I understand the concern but then to make this available for adults you now have to provide proof of age to companies, which opens up another can of privacy worms.
Theoretically we don't actually need proof of age. Websites need to know when the user is attempting to create an account or log in from a child-locked device. Parents need to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices. Vendors need to make sure they don't sell unlocked devices to kids.
> Theoretically we don't actually need proof of age. Websites need to know when the user is attempting to create an account or log in from a child-locked device. Parents need to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices. Vendors need to make sure they don't sell unlocked devices to kids.
Given how current parental controls work, kids are not getting access if their device is under parental control (the default for open web access is off). So Facebook still won't see any child-locked devices, even before this ruling. My guess is that this ruling applies to parents who aren't making sure their kids get access only via child locked devices.
The actual problem is that there are parents, I even remember them growing up, who do not care what their kid is exposed to and won't flinch at anything. I'm sure most here had a "Jeff's mom" who didn't care if you guys were playing mortal combat while blasting Wu Tang at 9 years old.
So even if 95% of kids have responsible parents locking down access, there will still be this 5% that will continue to drip horror stories that motivate knee-jerk regulation.
Trying to approach it from the direction of websites determining if you are an adult is a privacy nightmare and provides a huge attack surface. (Which is what the government wants--the ability to monitor.) Flipping it over is much, much safer--but fails the real mission of exposing dissent.
(On-device security, the credential of the adult is loaded onto the device but not transmitted anywhere, it can only be obtained locally. The device simply responds as to whether it has a credential loaded. Bad guys are unlikely to want to sell such devices as the phone could be traced back to them.)
And the parents can select a strict child lock, or permitted but copies forwarded to the parent.)
The issue is not just age verification but also device pinning.
I think the framework here is to have community driven age verifiers( i recall there is an EU effort for digital wallets which besides it's bad parts has some of these good parts) which can verify ages for people and link them to( local biometrically encrypted) devices for pinning. This would be privacy preserving. The only downside is a mandate for all devices have a built-in hardware biometric encryption like a finger/face print so phones can't be just(used) with these apps installed.
The verification part is a job that could be done by all the teachers and coaches and ofc parents. Any one verifying identities would be cryptographically nominated/revoked by a number of more senior members of the community. A prent always get the right to say ok for their kid ofc but so could teachers or legal guardians..
We(legally) need a mandate for smart devices to have local device only biometric verification. The law should be to have these apps follow device app store protocols.
Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice.
To get reliable access you either need to convince an adult to give you access (which is always game over) or you need to engage in some kind of future planning, which is a similar skill set as the one necessary to notice that getting addicted to cancer thing might be a bad idea. Stealing uncle Roy's marlboro doesn't work because uncle Roy is generally then going to notice that they're going missing and either start securing them better or deduce where they're going and visit some punishment on the kid.
If Roy doesn't care then you have a kid with an adult who gives them access, which is the scenario where none of this is going to work. Even if you required government IDs with hourly retina scans, it doesn't work if Roy is willing to let the kids hold the device up to his face whenever they want.
I only disagree with the just-so notion that kids who have an Uncle Roy are somehow better able to cope with the consequences. Ability to access something is (IMHO) pretty uncorrelated with the ability to cope with the consequences.
The original claim wasn't that the kids with an Uncle Roy would be better able to cope, it's that the kids are who can devise another way to get past even if they didn't. Then the latter kids make up a larger proportion of the ones who can get past because they have two paths to do it instead of one. And the former ones are the ones we can't reach regardless.
Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice."
There are at least two problems here. The one I've focused on first that you seem so keen to dispel, is an assumption that there are smart kids overcoming a challenge. 'Roy' is an extreme, but there is a whole spectrum of low-oversight conditions that are likely to lead to kids getting access to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, having sex etc, which are nothing to do with smartness or challenges and are much more to do with shitty parenting and neglect.
Then there's the second problem. Let's focus on tobacco but I believe it's likely to hold for other drugs - even if we allow that children getting access to tobacco are 'smarter' than those who don't figure it out, and are overcoming various obstacles, that doesn't actually imply that they'll be better able to deal with the consequences. Just like how a high IQ doesn't always mean someone is necessarily good at crossing the road safely or tieing their shoelaces.
In fact there's a variety of research about nicotine's effect on developing brains and how the earlier people are exposed the more likely they are to be more addicted for longer. This is the opposite outcome to the original claim, kids who start earlier are in fact demonstrably less likely to be able to 'cope' with the vice.
