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Zuckerberg's "fix" for child safety could end anonymous internet access for all

71 points by aestetix

by throwaway87543

5 subcomments

Authentication & Authorization is a OS feature. But instead of the OS collecting everyone's age, just give parents the ability to verify their child's phone is in child lockdown mode. Then the phone narc's to the website: "the user is under age". Not "the user was born on Feb 29 2001." We can rely on parenting to ensure a child doesn't have a non child mode phone. Enable parents, not control everyone.

by 1vuio0pswjnm7

0 subcomment

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp are not "the internet"
Anything that hurts Meta's business is arguably a potential step toward more "anonymous" internet access. Anything that helps to stop the process of indoctrination of future generations into and the normalisation of what Meta does is a step toward more anonymous internet access as it allows expectations of privacy to rise to previous levels
Companies like Meta have worked to systematically destroy anonymous internet use. Anonymity directly conflicts with Meta's "business model" of data collection, surveillance and serving users up as ad targets
Meta and "anonymous internet access" are mutually exclusive. Meta doesn't collect data about and show ads to "anonymous" internet users. It forces users to create "accounts" and "sign in" with clients that run surveillance-related code on the users' computers without the user's input. It builds profiles of internet users (ad targets), even ones that do not use Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, e.g., through the use of tracking pixels on the open web
Apple's and Google's operating systems also try to profile users. The companies encourage users to create "accounts" and "sign in". The operating systems intentionally provide a purpose-built machanism to target users with ads. If used as encouraged by the compaanies, these operating systems are incompatible with "anonymous internet access". The user is not anonymous to the companies, and the companies invite advertisers to use the computer user's internet bandwidth to deliver ads
It was not always like this; I owned Apple computers when there was no such thing as an Apple "account" and Apple's computers did not attempt to automatically "phone home" when powered on. Expectations of "anonymous" internet access amongst new internet users have greatly diminished thanks to Meta, Google and Apple

by charcircuit

0 subcomment

It seems a stretch to me that an operating system having an isAdult() function would end anonymous internet access. Plenty of apps want to avoid showing NSFW content to children and having an API that lets them easily do so has a lot of value. Parental controls must be trivial for an app to implement if we want it to be widespread.

by 0xbadcafebee

1 subcomments

I find it amazing that we continue to let parents ruin society with their overprotective bullshit. They should be parenting, not passing the buck.
This isn't the first time overprotective parents have caused problems for everyone else. The US drug war (and the mass incarceration of poor and black people) was started mostly by organizations of parents who thought marijuana was going to kill their kids. The movie rating system introduced censorship into movies which limited artistic freedom. Game rating systems limited what games could be sold on store shelves, so most games had to be carefully censored and had limited story lines and content. Ratings on music forced major retailers to drop any music which had an 'explicit' label, making it harder for artists with 'adult' lyrics to get exposure or earn a living. Book bans are largely organized by parents' groups, a significant number of the books they want banned being LGBTQ+ books, so kids aren't exposed to the fact that homosexuality is normal. And of course you can't possibly have an app in a monopolistic App Store that has any kind of adult content; heaven forbid an actual adult wants to use an adult app.
Parents and 'Child Safety' are toxic af and we shouldn't put up with it.

by gweinberg

1 subcomments

Had to wade through a lot of text to find out that apparently Zuckerberg and OP both apparently think the internet is something you access through phones.

by dom96

0 subcomment

Child safety is just the tip of the iceberg. We need to secure ourselves by implementing human verification and there are ways to do this without sacrificing anonymity[1].
1 - https://blog.picheta.me/post/the-future-of-social-media-is-h...

0 subcomment

by themafia

0 subcomment

Why would we turn to the person who created the problem for a solution to it?

by joshcsimmons

0 subcomment

This was the intent all along people.

by kkfx

0 subcomment

Which is the very target. Forcing full tractability of anyone for better conformism at the dominus will.

by techblueberry

10 subcomments

I find it relatively strange that over the past 30-40 years, we went from a world where most everything was intermediated by parents, and “adult” media was relatively well gatekept to this online Wild West where it seems almost any attempt to gatekeep is seen as a freedom violation.
Maybe this is why we need protocols over platforms? But like, kids shouldn’t be able to sign a ToS until they’re 18.
I have little sympathy for anything that limits people’s access to these biggest platforms. I’m also largely cynical to the idea that anyone’s doing any free speeching on meta or Twitter in the first place. If counter culture gets driven back to IRC, or gasp meatspace, then all the better.

by phendrenad2

0 subcomment

Just make child phones. And make a parallel internet run and curated by, I dunno, the UN child safety task force or something. We're playing this dangerous game of "oops we almost destroyed the world in a hellish authoritarian dystopia" because we can't figure this simple thing out.

by nickphx

0 subcomment

sounds like a potential use for generative AI.. they can "validate" and "verify" the "biometrics" of the output from this-person-does-not-exist[.]com

by Am4TIfIsER0ppos

1 subcomments

Ban cell phones. The internet must again become something you sit down to use. It'd fix the child problem and many problems for adults. It is not something that should be following you around all day.

by inigyou

1 subcomments

[flagged]

by bediger4000

3 subcomments

That would certainly benefit Zuck and a lot of the other oligarchs.

by jmclnx

1 subcomments

>Could End Anonymous Internet Access
I doubt that, but with people using Cell Phone Apps and sites like Facebook/Twitter, people are giving up their anonymity on purpose. You can still be anonymous if you want to.
And as for verification at the OS level, good luck with that.

by SpicyLemonZest

2 subcomments

I don't understand what position this article is trying to stake out. How is it Zuckerberg's fault that a California court called him into a courtroom demanding to know why he didn't stop children from using his platform? It seems like the author recognizes that he agrees with Meta on all the substantive questions here, but feels obligated to jump through hoops to avoid taking a pro-corporate position that Meta is right and the plaintiff is wrong.