How should they do it? Surely they don't have a responsibility to do something that nobody knows how to do?
There have been numerous cases in history where governments have attempted to legislate the outcome they want without regard to how that might be done or if it was possible in the first place. Obviously it can never deliver the results they want.
It would be like passing a law to say every company must operate an office on the moon, and then saying that companies lobbying for an advanced NASA space program is them externalising their responsibility.
They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids. Plus a limit on how many accounts an adult can sponsor.
It would be a mess, but solve the problem. It’s not that we don’t have the technology, we just don’t want to because the friction would decimate user numbers and engagement; it would be much simpler to regulate (e.g. usage limits on minors); and minors are less monetizable, which would lead to lower CPM on ads.
Then there’s the legal liability if you know someone is a minor and they’re sending nudes, for example. And the privacy concerns of tying that back to de-anonymized individuals.
But obviously I wouldn’t believe that social media companies care about user privacy on behalf of people.
>They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids. Plus a limit on how many accounts an adult can sponsor.
Requiring all online account creation to go through some government vouching system sounds far worse for privacy than OS doing age verification.
OS-based age verification would also have to use a government ID. There is no alternatives to a government ID for such verification.
>OS-based age verification would also have to use a government ID.
Source? Another commenter claims the opposite: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47416653
I see no such claim that comment said that the parent verifies the child. That that means that the parent must be verified. I don't see that approach having any chance of succeeding. It would be a much more invasive process to both verify the parent and the relationship with the child.
> They could require government ID to sign up and an adult sponsor to certify accounts for kids.
Even if they used an open source zero knowledge proof, HN will still immediately dismiss it as an attempt to steal your data. The proposal here and the similar bill that passed in California doesn't require any validation that you enter you age correctly.
I think the public in general woul be happier with the office on the moon idea than compulsory Government ID requirements to use services.
It's only required for services that require it. The states are also regulating which services those are.
All you have to to to become a member of tautology club is to join tautology club.
It's up to parents to parent. It's not up to the government, and Facebook pushing this shit is evil.
It's not about protecting children. It's about increasing adtech intrusion, protecting revenue from liability, pushing against anonymity, and for all the various apparatus of power, it's about increasing leverage and control over speech.
bad take man. these companies don't care about kids; they just want to take the responsivity off of themselves. they don't actually put any money towards child safety.
But the parent comment didn't say anything about companies caring. So you're not disagreeing with them, unless you think any selfish corporate action should be automatically opposed. And that would be a bad take; it's way too generic and applies to both sides of most issues.