I know this is weird, but I'm in some ways not really sure who is on the side of freedom here. I get your position, but like. The whole idea of the promise of the internet has been destroyed by newsfeeds and mega-corps.

There is almost literally documented examples of Facebook executives twirling their mustaches wondering how they can get kids more addicted. This isn't a few bands with swear words, and in fact, I think that the damage these social media companies are doing is in fact, reducing the independence teens and kids that have that were the fears parents originally had.

I dunno, are you uncertain about your case at all or just like. I just like, can't help but start with fuck these companies. All other arguments are downstream of that. Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

> I just like, can't help but start with fuck these companies. All other arguments are downstream of that.

The solution would then be to break them up or do things like require adversarial interoperability, rather than ineffective non-sequiturs like requiring them to ID everyone.

The perverse incentive comes from a single company sitting on a network effect. You have to use Facebook because other people use Facebook, so if the algorithm shows you trash and rage bait you can't unilaterally decide to leave without abandoning everyone still there, and the Facebook company gets to show ads to everyone who uses it and therefore wants to maximize everyone's time wasted on Facebook, so the algorithm shows you trash and rage bait.

Now suppose they're not allowed to restrict third party user agents. You get a messaging app and it can send messages to people on Facebook, Twitter, SMS, etc. all in the same interface. It can download the things in "your feed" and then put it in a different order, or filter things out, and again show content from multiple services in the same interface, including RSS. And then that user agent can do things like filter out adult content, if you want it to.

We need to fix the actual problem, which is that the hosting service shouldn't be in control of the user interface to the service.

> ... start with fuck these companies. Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

I'm not sure how those two positions connect.

Execs bad, so laws requiring giving those execs everyone's IDs, instead of laws against twirled mustaches?

> I just like, can't help but start with fuck these companies. All other arguments are downstream of that. Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

Wild times when we're seeing highest voted Hacker News commenters call for the nanny state.

If you're thinking these regulations will be limited to singular companies or platforms you don't use, there is no reason to believe that's true.

There was already outrage on Hacker News when Discord voluntarily introduced limited ID checks for certain features. The invitations to bring on the nanny state reverse course very quickly when people realize those regulations might impact the sites they use, too.

A lot of the comments I'm seeing assume that only Facebook or other platforms will be impacted, but there's now way that would be the case.

>Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

For me this is a crux, at least in principle. Once online media is so centralized... the from argument freedom is diminished.

There are differences between national government power and international oligopoly but... even that is starting to get complicated.

That said... This still leaves the problem in practice. We get decrees that age-restriction is mandatory. There will be bad compliance implementations. Privacy implications.

Meanwhile a while... how much will we actually gain when it comes to child protection.

You can come up will all sorts of examples proving "Facebook bad" but that doesn't mean these things are fixed when/if regulation actually comes into play.

Don't conflate the Internet with Social Media. Social media is a service, just like FTP. The death of social media will not mean the death of the Internet. There's an argument that reducing social media use, by age verification or other means, will lead to a more free Internet due to reduced power of gatekeepers.

Those execs were also using the tactics to addict adults, and while they may have targeted teens, the problem is, at its core: humans. So no amount of nannying by either the company nor the government will solve this issue.

Who would be responsible if a child developed alcohol addiction? A nicotine problem? Any other addiction?

Exactly. The same people that should be responsible for giving them unfettered access to an internet that is no longer safe. Even adults have to be wary of getting hooked on scrolling, and while I agree that the onus is on the companies, it has been demonstrated over and over again that they will not be held to account for their behavior.

So the only logical choice left that actually preserves freedom is for parents to get off their ass and keep their child safe. Parent's that don't use filtering and monitoring software with their children should be charged with neglect. They are for sending a kid into the cold without a coat, or letting them go hungry, why is it different sending them onto the internet?

And to your last point: You are dead wrong. No government anywhere in the world has demonstrated that they have the resources, expertise, or technical knowledge to solve this problem. The most famously successful attempt is the Chinese Great Firewall, which is breached routinely by folks. As soon as a government controls what speech you are allowed to consume, the next logical step for them is to restrict what speech you can say, because waging war on what people access will always fail. I mean, Facebook alone already contains tons of content that's against its terms of service, and they have more money than God, so either they actually want that content there, or they are too understaffed to deal with the volume, and the volume problem only ever increases.

