When I was 8, I remember being bored and curious and touching a lot of parents stuff... phones... wallets... legal documents...

Most parents don't put their stuff in safes...

Like... THE WALLET IS RIGHT THERE... I COULD JUST GRAB IT!

If they had age verification stuff back then... I could've just... quickly snap a pic of their ID and just YOLO it...

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[–] 39 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Most age verification providers also require video with the person's face doing specific movements, which is then matched with the ID, so stealing an ID probably wouldn't be enough.

Not that it'll stop kids from trying, and sending their parent's ID to some random sketchy company without their knowledge anyways.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Ok. AI of their dads face, doing those movements.

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  • [–] 121 points 7 months ago (15 children)

    Anyway it’s not about Age Verification, it’s about control, coercitive control. You go to an environmental manifestation and your dad get a call, that type of thing

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  • [+] -9 points 7 months ago (14 children)

    Conspiracy brain.

    Read the debate about age-verification in the places where it's been implemented.

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  • [+] 9 points 7 months ago (14 children)
  • [+] -9 points 7 months ago (13 children)

    No it isn't. No Labour MP (for example) put forward that argument in favour of it when it was implemented in the UK. The law in the UK is popular, because porn use among children is seen as a problem.

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  • [+] 8 points 7 months ago (13 children)
  • [–] -2 points 7 months ago (11 children)

    I understand this argument with US politicians, and especially the Republicans, who can all be assumed to be in the pocket of big business, but I don't think you've gone through any of the UK politicians in support of this to see what their business connections are, never mind the majority of them. For example, pulling the first MP I found speaking in favour of age verification on Hansard, what makes you think Iqbal Mohamed is in this for the benefit of data brokers? (He's not a Labour MP, I should say) Have you ever heard of him before today? What about Lewis Atkinson, who also supports age verification? His job before politics was in the NHS.

    There is this extreme cognitive dissonance about this debate, where people are unable to deny the obvious truth that, unlike us, most people are in favour of age-verification regulations, yet insist that this simply does not feature in the motivations of politicians in implementing such regulations.

    I'm not a troll. I'm not naïve. But I am also not so idiotically cynical as to believe that the motivations of politicians are wholly based on servitude to business, wholly divorced from the motivations of the general public even when those motivations align.

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

    The law does nothing but push adults and underage users to unregulated platforms. They (the general public and the politicians) don't understand the internet. You don't understand the internet if you think this accomplishes anything. The only way for children to be safe on the internet is by educating their parents.

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  • [–] -4 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    This is binary thinking and is false. The law does do something by putting up an obstacle to seeing porn. Hundreds of thousands of children are seeing porn by accident, way before they are ready, not because they're horny little teenagers. Yes, those who are highly motivated will find it, but you should not be this absolute.

    The cost of this law in privacy violation is not worth the benefit it brings to children. But it still does bring a benefit, and you're unlikely to convince anyone if you can't see where they're coming from on that.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    it still does bring a benefit

    If you think it's a benefit, pushing everyone to use less moderated platforms then sure. You clearly don't understand the internet. If you click a link and are exprected to show a video with your ID and face visible, what do you do? I say it is extremely dangerous and criminal for a government to demand this from their citizens. So many people will have their identity stolen, I guarantee it, it's already happening and will get much worse. https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/25-percent-of-kids-will-face-identity-theft-before-turning-18-age-verification-laws-will-make-this-worse/

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  • [–] -2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    This isn't really about the internet; it's about human psychology. If you make something more difficult, fewer people will do it. Especially people who are doing it by accident. Kids aren't going out and accidentally downloading a VPN client.

    I made it clear that I don't think it's a benefit overall

    If you click a link and are exprected to show a video with your ID and face visible, what do you do? I say it is extremely dangerous and criminal for a government to demand this from their citizens.

    Ever applied for a bank account online? I am certainly used to handing over identifiable information. I do it carefully.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    If you make something more difficult, fewer people will do it.

    Yes, this is the Chilling effect, and it's not a good thing. You don't need a VPN to watch porn online without ID verification, not even in the UK. I'm sure the great UK firewall will come eventually tho.

    Ever applied for a bank account online?

    Yes, I went to my local post office and showed them my ID, I'd never send my ID and face over video. This applies only to banks, what if a porn site asks you (and you want to visit it)? If you don't want to do it, your freedom is taken away from you.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    Chilling effect has a different connotation. This is a directly desired effect.

    Do you disagree that it's harmful for young children to see pornography and the distorted view it presents of sex and especially of women? If it were just a question of chilling adults who want to look at porn, rather than of privacy violation, it'd be an acceptable price to pay. For example, if they used zero-knowledge proofs, that'd be completely fine.

