply in the EU, and only in isolation, and not looking at the entire system.

[tzs]

> Zero knowledge is not true. All chains rely, ultimately, on a place where ID:s are stored, and from there, they will leak.

All of the systems I'm aware of rely on someplace your ID is already stored.

[SiempreViernes]

I think these laws are a poor second-best substitute for proper moderation on the big content platforms.

As it stands one should be happy if Meta catches most calls for the extermination of an ethnicity on its platform, that they would provide capabilities that allows a kid to protect themselves from bullying or grooming is just unimaginable.

[Larrikin]

The US has a large unbanked population that is currently fighting the trend of places discovering they can get rid of undesirable poorer customers by refusing to accept cash. These people would then lose access to many services on the Internet now due to parents refusing to parent.

[worldsayshi]

I expect the internet to be overrun with noise due to bots. So I have a feeling that eIDs are inevitable as a solution in the long run. If that is the case shouldn't we push for zero knowledge solutions?

[Mindwipe]

> The EU has zero knowledge proof age verification systems

No, they don't. And they can't.

[Tyrannosaur]

Why can't they?