So in my view, you are the one against freedom by advocating for the government to control the speech adults can access for the sake of "protecting the children" when the actual people that are socially, morally, and legally culpable for that protection are derelict in their duties.

Social media is like tobacco. We went after tobacco for targeting kids, we should do the same to social media. Highly engineered addictive content is not unlike what was done to cigarettes.

Screw over Meta then. Not everybody else.

Meta is the bozo in a panel van with no windows. All The legit porn sites put up Big Blinking Neon Signs.

>There is almost literally documented examples of Facebook executives twirling their mustaches wondering how they can get kids more addicted.

Then close their business. Age verification just makes their crimes even more annoying.

> I just like, can't help but start with fuck these companies. All other arguments are downstream of that. Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

How about we reject all institutional nannies?

It is much easier to implement user-controlled on-device settings than any sort of over-the-Internet verification scheme. Parents purchase their children's devices and can adjust those settings before giving it to their kids. This is the crux of the problem, and all other arguments are downstream of this.

> Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

This is a huge self own. I can't believe I'm reading this on a website called "hacker news".

> Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

why-not-both.jpg

Maximizing corporate freedom leads inevitably to corporate capture of government.

Opposing either government concentration of power alone or corporate concentration of power alone is doomed to failure. Only by opposing both is there any hope of achieving either.

Applying that principle to age-verification, which I think is inevitable: Prefer privacy-preserving decoupled age-verification services, where the service validates minimum age and presents a cryptographic token to the entity requiring age validation. Ideally, discourage entities from collecting hard identification by holding them accountable for data breaches; or since that's politically infeasible, model the service on PCI with fines for poor security.

The motivation for this regime is to prevent distribution services from holding identification data, reducing the information held by any single entity.

The problem is that internet is used nowadays for democratic purposes. Once you introduce a globally unique personal ID, you will be monitored. And boy, you will be monitored throughoutly. In case of any democratic process that needs to be undertaken in future against government, this very government will take the tools of identification and will knock to the doors of people who try to raise awareness and maybe mutiny. And this is what Orwell wrote about

> I know this is weird, but I'm in some ways not really sure who is on the side of freedom here. I get your position, but like.

No one. You’ll see a few politicians and more individuals stuck to their principles, but anyone with major clout sees the writing on the wall and is simply working to entrench their power.

> Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

Indeed, what lolberts fail to understand usually is not a choice between government vs “freedom” it’s a choice between the current government and whoever will fill up the power vacuum left by the government.

Heh, thank you.

I appreciate GPs point about giving “parents strong monitoring and restriction tools and empower them to protect their children”. That’s good. That acknowledges that we can and should give parents tools to deal with their kids and not let them fend for themselves (one nuclear family all alone) against the various algorithms, child group pressure, and so on.

But on the whole I’m tired of the road to serfdom framing on anything that regulates corporations.

Yes. Let’s be idealistic for a minute; the Internet was “supposed to” liberate us. Now we have to play Defense every damn day. And the best we have to offer is a false choice between nanny state and tech baron vulturism?

For a second just imagine. An Internet that empowers more than it enslaves. That makes us more equal. It’s difficult but you can try.

> Better the nanny state than Nanny Zuck.

The state can imprison you. Zuck can't.

Centralization and standardization are going to be the topic in the 21st century.

For all the complaining some U.S.-Americans seem to do about the EU approach to these issues, things like the Digital Markets Act aim to fix exactly these types of issues.

>I get your position ... There is almost literally documented examples of Facebook executives twirling their mustaches wondering how they can get kids more addicted. This isn't a few bands

Their position was to compare it to alcohol, guns, and tobacco, not bands using naughty words. Alcohol and tobacco definitely enter mustache swirling territory, getting children addicted and funding misinformation on the harms of their product.

You sound like someone that would work for the CIA or FBI if they offered you a job. Those are the types of people that I cannot and will not ever trust. I do not respect your opinion.

> I know this is weird, but I'm in some ways not really sure who is on the side of freedom here.

That’s because “freedom” is complicated and doesn’t precisely map to the interests of any of the major actors. Its largely a war between parties seeking control for different elites for different purposes.

I don't get your point, at least not in relation to the GP post. I agree with GP, parents need to be more accountable. We as parents, and We should all be concerned about future children/generations, should be demanding more regulation to help force the change we need on this topic. We as a society need to treat SM like those other addictive product classes. The fact SM is addicting and execs try to juice it more, is frankly to be expected.

