There are alternatives to ID verification if the goal is protecting children.

You could, for example, make it illegal to target children with targeted advertising campaigns and addictive content. Then throw the executives who authorized such programs in jail. Punish the people causing the harm.

▲

varenc 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If targeting children with advertising got corporate execs thrown in jail, wouldn't the companies just roll out age verification for users like they do now? How would this rule change their behavior? They have to know who the children are to not target them.

Stronger punishment creates more of an incentive to age verify. Which is basically why it's happening now.

▲

cloverich 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> They have to know who the children are to not target them.

There is a difference between identifying specific children, and running programs that target children more generally; and / or having research that shows how your product harms children, and failing to do anything to stop it. We can tackle both of those issues without requiring age verification. We're headed down the path of age verification because we know now that not only is social media harmful, it's especially harmful to kids, and has been specifically targeted to them. Those are things that can be fixed, regardless of how you feel about age verification. Its not different than tobacco being not allowed to create advertisements for kids; its the same type of people doing the same types of things in the end.

▲

barbazoo 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

At least then it wouldn't be the government requiring it, is what people may think I imagine.

	▲	b40d-48b2-979e 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The problem is private companies being extensions of what the government wants to do, like all of the surveillance tech in the US right now basically eviscerating the fourth amendment since they willingly hand over their data to the government without even a court order in many cases.

▲

cubefox 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To avoid your proposed punishment, they will implement things like ... ID verification.

	▲	Perz1val 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Then ones who won't will become the preferred choice

▲

NoMoreNicksLeft 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Then throw the executives who authorized such programs in jail.

Gee, I wonder if the executives who are suspected of doing such things haven't spent the last 100 years building the infrastructure necessary to avoid charges, let alone jail time? Large corporate legal departments, wink-wink-nudge-nudge command and control hierarchies where nothing incriminating is ever put into writing, voluminous intra-office communications that bury even the circumstantial evidence so deeply no jury could understand it even if the plaintiffs/state could uncover it, etc.

Anyone over the age of 12 that thinks corporate entities can be made to be accountable in a meaningful way is more than naive. They are cognitively defective. Or is it that you realize they can't be held accountable but you'd rather maintain the status quo than contemplate a country which abolished them and enforced that all business was the conducted by sole proprietorships and (small-n) partnerships?

▲

agentultra 5 hours ago | parent [-]

For a while it was thought that we could never bring back anti-trust.

Sure, there's a lot of corruption right now. Doesn't have to stay that way.

	▲	NoMoreNicksLeft 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>For a while it was thought that we could never bring back anti-trust. Ah. I see, you believe that the godzilla monsters are useful and that you know how to make leashes for them that will definitely work this time.

▲

scotty79 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Facebook advertises outright scams and nobody manages to punish them for that.