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It's much easier to give individual users control over their own device than to give a centralized authority control over what happens on everyone's device over the Internet. Local user-controlled toggles are just easier to implement.

All parental moderation mechanisms can and should be implemented as opt-in on-device settings. What governments need to do is pressure companies to implement those on-device settings. And what we can do as open-source developers is beat them to the punch. Each parent will decide whether or not to use them. Some people will, some won't. It's not Bob's responsibility to parent Charlie's children. Bob and Charlie must parent their own children.

To the people arguing that parents are too dumb to control their children's tech usage because they themselves are tech-illiterate: millennia ago, we invented this new thing called fire. Most people were also "too dumb" to keep their children away from the shiny flames. People didn't know what it was or how dangerous it could be. So the tribe leader (who, by the way, gropes your children) proposed a solution: centralize control of all the fire. Only the tribe leader gets to use it to cook. Everyone else just needs to listen to him. Remember, it's all for you and your children's safety.

2 comments

> we invented this new thing called fire [...] So the tribe leader (who, by the way, gropes your children) proposed a solution: centralize control of all the fire

Of all the things, a "save-the-children prolegomena to the Prometheus myth" certainly wasn't on my bingo card today. So thank you for that, but I'm not aware of any reports of fire-keeping in the way you've described. Societies and religions do have sacred traditions related to fire (like Zoroastrians) but that doesn't come with restrictions on practical use AFAIK.

I'll spell it out for you since you can't read between the lines. It's not actually about fire-keeping in tribes to protect children. It's about certain people (governments, corporations, organizations) wanting control over the Internet and everyone's digital communications. They don't want a free marketplace of ideas and uncensored channels of communication because their propaganda narratives would not survive.

The tribe leader refers to certain rich and powerful folks that have infiltrated governments and are running some of the largest businesses.

The fire refers to instant communication over the Internet. This relatively new technology has the potential to paralyze old power structures and reshape civilization. It's understandable why governments et al are panicking. They know their authority will wane under global free speech unless they do something.

Am I the only one that is repeatedly amused at how many smart people are just caving to making this about parents/children at all?

We've literally watched things unfold in real time out in the open in the last year I don't know how much more obvious it could be that child-protections are the bad-faith excuse the powers that be are using here. Combined with their control of broadcasting/social media, it's the very thing they're pushing narratives in lockstep over. All this to effectively tie online identities to real people. Quick and easy digital profiles/analytics on anyone, full reads on chat history assessments of idealogies/political affiliations/online activities at scale, that's all this ever was and I _know_ hackernews is smart enough to see that writing on the wall. Ofc porn sites were targeted first with legislation like this, pornography has always been a low-hanging fruit to run a smear campaign on political/idealogical dissidents. It wasn't enough, they want all platform activity in the datasets.

I can't help but feel like the longer we debate the merits of good parenting, the faster we're just going to speedrun losing the plot entirely. I think it goes without saying that no shit good parenting should be at play, but this is hardly even about that and I don't know why people take the time of day. It's become reddit-caliber discussion and everyone's just chasing the high of talking about how _they_ would parent in any given scenario, and such discussion does literally nothing to assess/respond to the realities in front of us. In case I'm not being clear, talking about how correct-parenting should be used in lieu of online verification laws is going to do literally nothing to stop this type of legislation from continually taking over. It's not like these discussions and ideas are going to get distilled into the dissent on the congressional floors that vote on these laws. It is in it's own way a slice of culture war that has permeated into the nerd-sphere.

I make this argument to neutralize the "protect the children" excuse and also delegitimize the age verification "solution" by pointing out that on-device settings are more effective and easier to implement yet rarely discussed.

There are some parents genuinely concerned with parenting. We should give them the tools to do that and thereby removing them from the discourse, then we can focus on the bad faith people that want more control. I think there are still enough well-meaning people in governments that if we popularize on-device settings, it will prevent age verification in at least a handful of countries, and that's good enough to keep the spark of the free Internet going until we figure out a more permanent solution.

> It's not like these discussions and ideas are going to get distilled into the dissent on the congressional floors that vote on these laws.

You think the idea of parents, not governments, being responsible for parenting doesn't translate well to voters? In the country founded on the idea of freedom from overreaching governance and personal responsibility?

that's not what i'm saying at all. i highlighted that that is quite literally the convenient narrative that's being used to get everyone squabbling amongst themselves. it is very clear that this is being used in bad-faith to get people to immediately side a certain way. yet here on hackernews we find dissenting viewpoints to that, rather than discussion about the entirety of it and what the real motives at play are. i am once again amused at the efficacy of the smokescreen here.

what i'm saying is these discussions around parenting have had zero impacts on preventing the passage/implementation of such legislation/policies to date despite many smart people in here understanding what's actually at stake. and it's very likely that these parenting discussions will again go on to have absolutely zero impact on preventing the continued impelmentation of id verification on platforms. these policies/legislations aren't simply being implemented because people have failed to fully thought-exercise out good/bad parenting styles enough yet in the marketplace of ideas, it's becoming a reality because we aren't collectively raising awareness of the downstream ways this legislation will be harnessed for shitty outcomes. we aren't talking about it for what it is, but instead talking about it in the way they want us to talk about it. these parenting discussion points have been beaten to death and nothing new or novel is being shared, and rather than looking straight at the wolves right here in the room with us (data brokerage & who benefits from this type of data brokerage & figuring out how to stop it) people just look at each other and get butthurt about idealogical parenting differences. it's literally a slice of the now-ever-so-common 2d culture war we're all acutely aware exists, right here on hackernews, and we're all actively participating.

I guess I disagree that there is some shadowy alternative motivation for these laws. If the goal was to link everyone's ID with their account they would be requiring everyone to send in their ID instead of making age estimation the first option. I'm also a bit confused about the data brokerage part. What do you imagine the data brokers get out of this?