Vilify them all you want, but same has been done with nicotine products, alcohol products, etc. and to GPs point, we SM as a toy for our children to play with. We chose to change the rules (laws, regulations, etc) because capitalists can never be simply trusted to do what's best for anything except their bottom line. That's a fundamental law no different than inertia or gravity in a capitalistic society. That's why regulators exist. Until you regulate it, they will wear their villain badge and rake in the billions. It's easy to be disliked when the topic of your disdain is what makes you filthy rich (in other words, they don't care what you or I think of what they're doing).

> documented examples of Facebook executives twirling their mustaches wondering how they can get kids more addicted

If you genuinely believe that this is about those moustache twirling executives, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Have you ever wondered why and how these systems are being implemented? Have you ever gone why Discord / Twitch / what have you and why now? Have you ever thought that this might be happening because of Nepal and the fears of another Arab spring?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/15/more-egalitarian-ho...

I think too many people on this platform don't understand what this is about. This is about power. It's not about what's good for you or the children. Or for the constituents. It's about power. Real power. Karp-ian "scare enemies and on occasion kill them" power.

There are many ways in which such a system could be implemented. They could have asked people to use a credit card. Adult entertainment services have been using this as a way to do tacit age verification for a very long time now. Or, they could have made a new zero-knowledge proof system. Or, ideally, they could have told the authorities to get bent. †

Tech is hardly the first industry to face significant (justifiable or unjustifiable) government backlash. I am hesitant to use them as examples as they're a net harm, whereas this is about preventing a societal net harm, but the fossil fuel and tobacco industries fought their governments for decades and straight up changed the political system to suit them. ††

FAANG are richer than they ever were. Even Discord can raise more and deploy more capital than most of the tobacco industry at the time. It's also a righteous cause. A cause most people can get behind (see: privacy as a selling point for Apple and the backlash to Ring). But they're not fighting this. They're leaning into it.

Let's take a look at what Discord asked people for a second, the face scan,

    If you choose Facial Age Estimation, you’ll be prompted to record a short video selfie of your face. The Facial Age Estimation technology runs entirely on your device in real time when you are performing the verification. That means that facial scans never leave your device, and Discord and vendors never receive it. We only get your age group.

There was an article that went viral for spoofing this, https://age-verifier.kibty.town/ // https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46982421 . In the article, the author found by examining the API response the system was sending,

    k-id, the age verification provider discord uses doesn't store or send your face to the server. instead, it sends a bunch of metadata about your face and general process details.

We're anthropomorphising machines. A machine doesn't need pictures; "a bunch of metadata" will do just fine.

We are assuming that the surveillance state will require humans sitting in a shadow-y room going over pictures and videos. It won't. You can just use a bunch of vectors and a large multi-modal model instead. Servers are cheap and never need to eat or sleep.

Certain firms are already doing this for the US Gov, https://x.com/vxunderground/status/2024188446214963351 / https://xcancel.com/vxunderground/status/2024188446214963351

We can assume de facto that Discord is also doing profiling along vectors (presumably behavioral and demographic features) which that author described as,

    after some trial and error, we narrowed the checked part to the prediction arrays, which are outputs, primaryOutputs and raws.

    turns out, both outputs and primaryOutputs are generated from raws. basically, the raw numbers are mapped to age outputs, and then the outliers get removed with z-score (once for primaryOutputs and twice for outputs).

In general, Discord seems to have fairly reliable data about the other applications the user is running. Discord also has data about your voice and now your face.

Is some or all of this data being turned into features that are being fed to this third-party k-ID? https://www.k-id.com/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattgardner1/2024/06/25/k-id-cl...

https://www.techinasia.com/a16z-lightspeed-bet-singapore-par...

k-ID is (at first glance) extracting fairly similar data from Snapchat, Twitch etc. With ID documents added into the mix, this certainly seems like a very interesting global profiling dataset backstopped with government documentation as ground truth.

I'm sure that's totally unrelated. :)

-

† like they already have for algorithmic social media and profiling, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/silicon-valley...

Somehow there's tens to hundreds of millions available for crypto causes and algorithmic social media crusades, but there's none for the "existential threat" of age verification.

†† Once again, this is old hat. See also: Turbotax, https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-f...

> There is almost literally documented examples of…

lol

Nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use Facebook or whatever other site. I quit using most social media over a decade ago. If you don't want to use it, or you don't want your children to use it, then don't use it.