I strongly disagree.
You're framing this as some desirable thing that could be good except that a bad implementation erodes privacy. That's wrong at every step. These bills originate from big tech such as Meta that literally profit from collecting as much personal info from you as possible. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/1rsn1tm/it_a...
But even beyond their tainted origins, you can't implement your way out of something badly formed in the first place. You handwave "zero knowledge" but that doesn't do for your privacy what you're hoping it will. That id card will still have a serial number and CCTV of you purchasing it and you will de facto end up trusting some government binary blob to implement this cryptography correctly without backdoors. Snowden was a decade ago. This will have a backdoor. This will be used for surveillance, tomorrow even if by some miracle not today.
And finally, this makes the internet worse. There will be a section of people who are, for one reason or another, not able to pass this bar. Much of the goodness of the internet comes from being able to interact with anyone on it.
That Reddit post is feeding more conspiracy thinking than helping.
The facts listed also match the actions of a firm aiming to ensure that the burden of verification does not fall on it, for a legislative process that they know is coming.
Red flag after red flag has been raised on child outcomes and social media, for a decade.
The internet is great for people here on HN, who know enough to avoid getting screwed.
The internet is a grotesque horror show for anyone who is stuck on the wrong side of a customer support system. Plus, most people here are thinking from the perspective of someone in the US or EU. They actually get better support than the rest of the world gets.
Let me be clear - I hate that we are at this juncture. However willful ignorance of the harms being inflicted on users is palliative care for our feelings. It means that one day, there is going to be a confrontation between a techie advocating for privacy and the people whose lives are being upended by tech.
Privacy has to be protected effectively, which means acknowledging the hurt and providing solutions for that.
How did you come to the conclusion that advocating for privacy is at odds with protecting users? I'd argue the opposite is true.
Because the entire reason we are here is due to the fact that harms to kids are on the other end of the scale.
There is no “win” here, which doesn’t have the issue coming back.
Dismissing the harms only makes privacy advocacy irrelevant to voters.
Defending privacy effectively means plugging the root cause it is being encroached.
This is being articulated as a defense of privacy when it originates from social media harms to kids.
> Because the entire reason we are here is due to the fact that harms to kids are on the other end of the scale.
If that's a "fact", where is the proof? What harms are there that can only be addressed with age verification and not in any other way?
> Dismissing the harms [...]
This is a strawman you've created.
> Defending privacy effectively means plugging the root cause it is being encroached.
Defending privacy means defending privacy, not submitting to nefarious interests and well-meaning but misled followers.
> This is being articulated as a defense of privacy when it originates from social media harms to kids.
Social media can be dangerous to kids, I don't see anyone disputing that. The dispute is around the solution to this issue.
? > If that's a "fact", where is the proof? What harms are there that can only be addressed with age verification and not in any other way?
> Social media can be dangerous to kids, I don't see anyone disputing that. The dispute is around the solution to this issue.
It may not be what you intend, but that is how the dispute is going to be rendered.
I have no dispute with you over the conclusion of your comment. The meat and potatoes is in the shape of the solution.