[oliwarner]

Social media got worse.

We've had time to witness the damage of a dopamine-doomscroll. I personally know children who've posted too much, and children who've been solicited directly by adults, both to try and meet and for nudes. And we've seen the complete lack of positive action from platforms. Roblox is full of paedophiles and Grok was letting you nudify your classmates just a few months ago. These places aren't suitable for kids.

I don't want a ban on VPNs. That isn't being suggested, just making sure they're also age-checked. But some inconvenience is a price worth considering.

[braiamp]

I love how every harm you listed, is a platform design problem, and your fix touches none of it. A kid bypassing VPN age checks can still doomscroll and Roblox all day on a school wifi with no VPN at all. The only thing you've actually accomplished is stripping privacy and security from every adult who isn't a child abuser, to feel like you did something about the ones who are.

[pjc50]

Requiring ID (which is what age gating is) for VPNs is absurd. Given that SSH can act as a proxy service, are you going to require all ssh connections out of the country to be age verified?

[oliwarner]

Facial modeling has been good enough for porn.

I'd be surprised if the law requires much beyond a vague best effort from service providers, but many already block connections from known server hosts and some even VPNs.

An airtight block is not what's required; stopping social media being mainstream for kids is.

[Scaled]

Lol, no. Face scans are being bypassed using video games. Meanwhile the data has shown 90%+ porn users are unwilling to do them and switch sites instead (citation: https://pornbiz.com/post/17/the_scam_of_age_verification ). The whole thing has been a complete fiasco in porn.

[sylos]

Maybe they should get the pedos out of the government instead of a foolish attempt at restricting and harming everyone else? It's not ever going to protect or make children safer. It never was.

[joe463369]

Who are the 'pedos' in government?

[oliwarner]

Why doesn't it make children safer?

I'm trying to discuss this in good faith but that wasn't even an argument. A bland accusation wearing a tin foil hat.

[mjhay]

The onus is you to show it makes children safer - you’re the one advocating these privacy-harming rules.

[Symbiote]

If you insist on that approach, then for the sake of argument, you could pretend the discussion is about Australia which already has a similar law.

You could argue the benefit to children in repealing it.

[subscribed]

You want age checking, you want ids .

[slopinthebag]

> But some inconvenience is a price worth considering.

You're trying to frame it as an "inconvenience" and not a blatant attack on the fundamental freedom of expression. I get that social media is bad, but sometimes (often) the cure is worse than the illness.

[Hizonner]

> Social media got worse.

Sure, whatever. Maybe in some ways.

> I personally know children who've posted too much, and children who've been solicited directly by adults, both to try and meet and for nudes.

... but not in that way.

I personally knew children who'd been solicited directly by adults before there was even an Internet. Including me, if you use the definition of "child" that seems to be popular in this sort of debate (and, by the way, it wasn't a big deal).

We did not shut down the world because of it.