• ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Wholeheartedly disagree. OS level age verification only removes the responsibility to protect users from the software developer and shifts it to the OS makers. Meta and OpenAI want this so bad so they don’t have to protect their users and their users children. Meta created the software the has lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of child suicide and they don’t want to be held accountable. AI companies have allowed the proliferation of CSAM, copyright infringement, and straight up theft of intellectual property, and want to push that off to OS as the responsible party. Google and Apple don’t fight it because they have extraordinarily deep pockets and already have the infrastructures in place in their app stores to accommodate this tomfoolery. This is also another avenue for increased surveillance at the deepest level of your digital life that is already extremely compromised. If we want parents to have more controls, then mandate easy to use parent controls for OS’s, apps, and web apps. Legislate mandating firewalls and routers have easy to use parental controls for internet settings. Pay people living wages and work them less hours so they can learn to use those things. Don’t add spyware into the OS. “Take off your tin hat dude.” How do you think they’ll verify age at the OS level? It will have to have an api that can be used to obtain the age verified information. Who’s responsive for reviewing all that PII? Where does that go? Who retains that information and for how long? What encryption technology is mandated to protect it from breach? Nah, man, no thanks.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      19 hours ago

      Legislate mandating firewalls and routers have easy to use parental controls for internet settings.

      Sorry but no. That would drive up the cost of all firewalls and routers, for no real reason, except that the manufacturers can because the government says they have to. And most firewalls that offer content filtering need some sort of a subscription to keep the filters up-to-date.

      Never mind the fact that a router’s job isn’t content filtering (it’s routing).

      Todays parents grew up exposed to the internet. If we don’t know how to protect our own kids and teach them how to safely use the internet, then we are hopeless as a generation.

      Btw, Cloudflare WARP is free for a small number of users and has a pretty decent web filter built in. It’s far from easy to use, but it’s free and effective. I use it on my 9yo’s Fedora laptop, and as long as he can’t sudo, he can’t turn it off. And if he even tries to sudo, he will be reminded that he’s not in the sudoers file, and this incident WILL be reported.

      • ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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        17 hours ago

        Don’t get me wrong, I was not advocating. I was pointing out directed ways to actually “protect” kids that would be a lot less likely to really be surveillance. I don’t think any of that should happen.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          13 hours ago

          I mean, it very easily could be. A service like WARP, they can decrypt the traffic, if you allow them to (it is off by default). The warp client will add the certificate to the trust-store, and the traffic will get decrypted on Cloudflare’s end.

          For my kid, I kept deep-inspection off. If he figures out how to get past DNS and SNI inspections, he deserves to see a boob or two.

    • Havoc8154@mander.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Well that’s just nonsensical. The only obligation it removes for software developers is the need to obtain (and justification for storing) personally identifying information on its users. Websites and apps would still be responsible for moderating their content and only serving appropriate content to underage users. It wouldn’t do anything whatsoever to remove accountability for Meta.

      • ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        That’s also just a minorities to the data intrusion and surveillance this is really building. Data is king, and adding age and other demographics obtained at the OS level to more sell more targeted adds to manipulate people. The same data bend used to target political opponents by governments. But it’s cool. It’s for the safety of the kids!!!

        • pfried@reddthat.com
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          21 hours ago

          Companies are already required to ask if their users are kids because, among other reasons, there are laws against creating ad profiles for kids, and companies have been sued for doing this even accidentally. The California law just changes how they’re required to check if they’re a kid from asking them at account creation to asking the OS at account creation, where the parents have set the age for them when the OS account was created. It gives the company checking if they’re a kid no more information than they had before. I agree with Havoc8154@mander.xyz that this is totally reasonable.

          This particular federal bill, on the other hand seems closer to the Florida bill in that it requires some form of age verification instead of just accepting what the parents enter when creating the OS account. That is unreasonable. Complain to your representative, and we’ll see how it gets amended.

          • ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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            19 hours ago

            If the companies already have to do this, then what is the point of the OS asking for more personal notifying information than it needs just to operate? Thank beyond the seemingly “simplicity” of this and think how it can be used against you. Then decide if it’s rational. People thought the patriot act was a great idea after 911… They were wrong.

            • pfried@reddthat.com
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              18 hours ago

              what is the point of the OS asking

              Because for the purpose of securing kids accounts, it doesn’t make sense for the kids to enter their ages themselves each time they create an account at a new website.

              Tell me how it can be used against me. It doesn’t give out any information beyond what I let it give out about me, and that information (an age range) is derived from information I get to make up. Remember, the California law doesn’t require any verification of the age data that is given to the OS.

      • ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Let’s just say meta delivers some problematic content that traumatizes a kid and really upsets parents. This content was on the 12-year-olds Chromebook. The kid, then setting up the laptop with his parents had his age in there appropriately, and Met used theAPI to obtain it to prevent adult content delivery. However, kid is tech savvy, creates a secondary accounts, says they are 45. Maybe uses parents ID or something to do it. They then get the adult content. Parents file suit. Meta lawyers: Our API works as designed, and we can be held liable when the OS API says the person is 45 and not 12. Case dismissed. Profit.

        But okay, definitely nonsensical.

        • Havoc8154@mander.xyz
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          1 day ago

          How is that any different from what happens today? Kid makes fake account - gets adult content - Meta shrugs and says they did what they could. Of course there would be ways it can be circumvented, this would change nothing about that situation except shift the responsibility of correctly inputting the users age onto the user, which is where it should be. I’d much rather have that scenario than one where meta is forcing all users to upload government IDs; Using that excuse to harvest and store even more data than necessary.

          • ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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            24 hours ago

            Should you have to verify your age to your car before you can turn it in, to drive to the DMV before you can obtain your license and registration? Who should have the burden?

            Should your front door verify your age before you leave to go buy alcohol from the local liquor store?

            Should your bed verify your age and the age of your lover before you have sex?

            Also, this isn’t even the biggest problem, the problem is this is just more surveillance. Don’t comply in advance. Default to protect and keep your freedom by protecting your privacy.

            • Havoc8154@mander.xyz
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              23 hours ago

              So you didn’t bother to read my original post I guess, no wonder you’re confused.

              • ImitationLimitation@lemmy.ml
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                23 hours ago

                I did… and everything you say is nonsensical. So I responded in the only way this system would make any sense.

                Your way, the OS just takes in an age on trust, then the apps have to verify anyway. How do they do that? They need ID, when it would’ve raise to get that validation from the OS that already had the ID verified. Your way means nothing. It does nothing. It adds an age to a system for no reason and is completely unusable.

                • Havoc8154@mander.xyz
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                  22 hours ago

                  What I’m describing is exactly how it’s been implemented into several Linux distros in response to the California law. Apps shouldn’t need any more verification than pinging the OS to find out the age of the user. It makes a single, easy to understand method of controlling a device intended for a child (which is the only actual benefit to any of this). It puts the responsibility on the parent or guardian setting up the device, which is exactly where it belongs.