> The one I've focused on first that you seem so keen to dispel, is an assumption that there are smart kids overcoming a challenge. 'Roy' is an extreme, but there is a whole spectrum of low-oversight conditions that are likely to lead to kids getting access to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, having sex etc, which are nothing to do with smartness or challenges and are much more to do with shitty parenting.
Let's consider the four combinations of the two variables here. You have dumber and smarter kids, and worse and better parents. The kids with the worse parents will have access to the vice regardless of whether they're dumb or smart, but the kids with the better parents will only have access if they're smart enough to figure out how against parents actively trying to prevent it. Therefore the two of the four quadrants with smarter kids can get access but the dumber kids only can when they have worse parents, implying that two thirds of the quadrants with the ability to do it are the smarter kids.
> even if we allow that children getting access to tobacco are 'smarter' than those who don't figure it out, and are overcoming various obstacles, that doesn't actually imply that they'll be better able to deal with the consequences.
That's assuming the way they deal with it better is by trying the drug and then somehow not getting addicted rather than by choosing not to try the drug to begin with even though they could access it if they wanted to, or otherwise making more measured choices if they do decide to try something, like finding a source more likely to be providing the expected amount of the expected substance instead of who knows how much of who knows what. Or just hesitating a while so their first time comes at an older age.
> implying that two thirds of the quadrants with the ability to do it are the smarter kids.
But only one of those involves overcoming anything.
And unless you have information on the relative sizes of those quadrants, it’s meaningless in terms of the overall picture and being able to confidently assert that access to such contraband allows you to draw any inferences about intelligence whatsoever.
And the rest appears to be some serious mental gymnastics to avoid the point, which I don’t believe for a second was meant to encompass “children who are smart enough to get access to do a thing but don’t actually do the thing because they’re so damn smart”. Nor do I believe that 14 year olds who find a willing drug dealer are more likely to take sensible precautions than their peers, having proven their smarts by finding one!
Well then don't give them money to do so, its not like phones grow on trees. If you make selling phone/internet device to a minor under certain threshold an illegal act severely punished by law in same way alcohol and cigarettes are, many cases of access are solved. Also, paid internet subscription doesn't grow on the trees even though there are free wifi networks.
All imperfect solutions, but they slice original huge problem into much smaller chunks which are easier to tackle with next approach.
> Surveys by Britain’s tech regulator, Ofcom, find that among children aged 10-12, over half use Snapchat, more than 60% TikTok and more than 70% WhatsApp. All three apps have a notional minimum age of 13.
We don't see people worried that bars, nightclubs, liquor stores, tobacconists, R-rated movies asking for age verification will slip into requiring names too.
It honestly looks like an emotional panic. People who take seriously slippery slopes aren't to be taken seriously themselves.
Social media is like e-cigarettes in the sense that the shift toward nicotine salts (think Juul) around 2015 resulted in e-cigarettes becoming more dangerous and thus more age-restricted.
It's also like consumer credit cards. Remember that in 1985 Bank of America just mailed out 60,000 unsolicited credit cards to residents of Fresno, CA without application, age verification, or identity check. They just landed in people's mailboxes, including those of minors. Eventually a predatory lending industry developed and we increased the age and ID requirements. My point is that systems can, and do become more dangerous overtime. Not all, but not none.
Algorithmic feeds, online advertising, and attention engineering are the nicotine salts of social media. The product's changed, so should the access.
>We don't see people worried that bars, nightclubs, liquor stores, tobacconists, R-rated movies asking for age verification will slip into requiring names too.
Do we not? Sellers often don't just look at IDs now, they scan them into their system, and naturally, keep and sell your identity info, purchase data, and anything else they have access to.
>Algorithmic feeds, online advertising, and attention engineering are the nicotine salts of social media. The product's changed, so should the access.
This basically makes it clear. The problem is not that children are on social media. The problem is that "social media" has been allowed to become a platform for exploitation and manipulation by their owners. Adults aren't free from this either.
Digital age verification laws I've read also literally specifically ban recording that information, unlike in person. People were arguing with me that companies would decide they need to retain that info for audit purposes when there are no audit requirements and when it's illegal to store it for any reason.
> People who take seriously slippery slopes aren't to be taken seriously themselves
> Eventually a predatory lending industry developed and we increased the age and ID requirements
I have no idea if you're arguing for or against verification. You dismissed the idea that age verification is a slipper slope to more stringent ID requirements. Then provided an example where the exact opposite happened.
I'm not arguing that social media will get worse, I'm arguing that it has gotten worse. A slippery slope argues that something will happen. I'm pointing out that it has happened. Huge difference.
