I’d like to see all social media sites require proper age verification, much like any gambling sites in the UK have to. No under 18 needs social media. Feel, especially for children, they are a net negative.
Many these awful laws such as one being discussed are sold to us under the guise of protecting the children. The last time I checked 7 people a day were being prosecuted for speech related crimes in the UK (and I checked a while ago).
Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's social media usage.
I wouldn't want every user to validate their age with government ID.
But we can say schools should ban kids from using phones. We can say that large social media platforms need to whitelist content/creators that children are allowed to access. We can insist that social media companies throttle the ability for minors to scroll through videos at a dopamine addiction pace.
More generally and more applicable to the discussion, I think regulations for social media need to be applied proportional to the userbase and centralization of a platform, and target viral algorithms.
Old school message boards should be safe from government interference, broadly.
It may be time to research simpleX chat and Briar if we will maintain the ability to communicate without government filtering.
Well that is what will be required or a credit card.
> But we can say schools should ban kids from using phones. We can say that large social media platforms need to whitelist content/creators that children are allowed to access. We can insist that social media companies throttle the ability for minors to scroll through videos at a dopamine addiction pace.
Every argument around regulation around social media to protect children ignores that fact that parents are the ones closest to their children and their children is their responsibility. Some parents inability to control their children shouldn't infringe my rights as an adult.
> More generally and more applicable to the discussion, I think regulations for social media need to be applied proportional to the userbase and centralization of a platform, and target viral algorithms.
If I don't like how particular algorithms act on social media, I can simply opt out of using it. As an adult I have agency. I found that I was spending a disproportionate of my time using Twitter/X and as a result I deleted my account. I had problem with alcohol years ago, I stopped drinking after I accepted I had a problem. I have my own agency.
> It may be time to research simpleX chat and Briar if we will maintain the ability to communicate without government filtering.
The issue is that the vast majority of people I wish to talk to aren't tech savvy and are unwilling to use anything other than mainstream platforms. So you end up essentially walling yourself from everyone else. That isn't ideal.
No need to go there. What about commenting anonymously on your work place?
I guess we should stop checking age when buying alcohol in pubs (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's alcohol purchases_)
And stop checking age when buying cigarettes (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's tobacco purchases_)
etc.
It's illuminating that your post is both "tech can't solve it" and so brazenly pro-tech with manifestations of its laziest arguments each way.
Of course tech can solve the ID problem. It could solve it in a way that doesn't need to give ground to your slippery slope argument too. It just doesn't have the incentive model to do so. Any "control" in this space would reduce the marketable headcount and so it's not in tech's interests to solve - without government intervention.
It’s not a given that digital record must lead to compromise.
> And stop checking age when buying cigarettes (_Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's tobacco purchases_)
Yes and yes. These measures are completely ineffective anyway. Who hasn't been drinking / watching porn underage? Smoking is less prevalent where I'm from but it's not for lack of availability of elf sticks etc.
Underage people have been exposed to (normal adult) porn for decades. And it hasn't caused any issues with our society. If anything it makes sexual morale more free and lets people discover themselves without moral judgement.
> It's illuminating that your post is both "tech can't solve it" and so brazenly pro-tech with manifestations of its laziest arguments each way.
I believe that the only way to stop enforcement is to make it impossible to enforce. This would require new software that is easy to use by the majority of people. I don't see this happening in the near term.
> Of course tech can solve the ID problem. It could solve it in a way that doesn't need to give ground to your slippery slope argument too. It just doesn't have the incentive model to do so. Any "control" in this space would reduce the marketable headcount and so it's not in tech's interests to solve - without government intervention.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here. The fact is that some sort of government ID will be required or a credit card and that would be directly linked to any accounts you may have. Simply this is a bad idea for my own security, I don't want to be giving my government ID to some social media company in the first place or a third party that I maybe unfamiliar with. That before we get into any other wider reaching concerns.
If .gov == bad guy then you’re screwed whether or not you leave a digital trail on social media because you’re already leaving one anyway (unless you’re a marginal outlier that isn’t worth considering for this “problem”). If that’s your threat model then you’re either super-important or I worry you’ve been sold a scary story by social media algorithms.
