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Comment by zmmmmm | Hacker News Reader

the weird thing about it all is that age is a bad proxy in the first place for a child's level of safety in interacting with online content. Some kids are super mature at 11 and others still need protection at 16. For some reason the world has fixated on "years alive" as a perfect measure of vulnerability and now are doggedly pursuing it.

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.

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> others still need protection at 16

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.

It's the same principle as the age of consent. It'll always be arbitrary, but that's still better than not having a limit at all.

I agree that something has to be done about kids on socials. But perhaps we can start with not punishing anyone by default and punishing offenders instead.

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 don't think anyone believes that age is a perfect proxy. Just that it is good enough, and that any better solution is either much more difficult or impossible.

> any better solution is either much more difficult or impossible.

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.

Arguably, all online content should be moderated - just because I'm 40 doesn't mean I want to come across decapitations and the like.

This is an area I hope AI will help. A locally running AI (of my choosing) will filter the crap online - Ads and beheadings.

Under the DAAA the parent can just lie about the child's age in the settings.

This is explicitly allowed and supported in the bill btw. It's not a workaround.

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