    I, as an adult who wants to visit a site, circumvent such a requirement. As a child who does not, I obviously would not.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    circumvent such requirement

    Yes, and you'd probably do this by using unregulated sites, like many impacted by the UK law https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/unregulated-sites-porn-uk-age-verification-b2895231.html

    A child with unregulated access to the internet will always see content not appropriate for them. Personally i'm much more concerned about violent and morbid content than porn. You'd never see that censored because it's part of the news and plastered all over the internet.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago*

    Always? Bullshit.

    There's the black and white thinking again. How often have you ended up looking at an unregulated adult site by accident? How much effort have you had to put in to find them over finding regulated ones?

    Even among adults the substitution isn't perfect, as the article says. Even more so for children, who aren't, on average, as motivated nor as knowledgeable.

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  • [+] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I think their motivations do matter. In part because they're the motivations of the general public in support of this, so it is those opinions that need to be swayed.

    The strategy is completely different if this came about due to payoffs by big tech versus if it has real grassroots support!

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    In the US, politicians are rarely in on the schemes themselves, they get money more indirectly from lobbyists, superPACs, or insider trading. Are politicians in the UK not able to profit from their votes?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    It is far more difficult. Campaign finance is far more restricted, and it's in the news if the regulator finds someone broke the rules.

    The biggest problem is the revolving door, as it's hard to prove. That definitely still exists, but you can see by where politicians do end up after political life that most are not in such a scheme.

    As in the US, direct money for votes schemes basically don't happen as they're too easy to detect and too obviously corrupt even to the morons in the party base. There have been some recent scandals about people being paid to give speeches on certain topics. Notably, these have all been right wing politicians, but the online safety act has cross-party support.

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  • [–] 32 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    Yes. None of these laws prevent children from viewing porn or whatever. It just forces them to do this or go to unregulated sides.

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  • [–] 23 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    As long as the platform can pretend there are no children it doesn’t need to provide safety features for them. Thats what this is about.

    Adults can be exploited more freely and legally. As a bonus they are getting more personal information of having you provide proof that you are of exploitable age.

    That kids will fake it will be blamed on the parents and not them.

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  • [–] 19 points 7 months ago*

    If a website requires a photo of a person ID or something like a drivers license, this is not "age verification", it's "identity verification".

    That leads down a whole other rabbit hole of being tracked online.

    Also if something like a website or pc starts asking me to upload documents with personal identifiable information on it (that not related to banking, healthcare, or a government service, I will straight up stop using it and block at my network level.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago

    I'd just buy my child a VPN to avoid this shit.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    100% this.

    There's a smart mart where I grew up that was built in the late 90s. https://www.yelp.com/biz/smartmart-memphis-2

    Basically what it sounds like. A fully automated neighborhood convenience store before automation was really a common thing. Actually very similar in appearance and function to the automated Carl's JR. in Idiocracy.

    When I was in highschool my friend's mom used to just give her ID and send her down to the smart mart to "buy my smokes." That was 20 years ago, but I'm really not sure how tf it would be any different with this tech?

    I think they even had some kind of early frt that was supposed to scan the face of the purchaser and match it to the id. Funny thing about genetics, you often share similar facial features with the person who gave birth to you.

    Also, this is a bit of a tangential point, but even if you weren't trying to "abuse" the automated system's safety features, there were still unintentional glitches that resulted in kids being exposed to things they weren't supposed to be exposed to. Like when I was 16, I was bored and went to smart mart one night to get a drink. Somehow ended up receiving a free pack of zigzags with my Yoohoo.

    The network state tech already glitches all the fucking time. They've repeatedly exposed sensitive government data and put all of us at risk of identity theft while claiming to have some kind of technocratic elite status that makes them qualified to lead America and do the stupid shit they keep on doing. This age verification bullshit is just the latest very poorly disguised invasion of privacy in the name of safety, and it is so fucking obvious nothing good will come of this.

    In reality, they don't know wtf they're doing other than gaining more control that will enable further exploitation. And it's not even like we have a say in whether we choose to use the enshitified tech. They're forcing it on us. Idiocracy has become mandatory reality thanks to the nanny network state full of "libertarians" who despise regulations, until it comes to regulating the private lives of citizens.

    Since it's their shitty private monopoly being shoved down our throats, still paid for with our tax dollars but not government run in the traditional sense, it can't possibly be oppression, and we should thank these technocratic experts for steering us into the fucking ground.

