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New US Congress bill proposal requires all operating system providers to verify ages (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/privacy@programming.dev
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[–] 79 points 6 months ago* (17 children)

This appears to be part of the "Parents Decide Act"

Sure would be nice if parents would decide to parent their own kids instead of making it everyone else's problem.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (14 children)

    And of they can't, because they can't. Every parent is not the ideal parent and will never be, heck there's parents who are retarded (in the literal sense).

    But lets say it's the average tech illiterate parent, who thinks computers are a gaming machine for kids. Imagine the amount of social engineering and how the marketing departments of companies trying to make kids addicted to their platform. The industries are pouring trillions of dollars in marketing, are you confident that regular parents have a chance of competing with them?

    i'm in no way of supporting this because it's done for other nefarious reason, just commenting on the troupe that parents is responsible for their own kids. We can say that all day, but the reality is that they don't know what impact it has on their kids mental health and how damaging short term dopamine addiction is for their children. Society is still responsible to help parents navigate healthy behavior for their children.

    Tbh if children was the concern of this law, then you would allow parents to sue tiktok and other platforms that have made their children addicted to the platform. You should also be able to sue influencers for promoting stuff to children (they know the age of their userbase).

    Still parenting is hard, especially when you are competing with phds in behavioral science or psychologists that help these platforms design their addiction mechanism.

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  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    "Parenting is hard" doesn't take the responsibility away from parents to actually parent their kids and to be aware of what their kids are doing online. I'm not saying everyone will magically start doing that, or that we should expect them to. I'm saying it's not the government's job to close that gap. The government doesn't know what's best for kids. It's extremely self evident in the whole age verification push itself. Completely tech illiterate boomers making flawed assumptions about how to handle a situation, and destroying everyone's privacy in the process. They don't get to do that just because the US is full of idiots who don't know how to be parents.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    This commenter is pointing out that - definitionally - most parents lack what they need to mount an effective defense or even understand one is needed, because of how the deck is stacked. It isn't random uninvolved people making the tech addictive and harmful, (contrasting with parents as a group) - it's roughly the people best on the planet at making those things damaging, who are doing so.

    Commenter is not inviting government overreach, but lamenting that every parent is being asked to defend against this most pernicious force, and it's unrealistic to expect them to succeed. As we clearly see, they don't succeed, they lose! State of mental development for kids in the US for example is in absolute shambles.

    Doesn't seem very controversial at all, kind of just an obvious observation tbh.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Ok, but what's the solution then? Certainly not the age verification pushes we have seen recently. The tech itself should be regulated, not the users.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago*

    The solution is simple but there's not enough political motivation to do anything, there is more incentive to do bare minimum. regulate marketing on the internet, enact laws that prohibits intrusive marketing ad platforms.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Very difficult question.

    For the record, I am extremely hostile to government privacy violations in the name of "protecting children", which the approach under discussion clearly is. We all agree about that.

    I don't have great solutions, but none of mine revolve around shaming parents or insisting they become magically aware of information they lack (and may be flat out unable to really comprehend). That's not to say you were doing that.

    Community wise we can do a lot more educating about the harms. Legislatively and technologically, zero trust indications allowing specific categories of content - very coarse categories and simple binary "allowed / not allowed" - nothing to do with age or PII - would be approaches worth considering.

    But fundamentally doing these things wrong is at least as harmful as leaving parents to solo the task. I'd prefer it be up to the ill-equipped and wildly varying parents than to anything centralized unless the centralized approach has verifiable transparency and all the right goals and approaches (a pipe dream). But if nothing else we should require our education and government systems to take a clear stance about educating re: harms.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    I understand what your trying to say, but realize we have probably vast amount of laws today that only exist to protect people and children on the same basis i'm arguing.

    Think about anything that is harmful and illegal, we can say well, you as a person should know that you shouldn't eat moldy meat, so why do we need laws for selling moldy meat. (bad example, but you can probably find a better one)

    Also reflect about the legal process and how do they compare. For example if you start a beer brand and market towards minors via different ways ( or another product that is definitely illegal), vs you own huge social platform which you market towards kids, but you platform has ads or content that is illegal to market in traditional media. I would guess that your beer company would automatically end up in court via existing court processes, and the social media platform might be sued by private citizens and if they are lucky they might settle out of court.

    And why is that? Why do we have a bunch of protection laws for simpler things, that I would consider is easier for a parent to understand and educate their children about and say we as a society have to take the responsibility to ensure that kids or grownups have vast amount of protection.

    if we expect parents to SOLE responsibility for what their kids are doing online and what they are subjected to, then why would we not require the same for other things that are illegal today, alcohol tobacco, driving a car, not wearing seatbelt etc..

    How much money do we spend to educate people on drugs and alcohol harms, compared to harms of internet?

