If there is a problem with children not being sufficiently protected, that is the level at which to solve it. Give families tools and information to do so.
The companies pushing age verification make their money monetizing access to children. They are exactly the sorts of groups I’d like to keep my kids away from. Forcing the kids to label themselves as minors just makes them more vulnerable to online exploitation.
They can only do so much, within the boundaries of their home. It takes a village to raise a child. The policies, thus, should be made village-wide.
...is one form of parenting. Maybe some people would prefer other forms.
I really feel like I missed the /s or something.
Or possibly the poster went to a much worse public school than I did? (USA public = government funded.)
Reducing a challenge like education to a sound bite to win an argument on HN lowers the level of dialog.
Also, where I live the majority of people trust the government enough to send their children to public school, and it isn’t clear that the pay-for schools are much better.
When I went to college, I met friends with dramatically different experiences in their schools than I had, and that was the first time the idea that school was more than just a babysitting camp had crossed my mind. My school was safe from exterior threats, and they took the bomb threats and jail breaks very seriously, even holding us in our classrooms late into the day until the perpetrator was caught, but internal threats caused by kids would always outnumber the teachers capacity to thwart. My parents choose where we lived based on the school having the least violence in the area so I know my experience wasn't even on the extreme end.
Edit: I realize I didn't address education. In short, in successful because my mom put a lot of work trying to educate me and ensure I took homework seriously. Even though I hardly attended my classes, I graduated top 10% because submitting homework was all you needed to do to surpass your peers. Any kids whose only educational influence was school itself, at least where I grew up, didn't receive much of an education.
You got it right. This is exactly the attitude of most parents.
No school zone speed limits, or protected crossings on streets near schools.
No requirements for railings on public balconies, fencing around public pools, protective covers over drains or other holes in the ground.
Parents/guardians can just supervise.
Sounds great!
You want to marry someone? Make sure the government approves for your safety.
Want to make dinner? First you have to send the recipe to your local overseer with proof of your safe cooking credentials or you will have to pay heafty fines for noncompliance.
Want to make love, read a book, speak your mind, make a contract with someone, work the job you want? Sorry, you can't decide that yourself, first the politburo must approve it.
Sounds great!
Historically, many states in the US required blood tests of both partners prior to marriage. Mostly it was a test for syphilis, which was the main reason that 16th ^ 17th Century people used tons of makeup. Do not google what that disease looks like in the tertiary stage if you want to sleep at night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premarital_medical_examination
How often are children married off to old men in the US?
I’m not convinced it is more than zero. Do you know of a single case in the 21st century of a 12‐year‐old marrying an adult in the United States?
After all, you rhetorically mentioned America in the same breath as Afghanistan, where 15% of women were married below the age of 15. (page 11: https://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/media/2711/file/afg-repor...)
Oh well done. America only allows men to marry half a dozen 12 year olds in the 21st century. It’s better than Afghanistan. Have a medal.
Those are mostly there because of alcoholic drinks being served and the venue wants to create a certain atmosphere. There are plenty of parents that would take their kids there if they could.
The rest is not just there for kids but also for adults (or elderly).
There is a bunch of adults who would step in a hole in the ground or fall off a balcony.
Maybe that's why metabase was hacked - to conceal sale of data. "It's just a hack, it happens, we fixed the hole, nothing to see here until we find the next buyer".
So your argument is that ID checks are necessary simply because they are possible, and not a privacy invasion?
The question was why they are necessary.
> So why are ID checks necessary
Why are you gaslighting HN?
The underage crowd can't enter a space that is specifically exists for experiencing the prohibited behavior. Where the internet is a more general space and we are restricting anyone that has not proven to be adult. And what are we restricting them from? Posting/publishing & accessing content, that sounds like age based censorship.
Would someone underage have less rights to receive or publish unpleasant/controversial topics under the First Amendment? I think you need to have a very strong case to undermine those rights and I just don't think "might protect the kids" (which is debatable) is strong enough.
>No requirements for railings on public balconies, fencing around public pools, protective covers over drains or other holes in the ground.
>Parents/guardians can just supervise.
>Sounds great!
I know you're commenting in bad faith, but at the margin essentially nothing would change except the amount of whining from people of your bent when someone doesn't get punished enough.
The primary determinant of whether society engages in all those activities is not the government but the level of wealth to pay for it all.
That is where this become more than just gate keeping and becomes full on tracking.
> The right people to protect children are those responsible for them - their parents and guardians.
My position is that there is a social responsibility to protect children which extends to the community at large, not just their immediate guardians.