On the other hand, the idea that this is an impossible tech problem to solve is also disingenuous. My point is that it could be solved. And quickly and easily too. If the incentive model were there. And whilst I’ve not given the solution a huge amount of thought (I’m not actually that interested in solving it) I’m certain that an authenticated assertion could be made that wasn’t directly attributable to an individual - i.e., a mechanism could be developed that would solve for both problems.
Which brings us back to the fundamental point here: the people who would need to implement the solution have no incentive model in place to motivate them to do so.
No I am not.
> If .gov == bad guy then you’re screwed whether or not you leave a digital trail on social media because you’re already leaving one anyway (unless you’re a marginal outlier that isn’t worth considering for this “problem”). If that’s your threat model then you’re either super-important or I worry you’ve been sold a scary story by social media algorithms.
You are pretending as if one would need perfect op-sec (which is impossible). If you have a throwaway email, a sim paid for via cash and a VPN/Tor will make you much more difficult to track down and most of this can be learned via watching a few YouTube videos. You don't even have to do the more crazy stuff like running Tails.
Having an ID requirement will make it much more difficult as I suspect other regions will soon follow suite in implementing something similar.
There are also benefits to pseudo-anonymity. I want to keep my online life and my real life separate. This will mean that they can never be separate.
> On the other hand, the idea that this is an impossible tech problem to solve is also disingenuous. My point is that it could be solved. And quickly and easily too. If the incentive model were there. And whilst I’ve not given the solution a huge amount of thought (I’m not actually that interested in solving it) I’m certain that an authenticated assertion could be made that wasn’t directly attributable to an individual - i.e., a mechanism could be developed that would solve for both problems.
I never said that the tech problem was impossible to resolve. Again that is your assertion. I simply stated what I believe is most likely to happen in the near to medium term.
Certain types of demonstrator get very heavily cracked down on, and it's not usually the anti-immigrant ones.
If you are not bothered by the expansion of these powers because some people have said things you disapprove of there is nothing I can say to convince you.
It is, however, seldom actually enforced due largely to the impracticality and inconvenience of the matter. The law also doesn't regulate the presentation of content to children, rather the collection of information from children.
I think the most recent enforcement of COPPA that had actual tangible effect was when Youtube was ordered to stop collecting information (eg: comments) from videos marked as for kids.
[1]: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/privacy-security/child...
Disagree here. If it is legally onerous for me to start a forum, I am more inclined to use a large social media site like Facebook, since they will handle the legal part for me. They are fine with that, they already have legal teams.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51518773 "Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook boss urges tighter regulation"
I bet Zuckerberg also wants to pay more taxes too?
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51497961.amp “ Facebook boss 'happy to pay more tax in Europe'” 2020
But I guess the tax avoidance lawyers that he keeps hiring keep on tricking him. Gotta feel bad for the guy, but take everything he says, like “there should be more regulation” seriously and ignore the blatantly self serving nature of his statements.
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/08/facebook-cu...
Facebook reduces tax bill 2024
Regardless, I think that it's likely that any legislation will be influenced by big players who act as "experts" so that the resulting laws are more easily followed by them than their (presumably smaller) competitors. And the evidence is in the results. If I were starting an online community in the UK, I'd feel much safer legally using Facebook (or Reddit or Discord) than I would starting my own forum.
Looks like people who already run online communities agree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044
I don't like that it that American companies enforces it language policing on UK residents, I also don't like that fact that the UK wants to force it language policing world wide (the UK state acts as if it has an empire).
The reason people are unwilling to consider an alternative viewpoint, is that in the past they have been more moderate and what has happened has been a complete erosion of civil liberties under the guise of "stopping the terrorists". I was arguing the same thing I am arguing essentially over 20 years ago.
Ironically many of those groups that we went to war to stop (Al-queda/ISIS) are now being presented as moderate because foreign policy has shifted again.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7qenxy8r2
I have to check older news articles but I suspect these are the ones that were presented as moderate rebels by the media when it was convienient.