Americans, Be Warned: Lessons from Reddit's Chaotic UK Age Verification Rollout | Hacker News Reader

Americans, Be Warned: Lessons from Reddit's Chaotic UK Age Verification Rollout

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32 pointspseudolus9 comments

This could have been avoided, at least technically. Laws could have required any site or service that has adult or user generated content to simply add RTA [1] headers and require clients to make a best effort to detect the headers and trigger parental controls if enabled. That's it. Not perfect, nothing is. All the liability could have gone to the parents where it belongs. Politicians will regret taking kick-backs when those third party sites doing adult checks sell or accidentally leak what sites they visit and what referrer URL's and query strings sent them to the 3rd party sites. It won't be worth it.

I suppose one could make lemonade out of the lemons by getting a start on websites that track which law makers are into what kinks. I predict those most outspoken against a thing are indeed into that thing. CDN's already have some of this. 3rd party ID sites will have more complete ID details.

[1] - www.rtalabel.org/index.php?content=howtofaq#single

When I was younger I really thought that maybe by the time I was old that we'd have policy makers who understood the internet, a little.

I was incorrect.

There's so much conflicting policy out there that seems to approach one fear here and there ... and conflicts with all the other policies, incentives, security ... common sense.

A lot of policy makers are older and have different values from younger people but also have a far lower ability to understand technology and the world that has changed. Those older politicians are still around and in power. For example Keir Starmer is a boomer.

They’re the same policy makers. Unfortunately looks like we’ll skip over the generation that remembers what an unfettered, decentralized Internet looks like.

The biggest problem with Western Governments, and the reason this sort of thing is going on, is the result of the "professionalization" of the political classes.

Earlier in the 20th century politicians tended to be people established in their own right outside of government. Meaning that they tended to be well known and successful outside of government and decided to get involved in politics as a part time or second career. Get involved, represent their community interests, etc.

Which meant that they had experience outside of government they could bring in with them.

Nowadays politicians tend to be "professionals", meaning that they went to school and got law degrees and started their political careers at a young age. They got started in government due to political and family connections, and successful ones learned the bureaucracy of government and the rules (spoken and unspoken) established by their respective political parties and sort of wormed their way up the system from the "inside".

This has created a insular culture. They are "professionals" without any sort of professional regulation or professional organizations or professional standards. The only regulation comes from themselves and their own political parties.

This has created a class of "leaders" that are exceptionally good at understanding the internal beaucracy and party structure which their lives are based on, but are pretty much incapable of connection and communicating with normal people.

The people that make or break them as successful politicians is largely their peers, not the public.

This creates a sort of "ivory tower intellectual" type culture in government and in the top ranks of large corporations. There is the "inner party" of people that set the intellectual and cultural tones that other party members are expected to adhere to, and then a "outer party" that are their functionaries in big business, media, and government, that are expected to put policies and goals established by the "inner party" into motion.

And because of this they are really unable to communicate well with the public or engage in debates over important matters.

They take personal offense and look down on the public when they are questioned. Seeing themselves as experts and professionals while the rest of the public really are just kinda ignorant.

Sort of like how a Dentist must feel when a patient starts arguing loudly with them over whether or not they need a root canal.

Because of all of this, especially with the inability to communicate or relate deeply with the public, they tend to resort to tactics like name calling and censorship.

Which means that there is a strong tendency to label members of the public as "right wing" or "extremist" and try to work with social media companies to "quiet the rabble".

Sort of like how a frustrated and abusive mother resorts to yelling "just shut up already" repeatedly at their toddlers for endlessly crying.

This is one of those "when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail". The "protect the children" is just a excuse to get the regulatory ball rolling and help ensure that they can track and intimidate members of the public they see as obstacles or sources of discontent.

They understand; they just have different values from you. You (hopefully) value things like freedom, while policy makers value things like the net worth of policy makers.

I wonder if a country with a history of monarchy and classes might have less of a problem creating laws by fiat.

(not that the united states always honors freedom)

> Reddit has historically succeeded where many others have failed in safeguarding digital rights—particularly the free speech and privacy of its users

Reddit has historically succeeded in neither of these things.

Alas I suspect other countries will do same rather than taking this as a warning

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