100% agree with this. Community responsibility is the literal opposite of what is being proposed.
It's really on us to figure out how we can have things like the internet without harming children. Now, this is quite annoying, because I have never, and would never, give a child access to the internet in the first place. The internet was never driving around on public streets. I never wanted to force it on anyone.
We all dropped the ball here. We've all accepted and even celebrated more and more of our lives being online. But, more importantly, nobody noticed when children started to get smartphones with internet access. In my mind this is no different than giving children cigarettes or other adult materials. But nobody batted an eye. I'm also not surprised, though. Loads of people here have made tons of money from children having access to the internet.
Unfortunately it's so hard to go back from something like this. So we end up in this stupid situation where people will accept more surveillance because we can't just take phones away from children.
Those are extreme positions.
There are things where you want the government to intervene.
There are things where you don’t want the government to intervene.
What I do in my bedroom should not be monitored by the government.
Me speeding on the road should be monitored by the government.
Conversations I am having online should not be monitored by the government.
It’s my job to teach my kid how to behave when he is bullied at school. The government does not help with that. It is my job to make sure my kid does not become the bully. The government does not help with that.
It is also my job to teach my kid what the internet is, that there are wackos out there, and how to recognize dangerous patterns. That’s life.
If you think this is to save the children…
> Those are extreme positions.
It's a very extreme position, and yet on every HN thread about digital ID there are multiple, upvoted, top-level comments suggesting that responsibility for children's safety lies solely with parents.
Well, if that's the case, why do these commenters accept ID checks at bars and the other things I mentioned?
Move the goalposts all you want, but I replied directly to a comment which said:
> The right people to protect children are those responsible for them - their parents and guardians.
> If there is a problem with children not being sufficiently protected, that is the level at which to solve it. Give families tools and information to do so.
That is the context with which my comments should be read. I'm trying to point out how absurd that position is when you extend it to anything in the physical world.
For details of what is stored on that barcode:
https://www.aamva.org/getmedia/99ac7057-0f4d-4461-b0a2-3a553...
What's on passports and some identity docs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable_passport
There have been many cases where clubs stored the documents scanned which were then hacked. Or where club/bar staff used the scanned/stored documents to stalk attractive women.
Sample:
https://www.theverge.com/tech/947157/passports-data-breach-c...
There are cases where compelled speech is considered constitutional, but surely not when it's used to threaten the primary way people communicate.
And contrary to your claim, COPPA does not legally require service providers to ask every user how old they are, nor are users obligated to reply. Age questions are just how service providers chose to implement it. And I don't think COPPA is a good example of a law working as intended.
Not you. The OS distributor breaks the law if they don't give you this ability.
> And contrary to your claim, COPPA does not legally require service providers to ask every user how old they are, nor are users obligated to reply
It requires service providers to ask if you are under 13 if they collect any personal information, including email address. Users are required to respond in the negative in order to use these services without them getting permission from an adult.
> I don't think COPPA is a good example of a law working as intended.
The question is whether it is a First Amendment violation. In the almost three decades since it was proposed, it hasn't been challenged. No serious person thinks AB 1043 is a First Amendment violation either.
> Not you. The OS distributor breaks the law if they don't give you this ability.
Ok, but that's a technicality and it doesn't change the fact that your entire ability to see/hear/say anything online is being gatekept by a legally-compelled utterance.
You have yet to give any harms.
> your entire ability to see/hear/say anything online is being gatekept by a legally-compelled utterance.
And? If there is no First Amendment violation, what is the problem with that? There are already many de facto compelled utterances required to communicate with other devices on the Internet.
It does not bar all online communications. The law simply says the OS must provide some way for the account to have a set age and provide it to services that need that information. If a service doesn't need that information, there is no compelled utterance. COPPA and GDPR both require compelled utterances online for certain services as well.
Good luck finding a lawyer to take your case.
No, I don’t want to scan my face or my passport to use the Web. And also no, this glib, thought-terminating, “common sense” quip about “the parents are responsible” is also something to be rejected. We should try to both collectively protect kids and leave adults alone.
Leave it all to the corporations and you would have them prey on your children on every street corner, splash screen, TV menu, and ad board, with no “parental management” option anywhere. “But parents are responsible”, they would say.
Please, stay far far away from my children. They do not need your help.
How does the ability to successfully reproduce confer expertise in protecting children from perils of the 21st century, specifically internet porn, hate speech, cyber bullying, addictive platform design, etc?
> If there is a problem with children not being sufficiently protected, that is > the level at which to solve it.
