sylver_dragon comments on 'There's no reason for Discord to comply in advance' with social media age verification laws instead of 'fighting for their users' says EFF expert

[–] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It seems like any effort to protect children is hated.
They say this won’t protect children, but they offer no alternative solutions that would.

The second statement is why the first one exists. None of this is about protecting children, it's all about data gathering and monitoring people. They don't give a fuck about children. But the idea that they can have a government enforced reason to collect personal data, be able to reliably tie that to accounts and then use that data to sell targeted marketing, that's something they will bend over backwards for.

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[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 9 points 9 months ago

This is why there is a meme about "won't someone think of the children," which is most often aimed at right-wing actions. They use the idea of helping to further causes that do the opposite.

It's not just the right. Look way back to the Tipper Gore push for censorship of rock music. The advocates of free speech came out then to show why blocking speech doesn't work and ends up hurting more than it could ever help. For those too young to remember or who haven't heard about it, you ought to look into the Congressional hearings videos. Especially where they asked John Denver to speak on behalf of the censorship move, and were shocked when he was fully against it.