    And that's not even taking into consideration how creepy and concerning it should be to anyone with two fucking brain cells, that we're obviously enabling a network of wealthy pedophiles, (who have repeatedly proved themselves to be above justice), to have the ability to just create a database of children across the U.S. that they will then be able to track and locate every time they use a device or walk past a surveillance camera with live FRT. What a fucking nightmare.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    The US federal courts had an interesting opinion there: parents may always allow their children to access protected speech. Even with sex-related materials, the Supreme Court has stated

    the prohibition against sales to minors does not bar parents who so desire from purchasing the magazines for their children.

    They regarded as constitutionally defective laws that impose a single standard of public morality. Instead, they'd allow laws that "support the right of parents to deal with the morals of their children as they see fit". Laws that take away parental control are also impermissible.

    “It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.” Prince v. Massachusetts, supra, at 166.

    In another decision, they regard & defend parental responsibility & discretion in leaving access open to children, and they find measures "enterprising and disobedient" children can circumvent preferable over unacceptable alternatives.

    The Commonwealth argues that central blocking would not fulfill the state’s compelling interest as effectively as the access number does because minors with phone lines could request unblocking or could gain access to unblocked phones. It also argues that a parent who chooses to unblock the home’s phone to gain access to sexually explicit material for himself or herself thereby places dial-a-porn phone service within the reach of minors with access to that phone. In this respect, the decision a parent must make is comparable to whether to keep sexually explicit books on the shelf or subscribe to adult magazines. No constitutional principle is implicated. The responsibility for making such choices is where our society has traditionally placed it — on the shoulders of the parent. See Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 73-74, 103 S.Ct. 2875, 2883-84, 77 L.Ed.2d 469 (1983) (parental discretion controlling access to unsolicited contraceptive advertisements in the home is the preferred method of dealing with such material).

    Even with parental control, the Commonwealth is undoubtedly correct that there will be some minors who will find access to unblocked phones if they are determined to do so. As the Supreme Court noted in Sable, “[i]t may well be that there is no fail-safe method of guaranteeing that never will a minor be able to access the dial-a-porn system.” 109 S.Ct. at 2838. Nonetheless, the Court did not deem the desire to prevent “a few of the most enterprising and disobedient young people,” id., from securing access to such messages to be adequate justification for a statutory provision that had “the invalid effect of limiting the content of adult telephone conversations to that which is suitable for children.” Id. at 2839. We hold that because the means used, requirement of an access code, substantially burdens the First Amendment right of adults to access to protected materials and is not the least restrictive alternative to achieve the compelling end sought, the statute cannot survive the constitutional attack.

    So, according to them, presenting such content to children ought to be left up to their parents, and laws shouldn't infringe on their right to do that.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    I grew up in Italian-canadian households, so even as a little kid I got diluted wine at meals. As a teen I thought it was illegal so didn’t talk about it, then one day had a hotel room tossed by narcs who left empty handed yet left all the beer in the tub that we were obviously all drinking… only one of us was drinking age, and the room was in their name, so the narcs never even commented on it. In your home, in B.C. anyway, you have discretion about what the kids consume, as long as it isn’t abuse.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    It's going to create a cottage industry of virtual humans. They completely exist on paper, but not in real life.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Then the republicans will use those fake humans to vote for them, while accusing the democrats of doing just that.

    Meanwhile the democrats aren't doing that, because they don't understand technology enough to even try. But they'll still regulate industries they don't understand.

    And republicans will still use all of this to their advantage and push for Orwellian policies.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    Can even just find a picture of a random ID card. Maybe mock one up in Photoshop. Like, what's actually being fucking verified? That it's a picture with a human face? I mean, if it's ID or facescan, those facescan shits have already been tricked with images of video game characters.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago

    "Well, Mr. Smith... I see here that your son used your ID to access illicit materials on the internet. Did you not think to secure it? You realize you're criminally liable for allowing a minor to access inappropriate material? And I see you were at the government protest last week... such a poor role model you are, Mr. Smith..."

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    This is what they are OK with. As long as responsibility is out of their hands in any legal sense instead of actual solutions that don't undermine privacy. They are OK with it.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago

    It's not even this. It never had anything to do with responsibility, or child safety, etc. It has everything to do with tracking users which makes collected information more valuable to data brokers. Secondly, it let's them justify advertisement fees in the age where where some traffic is from AI agents.

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

    Don't worry. Over the coming years they will find all the loopholes and tricks and close them off one by one until we're all securely tagged with electronic brain implants that can detect when you're thinking about lying about your exact age.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    With the brain implants, they can just see how many years worth of memories you have.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Don't worry. They would never use the brain implants to inspect your other thoughts and memories. They are only there to protect the children.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    "Mom, why did hit me?" cries

    "What, no honey I didn't hit you." presses button on smartphone app

    "You fell, remember?"