Society creates the greater environment that kids grow up in. And we all then pay for the problems when they occur because of those sh*tty environments. Pushing fixing it all onto parents is like trying to get kids to be healthy when they are driven everywhere, surrounded by fast food joints and bombarded with junk food adverts. Claiming that it would be different with a little more public service information and tools on top ... well the obesity rates would beg to differ.
Ultimately, society creates the greater environment and lives with consequences, as such society cannot not be involved in any meaningful attempt to deliver improvements.
Even if perfect age verification is implemented, kids will be harmed. Because they are vulnerable while above the arbitrary age limit. So -arguing for age verification is harming children. Won't somebody think of the children?
And the answer comes back to the same point. Parents should mediate this. Online content should advertise its maturity level, and parents should be able to configure devices at setup time for the maturity level they are appropriate for. Then apps should respect that and everyone can be better off without robbing everybody of anonymity or freedom.
Other still need protection at 30, or in fact in my opinion also a lot of people above 50 (that didn't grow up with the internet around) are not prepared for what is out there. Also there are parents that are "underage". Those are not considered either.
I agree it is a very arbitrary limit indeed, but it seems there is no other good proxy so for a lot of people it will be choosing the best worst option, at least that is how the argument in favor is brought forward.
I don't see legally why a checkbox "not underage" isn't enough, as long as the rules are actually enforced and the people ticking that box while underage are punished appropriately. Instead of denying access to all unless proven above a certain age.
I just don't buy that. I think it is perfectly feasible to mandate device makers support parental controls that include content maturity settings. In many ways that is easier than requiring every web site in the world to comply with age verification.
Parents should have the tools to protect their children, the providers should have those tools in place. But those that are dealing the goods as also heavily invested in trying to maximize engagement and so they do not really work to hard on providing those tools.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49205469
> you know, i feel like the "it's the parents' responsibility" comments that turn up on submissions like this often tend towards phrasing like "the parents" rather than "with my children i ..."
if you’ve had kids maybe you’d like to share with the class exactly how you go about doing exactly what you’re describing?
if not, maybe let parents figure out how to parent rather than expecting them to be perfect for everyone else’s benefit.
Only if you can figure it out without building a dystopia for everyone else.
That can only work if parents as an interest group stop bothering the rest of us with the very 'think of the children' nonsense that spawned this thread. If you are inventing laws that affect us, we should also have a say.
I need to remember this one, thanks!
The only way parents can try to protect their kids from the world is to keep them isolated, homeschooled, or in some kind of commune or cult. Which unfortunately is not uncommon in the US.
> let parents figure out how to parent
While I agree, I also think there's a role in society to help parents on how to parent, via e.g. education and awareness. Every generation brings new unknowns, like what kids can do in Roblox or how they can browse the internet on their smart fridge, and it's unreasonable to assume every parent knows all of that.
direct experience beats reasoning which beats testimony, if you want something else ponder.
> While I agree, I also think there's a role in society to help parents on how to parent, via e.g. education and awareness.
i was quite blunt and one sided in my previous as it was more about the HN “vibes” than actual parenting.
there is definitely more nuance to the whole topic of parenting!
The problem is, agreement on those tools is hard to find.
"I want to be able to pen my kid into a digital walled garden, so that they cannot see $bad stuff until the right age"
that seems normal right? nothing contraversial.
The issue is, implementing that is really fucking hard. For mobile phones, largely thats already been done in the UK. You need to opt out of the nanny proxy before you can get porn and reddit.
The issue is, as soon as you get on the wifi, all of those controls disappear. So how do you stop that? if you're an idiot (and the person leading the OSA was an idiot) you do what the UK did. You put in legal tools to "age gate" the internet _at source_ rather than at delivery (like mobile phones)
so yes give people the tool, but if you're not giving techincal guidance, and just saying NO NO NO NO, OSA is what you get.
Parents shouldn't buy smart phone to kids, period. There are 0 reasons kid of say 15 or lower should have one instead of dumb phone (or new commodore one with google maps and whatsapp but no browser or apps), in same way we don't allow cigarettes or alcohol to be given or sold to them. Helicopter control freak parents can go to hell, their mental issues shouldn't be messing their kid's lives. But to claim parents have 100% responsibility could work only if kids spend 100% of the time with them.
At some point your kid is going to move out or you will die and then you will have even less influence. School is a test for that.
I frequently see this rhetoric (parents should look after their kids) from naive people on the internet that clearly don't have kids of their own (or don't have teenagers, or don't live or let their kids live free, etc)