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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

That's not supported by the polling.

>From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material?*

>80% support

https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/52693-how-have-britons-rea...

>The Essential poll found majority support for a range reforms to improve online safety including: [...] enforcing age verifications for pornography and gambling sites (79%); enforcing age verification for social media (76%)

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/...

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it really difficult to take this polling at face value. average people typically hear only one side of the argument: "age verification will stop kids from accessing harmful sites".

they don't hear about all of the potential downsides, knock-on effects, chilling effects, etc. unless they are part of niche groups like HN. and even if they do, in passing, they often lack the technical knowledge to really understand the implications.

i.e., they are consenting, but it isn't informed consent.

i imagine there would be an interesting picture if these numbers were presented in buckets by occupation, or by results in tech competency test, etc.

(similarly, as an example, my opinion in a poll about some complex medical procedure would not be very informed. i would be relying solely on what i hear on the news or read in a quick article, with no fundamentals to really assess and form an opinion of my own)

This is a problem with current implementations of democracy. It's free elections, but it's not informed elections. The average voter has very little clue about what they are voting for. Arguably it's impossible to know in a representative democracy.

Not that I know how to do it better, but it's definitely an issue, possibly one that could be solved somehow.

Representative democracy was supposed to be the solution for this. i.e. "I dont know what the best way to do age verification should be, but it's probably important"... and then voting for the candidate that has shown ability, intelligence, and a good nature to look at the issue in your best interest and handle all the edge cases without screwing you over.

What we've lost is the integrity of this system entirely. No candidate can truly be trusted to implement an age verification system without first getting a check from big tech

Probably with better education.

Support is not the same thing as demand.

That just seems like a cheap way to wriggle out of any inconvenient poll numbers. Most people support access to abortion? Well how many people actually demand it? Most people support medicare for all? Well how many people actually demand it?

There was no option to select no!

Only which age you wanted the ban to start

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48674572

Are you quoting the same polls that simply didn't offer respondents any way to say "I'm against all of it"?

Dishonest polls do not demonstrate popular support.

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/User:Louis/Manufacturing_suppo...

>Are you quoting the same polls that simply didn't offer respondents any way to say "I'm against all of it"?

https://essentialreport.com.au/reports/07-may-2024

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