On the one hand, I actually think this is a very good thing. Social media is especially damaging to children.
However:
The government says platforms must take “reasonable steps” to keep kids off their sites and use age assurance technologies, such as uploading official ID or facial/voice recognition, but they haven’t specified what technology platforms should use.
I hope the law stipulates that Meta is not allowed to keep this data, or use it for any purpose other than the verification itself. Not for training, not for building a profile on someone, nothing. Unfortunately the article doesn’t elaborate on that.
If they’re allowed to keep that data, then that needs to be addressed immediately. It’d be all kinds of fucked up.
age verification is ineffective with highly adverse impacts
client-side filtering[1] is more effective with less adverse impacts.
Those conclusions still hold today.
ie, parental controls, which have been available & widespread for ages.
Parents supply their children with technology & pay for everything they have.
It’s entirely within their power to enable parental controls on all their children’s devices instead of expect government to take over their parenting duties. ↩︎
The state has no place for parenting children, the parents are there specifically for this.
All this is going to result in, is a half working system that has no understanding of the differences between a child and a adolescent - ultimately spewing out ageist tropes that will further dehumanise fully aware individuals.
Children should be engaged with and actively tailoring their scope of internet usage - and as they grow up to be adolescents, freedom should be provided. This is all active, growing with the individual for the individual.
On the one hand, I actually think this is a very good thing. Social media is especially damaging to children.
However:
I hope the law stipulates that Meta is not allowed to keep this data, or use it for any purpose other than the verification itself. Not for training, not for building a profile on someone, nothing. Unfortunately the article doesn’t elaborate on that.
If they’re allowed to keep that data, then that needs to be addressed immediately. It’d be all kinds of fucked up.
As the US Congressional commission on similar laws reported decades ago
Those conclusions still hold today.
ie, parental controls, which have been available & widespread for ages. Parents supply their children with technology & pay for everything they have. It’s entirely within their power to enable parental controls on all their children’s devices instead of expect government to take over their parenting duties. ↩︎
The state has no place for parenting children, the parents are there specifically for this.
All this is going to result in, is a half working system that has no understanding of the differences between a child and a adolescent - ultimately spewing out ageist tropes that will further dehumanise fully aware individuals.
Children should be engaged with and actively tailoring their scope of internet usage - and as they grow up to be adolescents, freedom should be provided. This is all active, growing with the individual for the individual.
Don’t worry, they probably use a third party to have this that says it deleted the data, doesn’t, and will be hacked within a year.
Wait, no. Do worry.