Even more, my point is that rules, regulations, and requirements adapt when these changes become unbearable. That has happened with social media, therefore a change in rules, regulations, and requirements is deserved.
In a way, this is like saying that one trusts total strangers in some random large tech company and total strangers in government agencies to read and/or manipulate conversations that kids have. This also paves the way to disallow E2EE for other classes of people based on arbitrary criteria. I don’t believe this is good for society overall.
You just need to provide the government with your name and address and the name and address of the counter party every time you send an encrypted message.
If you don't support this you're obviously a pedo nazi terrorist.
Meta is one of the worst offenders here. They are actively lobbying at least the US Congress for laws that require age verification at the hardware/os level.
There is no reason kids should use so called smart devices, except making certain companies richer. Kids have had a healthy development without such crap for thousands of years. We don't discuss what percentage of alcohol should be allowed in beer and wine for kids.
I'm not comfortable with the idea that children's private messages would be exposed to thousands of social media workers and government employees.
I understand the concern but then to make this available for adults you now have to provide proof of age to companies, which opens up another can of privacy worms.
Theoretically we don't actually need proof of age. Websites need to know when the user is attempting to create an account or log in from a child-locked device. Parents need to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices. Vendors need to make sure they don't sell unlocked devices to kids.
> Theoretically we don't actually need proof of age. Websites need to know when the user is attempting to create an account or log in from a child-locked device. Parents need to make sure their kids only have child-locked devices. Vendors need to make sure they don't sell unlocked devices to kids.
Given how current parental controls work, kids are not getting access if their device is under parental control (the default for open web access is off). So Facebook still won't see any child-locked devices, even before this ruling. My guess is that this ruling applies to parents who aren't making sure their kids get access only via child locked devices.
The actual problem is that there are parents, I even remember them growing up, who do not care what their kid is exposed to and won't flinch at anything. I'm sure most here had a "Jeff's mom" who didn't care if you guys were playing mortal combat while blasting Wu Tang at 9 years old.
So even if 95% of kids have responsible parents locking down access, there will still be this 5% that will continue to drip horror stories that motivate knee-jerk regulation.
Exactly.
Trying to approach it from the direction of websites determining if you are an adult is a privacy nightmare and provides a huge attack surface. (Which is what the government wants--the ability to monitor.) Flipping it over is much, much safer--but fails the real mission of exposing dissent.
(On-device security, the credential of the adult is loaded onto the device but not transmitted anywhere, it can only be obtained locally. The device simply responds as to whether it has a credential loaded. Bad guys are unlikely to want to sell such devices as the phone could be traced back to them.)
And the parents can select a strict child lock, or permitted but copies forwarded to the parent.)
Children do not want child locked devices and they will find alternatives
The issue is not just age verification but also device pinning.
I think the framework here is to have community driven age verifiers( i recall there is an EU effort for digital wallets which besides it's bad parts has some of these good parts) which can verify ages for people and link them to( local biometrically encrypted) devices for pinning. This would be privacy preserving. The only downside is a mandate for all devices have a built-in hardware biometric encryption like a finger/face print so phones can't be just(used) with these apps installed.
The verification part is a job that could be done by all the teachers and coaches and ofc parents. Any one verifying identities would be cryptographically nominated/revoked by a number of more senior members of the community. A prent always get the right to say ok for their kid ofc but so could teachers or legal guardians..
We(legally) need a mandate for smart devices to have local device only biometric verification. The law should be to have these apps follow device app store protocols.
As with smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs etc
Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice.
Sorry what?
Kids with low parental supervision who steal uncle Roy's marlboro are more likely to be able to cope with tobacco addiction?
Do you have any reasons to think this might be the case? Studies, research, a well thought-out article?
To get reliable access you either need to convince an adult to give you access (which is always game over) or you need to engage in some kind of future planning, which is a similar skill set as the one necessary to notice that getting addicted to cancer thing might be a bad idea. Stealing uncle Roy's marlboro doesn't work because uncle Roy is generally then going to notice that they're going missing and either start securing them better or deduce where they're going and visit some punishment on the kid.
I mean what if Roy doesn't care?
We're just optimising for kids with shitty family at this point.
If Roy doesn't care then you have a kid with an adult who gives them access, which is the scenario where none of this is going to work. Even if you required government IDs with hourly retina scans, it doesn't work if Roy is willing to let the kids hold the device up to his face whenever they want.
Sure, I agree.
I only disagree with the just-so notion that kids who have an Uncle Roy are somehow better able to cope with the consequences. Ability to access something is (IMHO) pretty uncorrelated with the ability to cope with the consequences.
