[Nursie]

> The reason is that this whole push for age verification is nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content.

The reason that mainstream politicians are pushing is because the public wants something done to protect their kids.

Are there likely to be bad actors pushing for it for nefarious reasons as well? Sure. Are the 'solutions' inadequate and often tech- and privacy-illiterate? Absolutely. Is the entire impulse to demand that government 'fix' this issue wrong? Maybe.

But the idea that this is all a smoke-screen from top to bottom needs to die. Not just because it's wrong, but because it's also unhelpful. If you wade into the debate saying "It's all a lie, this was never about the kids!" you're easily dismissed as a nut and an absolutist who doesn't appreciate that real people want their real kids to be protected.

[SoftTalker]

Yep, and the tech companies had years to address these concerns and did not, so now the creaky gears of government regulation are turning. They (meaning YOU, a lot of tech company employees who are now outraged about this) could have headed this off years ago and provided a solution on their own terms.

[lynx97]

So, why are those "real people" actually not willing to do their job? I am so pissed with parents who think the government is supposed to solve their own inability to raise a child.

[Nursie]

Well for a start not all of them are very tech savvy, and we've built a world in which tech is essential to their day to day lives, including for their kids.

If school demands the kids have a variety of devices to do their work, and they have no idea how to lock those down to exclude (for example) social media services that we know have been designed to be as addictive as possible, can you not see why they might want someone to intervene?

(edit: Beyond that there are also tons of bad reasons, I'm not going to try and justify them. There are a lot of bad parents and just in general people who are not firing on all cylinders out there. And many of them absolutely love a government regulation to be brought in for just about anything.

We can and should argue with these people and point out why they're wrong. But saying it's "nothing to do with actually stopping kids seeing the content" fails here too.)

[lynx97]

Right. I submit we are solving the wrong problem. Just establishing age vertification doesn't magically make these vast amounts of bad parents good parents. There is a ton of other things they can and will fail at, which their kids have to absorb. If we really cared about those kids, we'd have to reconsider a lot of things. And I know what I am talking about, had to grow up with an undiagnosed ADHS+anciety mother. It was hell. And even 30 years after i moved out, she still can't see what she failed at and continues to fail at. Age verification wouldn't have helped me. MAKING her seek treatment might have helped.

[Nursie]

No argument here, I'm not saying they're right to demand that age verification is brought in to protect kids, or that we should give up privacy etc etc.

But coming at it from the angle that "It was never about protecting kids!" is itself incorrect and unhelpful to the debate.

[pocksuppet]

It can be true that kids need to be protected, this (or some variation of it) is a good way to protect kids, therefore it's going to pass, and nefarious interests found a way to insert themselves into the process and piggyback off the efforts to increase real protection of real kids in order to also spy on the kids.

If you want to reject the nefarious actors you have to separate them from the other goals that are reasonable and sorely needed. If you treat it as a whole package, you'll fail because those other goals are too important not to try to achieve, and the package is going to get passed. If you separate them, we can advocate for the pretty sensible California-style law where it's a flag on your user account that root can change, instead of the utterly insane New-York-style law where you have to scan your face every time you open your phone.

[al_borland]

If public school is supposed to be free, the school should supply the required devices and take on the burden of securing those devices.

For private schools, the parents are more involved in the first place, but I would expect them to also have guidance for parents to help the less tech savvy among them.

[Nursie]

"should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

[SoftTalker]

We expect every other consumer product/toy that kids are intended to use to be safe by default. This is like asking why parents shouldn't be responsible for testing all their kids toys for lead paint.

Yet when it comes to internet/social media technology, it's suddenly a parenting failure if they don't pre-vet every platform and website and device before allowing their kids to use it.

As a society, we collectively protect kids from stuff they aren't ready to handle. We don't let them gamble, or buy alcohol, cigarettes, or porn. For the most part, everyone buys in to this and parents can pretty much count on it. Are there exceptions, sure but they create scandals and consequences when they are discovered.

But social media and content platforms didn't feel that they had any social obligations. They did not honor this societal convention to keep inappropriate content away from kids. And the top people at these companies actually don't let their own kids use the platforms, they know how harmful they are and they know about all the addictive hooks and dark patterns of engagement that are baked into them.

[AngryData]

We don't just assume every book and movie and telephone call are intended to be safe for kids by default. Why should we expect the internet to be like that?

[account42]

The public largely wants whatever the media tells them to want and the media in turn tells people to want whatever the same bad actors want them to want.