Age verification is absolutely about kids. It’s also being used (or hijacked into) a vehicle for people who want increased surveillance.

There is a ton of evidence that there are harms to unrestricted online access for kids and teens (the book The Anxious Generation is cultural touchstone for this topic at this point). There is a real, well reasoned, and valid movement to do something about this problem.

The solutions proposed aren’t always well targeted and are often hijacked by the pro-surveillance movement, but it’s important to call out that these solutions aren’t well targeted instead of declaring the age verification push isn’t addressing a real problem and constituency.

As many others have mentioned in this thread and others, there are ways - effective and straightforward ways - that we could be protecting our kids from the harms that come with the www.

The harms are real. The solution is a Surveillance Wolf wearing a dead Save The Kids Sheep(tm).

Solutions that might work - RTA headers [0]. More robust parental controls. Not this reimagining of the rules of the internet in service of a fairly vague and ineffective goal. It's like the whole AV concept was designed not to work in the current context at all - almost as if that was the point.

Perhaps I'm going a little out on a limb. I don't think I am - but quick, tell me you need to know where I'm dialing from without asking me where I'm dialing in from.

0 - https://www.rtalabel.org/index.php

The thing is that when it starts being about the kids it means the bottom 90% has entered the internet and you should be away because it is already lost.

I wonder if there's something like internet accelerationism - push things like having friends or watching movies online off the cliff as soon as possible.

Unfortunately The Anxious Generation is a very well-written house of cards built on questionable studies [1] and its success is simply a reflection of the fact it capitalizes on the trendiest moral panic of our times.

Social media is akin to violent video games in the 2000s, tv addiction in the 90s, santanic heavy metal in 80s, and even 'bicycle face' in the 1890s bicycle craze.

Jonathan Haidt seems extremely earnest and thoughtful, but unfortunately being lovingly catapulted to fame for being the guy who affirms everyones gut reaction to change (moral panic)...makes it extremely difficult financially, emotionally and socially for him to steelman the opposite side of that thing.

Even if he hadn't compiled a bunch of suspect research from pre-2010 to make his claims, the field of Psychology is at the center of the replication crisis and is objectively its worst offender. Pyschology studies published in prestigious academic journals have been found to replicate only 36% of the time. [2]

1. https://reason.com/video/2024/04/02/the-bad-science-behind-j...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproducibility_Project

People are ignoring reality and thinking that kids and teenagers won't be smart enough to type "XXX" into piratebay and download a torrent client.

Yet another comment following the template described in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46242184