The original claim wasn't that the kids with an Uncle Roy would be better able to cope, it's that the kids are who can devise another way to get past even if they didn't. Then the latter kids make up a larger proportion of the ones who can get past because they have two paths to do it instead of one. And the former ones are the ones we can't reach regardless.
Let's look at that original claim -
"As with smoking, alcohol, sex, drugs etc
Children who are smart enough to get access to a given vice without getting caught are more likely to be mature enough to be able to cope with that vice."
There are at least two problems here. The one I've focused on first that you seem so keen to dispel, is an assumption that there are smart kids overcoming a challenge. 'Roy' is an extreme, but there is a whole spectrum of low-oversight conditions that are likely to lead to kids getting access to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, having sex etc, which are nothing to do with smartness or challenges and are much more to do with shitty parenting and neglect.
Then there's the second problem. Let's focus on tobacco but I believe it's likely to hold for other drugs - even if we allow that children getting access to tobacco are 'smarter' than those who don't figure it out, and are overcoming various obstacles, that doesn't actually imply that they'll be better able to deal with the consequences. Just like how a high IQ doesn't always mean someone is necessarily good at crossing the road safely or tieing their shoelaces.
In fact there's a variety of research about nicotine's effect on developing brains and how the earlier people are exposed the more likely they are to be more addicted for longer. This is the opposite outcome to the original claim, kids who start earlier are in fact demonstrably less likely to be able to 'cope' with the vice.
The whole claim is nonsense.
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3615117/ [1] https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-6-addiction/6-...
(edit - I'm not making specific claims about cybersecurity or access to tech here, I just think the analogy is pretty seriously wrong in itself)
> The one I've focused on first that you seem so keen to dispel, is an assumption that there are smart kids overcoming a challenge. 'Roy' is an extreme, but there is a whole spectrum of low-oversight conditions that are likely to lead to kids getting access to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, having sex etc, which are nothing to do with smartness or challenges and are much more to do with shitty parenting.
Let's consider the four combinations of the two variables here. You have dumber and smarter kids, and worse and better parents. The kids with the worse parents will have access to the vice regardless of whether they're dumb or smart, but the kids with the better parents will only have access if they're smart enough to figure out how against parents actively trying to prevent it. Therefore the two of the four quadrants with smarter kids can get access but the dumber kids only can when they have worse parents, implying that two thirds of the quadrants with the ability to do it are the smarter kids.
> even if we allow that children getting access to tobacco are 'smarter' than those who don't figure it out, and are overcoming various obstacles, that doesn't actually imply that they'll be better able to deal with the consequences.
That's assuming the way they deal with it better is by trying the drug and then somehow not getting addicted rather than by choosing not to try the drug to begin with even though they could access it if they wanted to, or otherwise making more measured choices if they do decide to try something, like finding a source more likely to be providing the expected amount of the expected substance instead of who knows how much of who knows what. Or just hesitating a while so their first time comes at an older age.
> implying that two thirds of the quadrants with the ability to do it are the smarter kids.
But only one of those involves overcoming anything.
And unless you have information on the relative sizes of those quadrants, it’s meaningless in terms of the overall picture and being able to confidently assert that access to such contraband allows you to draw any inferences about intelligence whatsoever.
And the rest appears to be some serious mental gymnastics to avoid the point, which I don’t believe for a second was meant to encompass “children who are smart enough to get access to do a thing but don’t actually do the thing because they’re so damn smart”. Nor do I believe that 14 year olds who find a willing drug dealer are more likely to take sensible precautions than their peers, having proven their smarts by finding one!
The whole premise is laughable.
I think we’re going to see how that plays out with gambling.
It seems a bit silly to think security abstinence is the solution.
Well then don't give them money to do so, its not like phones grow on trees. If you make selling phone/internet device to a minor under certain threshold an illegal act severely punished by law in same way alcohol and cigarettes are, many cases of access are solved. Also, paid internet subscription doesn't grow on the trees even though there are free wifi networks.
All imperfect solutions, but they slice original huge problem into much smaller chunks which are easier to tackle with next approach.
True, it's never going to be 100%, but at least it's a tractable problem for parents. Enough to change what the culture considers "normal," anyway.
Imperfect solutions are still called "solutions".
Theoretically only
> Surveys by Britain’s tech regulator, Ofcom, find that among children aged 10-12, over half use Snapchat, more than 60% TikTok and more than 70% WhatsApp. All three apps have a notional minimum age of 13.
https://archive.ph/y3pQO
[flagged]
I believe Zuckerberg has a term for people who willingly break online anonymity because someone with a domain name and website asks them to.