    Personal opinion, we have all been lobbied that platforms don't have same responsibilities to ensure that they benefit society. our opinions don't come out of the thin air, they spend huge (billions of billion world over) amount of money to shape laws and public opinion, this is more or less a fact.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (7 children)

    Tbh if children was the concern of this law, then you would allow parents to sue tiktok and other platforms that have made their children addicted to the platform.

    Already happening

    You should also be able to sue influencers for promoting stuff to children (they know the age of their userbase).

    Absolutely yes.

    We can say that all day, but the reality is that they don't know what impact it has on their kids mental health and how damaging short term dopamine addiction is for their children.

    We absolutely do know. Which is why we stopped giving cocaine and heroin to kids.

    But lets say it's the average tech illiterate parent, who thinks computers are a gaming machine for kids.

    Yeah... Are you seriously advocating that parental responsibility shouldn't be a thing? If someone is that stupid, they shouldn't have a kid. And yes. That's epic levels of stupid.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (6 children)

    Are you seriously advocating that parental responsibility shouldn't be a thing?

    Very clearly not advocating that, what an uncharitable read.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    I don't think it's uncharitable at all. That sounds entirely like it's saying parents shouldn't be held responsible for knowing about the things they buy their children.

    If anyone buys their kid a phone/tablet/computer and gives them unfettered access to the Internet because they think it's "just a gaming machine" is irresponsible.

    I'm not saying a parent should, or could deny their kid access, but you need to AT THE BARE MINIMUM understand what you are putting in that kid's hands.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    It is very uncharitable, because you are cherry-picking things, I cant not write the complexity of life in a post. Your making up stuff that I havent stated.

    And poeple who shouldn't have kids do have kids, that is reality. And even if you ave parents that are not the ideal parent, do you think kids should suffer for that. Because in the real world we do laws that are only ment to protect people from stuff that is harmful.

    So you are advokating that alcohol should not have legal age limit, because parents are responsible for their kids? Seatbelts why have laws for that, drugs, hey because you as a person and kid, parent should know it's bad.

    Why even have school be mandatory, parents are responsible to teach their kids how to read and write (because that has worked great right).

    this is how you argue.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Quite the strawman you have there.

    You are creating things I didn't say to argue against, like saying I created a strawman.

    I cherry picked nothing. You specifically said that there is nothing parents can do because people much smarter than them are working against them

    Actual quotes by you

    are you confident that regular parents have a chance of competing with them

    This is very much a throw your hands up in the air comment

    just commenting on the troupe that parents is responsible for their own kids

    Calling the expectation that parents actually parent their kid is a trope

    the reality is that they don't know what impact it has on their kids mental health and how damaging short term dopamine addiction is for their children

    As I pointed out to refute this, we indeed do know what dopamine addiction does to children

    Still parenting is hard, especially when you are competing with phds in behavioral science or psychologists that help these platforms design their addiction mechanism.

    Again. This is throwing your hands up in the air. It more or less says, I can't properly parent my kid because people smarter than me are working against me.

    Not understanding the tech is an excuse. You can take classes. Watch videos. Join a parent group. Find people who do understand the tech. But throwing your hands up and saying you will rely on the government, is abdication of responsibility because for every law passed, the assholes will pay some governmental stooge to build in 3 loopholes and things are no better.

    These laws you want are just D.A.R.E. 2.0 and they'll work just as well.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    How many adults can say they understand what devices they put in their own hands? Practically none.

    I'm merely pointing out the huge difficulty here, these things are engineered to manipulate us. It's not as simple as "well, parents should simply know what to do".

    Your read was uncharitable cuz the comment you replied to directly said they "in no way support this", and was written from the very first premise as being ABOUT parents who DO NOT or CAN NOT understand the danger you go on to strawman and bitch about.

    Again - your reading was uncharitable, it did not try to take the commenters actual point of view, it simply ranted about what you felt like talking about, that they never said.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    I think your reading of my reading is far more uncharitable than anything I said.

    Double true given that I am not the only responder who got the same impression from that post.

    The whole post is an abdication of parental responsibility because people smarter than them are victimizing their children.

    There are steps a parent can take. Even something as simple as talking to your kids about not believing bullshit just because of social media. Teaching them critical thinking skills. Teaching them to look for a motive in any message. Teaching them that it's a trap designed to get them addicted.

    But instead, "are you confident that regular parents have a chance of competing with them".

    It doesn't fucking matter. You have to try, but just throwing your hands up is not even remotely helpful.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    I love it how irresponsible people always make it harder for the rest of us. You know who I'm talking about. Yes, the fucking rich that's who. They don't pay taxes on their wealth and barely do on their income. All that money is missing to educate adults and children alike.

    If adults had the time to be educated and to educate children, there wouldn't be such a stupid bill. There aren't enough teachers, parents dont earn enough to take the time to learn about technology, and children go to underfunded schools lacking teachers who have the time and pay to learn about this stuff and teach it to kids.

    The rich are the source of all the problems here.

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