Comment by Sevrene | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Sevrene | Hacker News Reader

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>I feel like you haven't really been listening to the arguments against these types of age-verification-for-websites laws.

Or maybe I just have a different conclusion to you? Because I do care, I do try to listen to the arguments. I'm no stranger to advocacy for civil liberties, they are important to me. I think all else being equal, freedom should be valued more over harm prevention. So if I'm for these laws, consider that a sign of how bad these sites have become, not how uninformed I am.

> I mean, there's some similarities, of course. But I think there are some very stark differences.

Yep of course it's not a 1:1, I agree. I don't mean to imply that people saying the same arguments today are wrong simply because people in the past were, but it does make me think more about it when I spot the same rhetoric.

Often both sides have very reasonable concerns, as an example, the question isn't "should we have all or no freedom" Either extreme creates issues, yet both sides have valid arguments worth our time considering. We settle somewhere in the middle.

Here's one vox pop with the introduction of breathalizers in UK (1967): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_tqQYmgMQg

>"Or maybe I just have a different conclusion to you?"

Whatever your conclusion is, it’s sort of beside the point I was making, which is that the many of the arguments about mandated seatbelts (or smoking, alcohol) are meaningfully different than the arguments being made today about age verification for websites.

>“So if I'm for these laws, consider that a sign of how bad these sites have become, not how uninformed I am.”

This is kind of reinforcing what I said in my first comment. Most, if not all, of the arguments against these types of laws aren’t based on the premise that these sites aren’t bad. I haven’t seen anyone saying that TikTok is a societal good. Almost everyone agrees there.

I’m saying that the main arguments are different. I am suggesting that there are more differences between the seatbelt debate and the age-verification-for-websites debate than there are similarities. Which is why I thought your comment of “eerily similar” was off-base.

So you're using many, many words to say that you disagree, and none of them to explain how you disagree?

I (not the person you're disagreeing with, BTW) would be interested in your demonstration of how you disagree.

My takeaway is that jfindper is saying that seatbelt laws had a justification that does not have a parallel with this action regarding social media.

IDK if this is how they would say it, but I think argument for seatbelts is that there is minimum disruption to usage, there is limited revocation of other rights, and the societal benefit is large and pretty unambiguous.

The idea that I have to give up privacy, expose myself to additional risk (by having my identity logged), increase the chances that mentally susceptible people will have more exposure to fraud in order to get a solution that is not clear on how effective it will be makes the parallel a bit academic, if not an out right straw man.

> I think argument for seatbelts is that there is minimum disruption to usage, there is limited revocation of other rights, and the societal benefit is large and pretty unambiguous.

Said like this, it looks to me that it has a parallel with social media.

> The idea that I have to give up privacy

You don't have to, though.

> expose myself to additional risk (by having my identity logged)

It doesn't have to be, we can have privacy-preserving age verification. Now we could discuss the specific implementation, but in general that's feasible.

> increase the chances that mentally susceptible people will have more exposure to fraud

It's not enough to say it: is it actually the case? You can already get phished by trying to access a social network, how does that make it worse? I don't think it's obvious. While the problem with kids and social media is, at this point, very well documented.

> if not an out right straw man.

I, for one, think it's an interesting experiment. All the arguments above could be used against making cigarettes illegal for children. Yet I am very convinced that making cigarettes illegal for children is the right choice.

They are different laws with different contexts but the type of rhetoric and logic used to justify them are very similar, right? I already agreed they are not 1:1 nore was it meant to be. I agree with you there. If there's a more specific point you want to make, I'm keen to hear it!

> the arguments against these types of laws aren’t based on the premise that these sites aren’t bad. I haven’t seen anyone saying that TikTok is a societal good. Almost everyone agrees there.

There's people in this thread talking about jews being behind this ban to ensure zionism continues, using only a social media agitprop post to justify it. We are in the mud at the moment, so I'm sorry but I'm not taking that for granted, people have diverse views.

> I’m saying that the main arguments are different. I am suggesting that there are more differences between the seatbelt debate and the age-verification-for-websites debate than there are similarities.

Let me try explain this figuratively:

A doctor might give free care to someone in a medical emergency on a plane after all they have an ethical responsiblity to do so if they can, but that doesn't mean they're obliged to care about your canker sore.

Now imagine a doctor not treating one or the other because "It's not that serious". It's the extent of the harm or risk that actually indicates how insane or sane that doctor's response is, just as much as the doctors actually response to it is.

We can sit here and say "yeah it's not that serious" but one patient is dying and another basically fine. Just like those people that thought drink driving wasn't that big of a deal, people think social media "oh yeah that's bad but what you going to do", it's the same shrug and 'oh well' attitude. That's what I think is eerlie similar. Now whether or not that's appropiate or not depends on whether you think the patient is having a heart attack, or just has a sore lip.

I do agree people aren't generally saying TikTok is good, but people are saying TikTok isn't so bad as to regulate age verification. Do you see how these things play into each other?

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