Comment on System76 on Age Verification Laws
ulu_mulu@lemmy.zip 16 hours agoIts a local, safe option for reducing child access to things they shouldn’t access.
With the proposed measures in place, any app can know exactly which devices children are using, something noone can do now.
When you implement a feature, there’s no way in the world you can guarantee only “good people” can use it, and malicious individuals are way more interested in getting info about children than anyone else.
That doesn’t protect children, it puts them even in more danger than they are now.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
I mean, from my understanding, this would be both hyper-illegal and extremely impractical. You’d need to have a large enough site to lure users in, and collect identitying information and republish it, but can’t draw enough attention to become a target for data poisoning (given that this flag is freely set by the user) or for law enforcement. It seems like this would be unlikely enough that the benifit gained from having this flag would far outweigh the risks, esspecially in the modern, hyper-corporate internet.
makeitwonderful@lemmy.today 15 hours ago
Individual sites will have their data leaked and aggregated by data brokers. Those data brokers both sell the aggregated data and experience data leaks themselves. The data keeps moving from actor to actor while the aggregation is continued until eventually finding it’s way into a public repo or security researcher data sets.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
This is a compelling argument, but do you think its really a significant attack vector? Its already illegal to share or leak, even unintentionally this data, and from my understanding, if you chose to set your age to a lower bracket via this process, companies sharing (also collecting? Currently unclear on this.) this data would also break CCPA and possibly COPPA, and from my understanding, the companies are required to provide additional data privacy measures under California Civil Code.
Yes, these laws will be broken, but will it be on a significant enough scale, and with reliable enough information to be worth-while? Like, since this bans the use of data from those who set their age low, wouldn’t this likely reduce the data collection pool overall, not to mention inventiving adults to poison this data. For those who do illegally collect this data anyway, is it that much of an advantage compared to just asking the user’s age upon reaching the site as most sites currently do? Beyond that, when these sites operating illegally do leak their data, will that data be a realistic attack vector? Like I said to another commenter, collating data in this way seems extremely impractical and unreliable for predators. Wouldn’t those who want to seek out children just go to existing spaces where they can connect directly like Roblox or Discord?
ulu_mulu@lemmy.zip 15 hours ago
Does that ever stopped criminals before?
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
Yes, in that they can be stopped if noticed. Police are incompetent, but if something is that bad, and draws enough attention, the person will generally be arrested.
Yes, all the time. Thats why safes, passwords and similar exist. Or, more relevant in this case, the adage that the best way to avoid a break-in is to be a less appealing target than your neighbors. Roblox, Minecraft, Discord, and other platforms where kids gather and regularly self-identify are still going to exist, and they are far safer and far more appealing for targetted abuse of children. On the other hand, setting up a public website/app and trying to lure children to it is expensive, risky, and unlikely to succeed on the modern internet.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Right, when has any website become a platform where kids gather and regularly self-identify?
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
There is no benefit.
You can’t glibly assert that people can just lie, so it’s not a big deal - and then pretend it’ll do the thing it’s for. Which again, is a bad idea anyway, which this approach would not achieve, if it even worked. It’s fractally stupid. It is dangerous bullshit, at every scale.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
This is obvious hyperbole is you know it. Kids are stupid and vulnerable, and measures to protect them aren’t useless. That said, I am open to the idea that this law isn’t worth the cost. Basically every other age verification law (esspecially those based on use ID or AI) is very clearly not. I just haven’t seen a compelling argument as to why this one isn’t.
Okay, but why? You keep repeating that its dangerous, limits freedoms, and causes privacy issues, but so far, the only argument I’ve seen is that it can help kids identity themselves, but given that its handled locally and is unreliable, I don’t see this being usable on any meaningful scale. Setting up a, “free candy” website or app is going to be way less effective and way more dangerous than just creating a Roblox account. Is there something I’m missing?
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Companies shouldn’t even be allowed to demand more than a username and password, on any machine I could pick up and throw. Making anything beyond that a legal requirement is intolerable, in itself. My age is not this object’s business. It sure isn’t this website’s business.
Stop excusing these intrusions against adult life, for the sake of children who will bypass them anyway. You know they will. You use the flimsiness of this alleged protection as an excuse for enabling it. There is literally no benefit if it doesn’t fucking work. Even pretending the immediate goal is something you should want - this won’t do that.