Establishments don't record my data or even take down my name. They take a look at the birthdate and wave me forward.
We need a way to do this online.
> Establishments don't record my data or even take down my name.
What are you talking about. Have you really never rented a car before?
Some establishments, as part of their business practice, require identification.
And many don't. Bars, nightclubs, liquor stores, tobacconists, R-rated movies.
We don't see people worried that bars, nightclubs, liquor stores, tobacconists, R-rated movies asking for age verification will slip into requiring names too.
It honestly looks like an emotional panic. People who take seriously slippery slopes aren't to be taken seriously themselves.
Social media is like e-cigarettes in the sense that the shift toward nicotine salts (think Juul) around 2015 resulted in e-cigarettes becoming more dangerous and thus more age-restricted.
It's also like consumer credit cards. Remember that in 1985 Bank of America just mailed out 60,000 unsolicited credit cards to residents of Fresno, CA without application, age verification, or identity check. They just landed in people's mailboxes, including those of minors. Eventually a predatory lending industry developed and we increased the age and ID requirements. My point is that systems can, and do become more dangerous overtime. Not all, but not none.
Algorithmic feeds, online advertising, and attention engineering are the nicotine salts of social media. The product's changed, so should the access.
>We don't see people worried that bars, nightclubs, liquor stores, tobacconists, R-rated movies asking for age verification will slip into requiring names too.
Do we not? Sellers often don't just look at IDs now, they scan them into their system, and naturally, keep and sell your identity info, purchase data, and anything else they have access to.
>Algorithmic feeds, online advertising, and attention engineering are the nicotine salts of social media. The product's changed, so should the access.
This basically makes it clear. The problem is not that children are on social media. The problem is that "social media" has been allowed to become a platform for exploitation and manipulation by their owners. Adults aren't free from this either.
Digital age verification laws I've read also literally specifically ban recording that information, unlike in person. People were arguing with me that companies would decide they need to retain that info for audit purposes when there are no audit requirements and when it's illegal to store it for any reason.
> People who take seriously slippery slopes aren't to be taken seriously themselves
> Eventually a predatory lending industry developed and we increased the age and ID requirements
I have no idea if you're arguing for or against verification. You dismissed the idea that age verification is a slipper slope to more stringent ID requirements. Then provided an example where the exact opposite happened.
I'm not arguing that social media will get worse, I'm arguing that it has gotten worse. A slippery slope argues that something will happen. I'm pointing out that it has happened. Huge difference.
Even more, my point is that rules, regulations, and requirements adapt when these changes become unbearable. That has happened with social media, therefore a change in rules, regulations, and requirements is deserved.
I have kids. I don't want creeps and predators spying on their conversations with friends.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210522003136/https://blog.nucy...
That's true, I didn't consider that
In a way, this is like saying that one trusts total strangers in some random large tech company and total strangers in government agencies to read and/or manipulate conversations that kids have. This also paves the way to disallow E2EE for other classes of people based on arbitrary criteria. I don’t believe this is good for society overall.
The reason we are having this discussion, is because the private route worked up to a point.
Firms have a fiduciary duty to shareholders and profit.
On the other hand, You ultimately decide the rules and goals that operate government organizations, and do not have a profit maximization target.
They aren’t the same tool, and they work for different situations.
The E2EE slippery slope is a different challenge, and for that I have no thoughts
The problem is all these ‘for the children’ arguments contain collateral damage.
And the effectiveness for the stated goal is also often questionable.
Well, the problem is that the “don’t do it” arguments have children as the collateral damage.
We are at a point where we are picking and choosing collateral damage targets.
It does seem like it could potentially be used to enforce mass surveillance over the people of the United States
Alphabet can grep your emails, Amazon has literal microphones and cameras in most peoples houses
That ship has sailed
Yes google analyzes everything you upload to it and if it finds a violation will report to the proper gov agencies.
It is actually terrifying . If you write something out of context or upload an image out of context you can be in big trouble.
You just need to provide the government with your name and address and the name and address of the counter party every time you send an encrypted message.
If you don't support this you're obviously a pedo nazi terrorist.
Meta is one of the worst offenders here. They are actively lobbying at least the US Congress for laws that require age verification at the hardware/os level.
There is no reason kids should use so called smart devices, except making certain companies richer. Kids have had a healthy development without such crap for thousands of years. We don't discuss what percentage of alcohol should be allowed in beer and wine for kids.
The French (watered wine) and British (shandies) do.