    "Oh yea, I fell. I love you mom."


    Honestly I wonder if there is hidden trauma that I forgot because my mom had some brainwashing sci fi tech that deleted my memories...

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    The sci fi tech is built into your brain. My wife doesn't remember anything from the 3 years or so that she was being abused.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 7 months ago

    I'm more worried about losing the memories I have right now this moment.

    Like... what if future me decides to go no contact...

    Then mom find a sketchy mad scientist to kidnap me then brainwash me

    Then me, not having the memories of all those abusive moments, I'd go back and wanna talk to her again?

    I don't even know if I am really who I am anymore...

    Are those memories of us spending time together even real? Is the memories of cuddling ever real? Was love ever real?

    Why do I have this craving for her affection? Even while I'm so anxious and afraid of her?

    What the fuck is happening in my brain?

    Aaaaaahhhh

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    reminder that South korea has been doing this shit with KSSN for games. anybody thinking IDs would stip kids is kidding themselves.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago*

    I have been saying this for about a decade now

    The only thing requiring government IDs online will accomplish is the creation of a market for immaculate fake IDs. That market will be fully satisfied.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago

    excuse me i have a little class i'm using norman reedus and death stranding

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago
    [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    None of the additional measures to verify age remove the need for “parents to parent.” This isn’t an either or situation. It’s an all of the above situation.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    But what if the age verification system asks for your video verification + legal documentation? Like many platforms do these days? They need you to frame up your face in on-screen cutout and then provide your documents, then it goes through a review process.

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  • [+] 5 points 7 months ago (13 children)
  • [–] 24 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Actually, it's been proven to be a very ineffective deterrent in child psychology studies. It just teaches them to not do it when your actively present and try even harder to not get caught.

    Plus the lifelong psychological scars of being assaulted by a figure you trusted to keep you safe from harm but those are a separate topic.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago

    IF they find out.

    My mom kept her purse by the door, mostly, not in her bedroom. If age verification had been an issue, I would have sneaked downstairs at night, slipped out her DL, taken a photo, and registered on whatever sites I needed.

    If they sent some sort of verification to her email, I'd just log in, answer it, and delete the email. Of course I know her passwords, I showed her how to do it, and I'm always fixing some dumb thing she did.

    Any kid is going to figure this out faster than me.

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

    How would they find out if you put it back immediately after using?

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  • [+] -4 points 7 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    True, but they can tell when their card is put back in the wrong pocket, or upside down, or other tiny clues that hint of someone messing with their stuff. Kids sometimes think parents know more than they do, or “have eyes in the back of their head,” simply because kids don’t pay attention to the same details their parents might. Their parents can deduce what happened from clues, clues that the kids don’t realize they left.

    A very careful child might get away with it, but if their parents are equally careful they’ll probably notice something is amiss. I guess it all comes down to “your mileage may vary.”

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Back when i was that young there was nothing to take a snap with, cameras back then had to develop film...

    Not that we had a computer or internet at that time

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (2 children)

    It's more about a difficulty barrier.

    You could grab your Dad's ID, you could AI his face, his voice, even his writing style. But if that's too inconvenient/finicky for 90% of the population, that's "good enough" for the liability escape/coercive control the system is intended to create.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Bruh kids these days manage to steal a teacher's login to access the school wifi. Then they also have VPNs to bypass the firewall. They be playing video games in the school lunchroom lmfao. I seen it.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago*

    Kids these days? I remember putting a IRC/Runescape combo program on a flash drive so I could play Runescape with my guild during computer class 20 years ago. I have no idea why it got around the network restrictions, but it did.

    Edit: The after school computer club turned into a Wolfenstein LAN party after somebody got on the teacher's account and put a pirated installer on the shared drive.

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  • [–] -2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Well, hopefully the parents are there to stop it ...

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Cant stop it when you're asleep...

    wakes up in the middle of the night and tip-toe to where the wallet is... 😈

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    There was a constant fight between my mum and my brother and me, when we got banned from playing N64. Because we would try to find where she hid it and play while she was at work (and just put it back before she got home). But once she caught on to us it wasn't that hard to outsmart us ... I think she just put it in the car and to work at some point.

    I guess these days you it's more about generally controlling how much internet access your kid has. And 8 year old really shouldn't have unrestricted access to the internet in the first place. They shouldn't even be in a position where they have to get around an website-based age check.

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