Why do we need to verify age?

You can't tell me that these social media companies don't already know exactly how old someone is just based on the enormous data that is collected.

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palata 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A big concern around age verification is that some people will be locked out because they can't prove their age.

Your solution here has the same flaw, I think. If the algorithm thinks I'm underage, I'm locked out.

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creatacc 10 hours ago | parent [-]

being locked out = less profit = firing management by shareholders

it will solve by consumers, don't worry

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palata 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The number of people who are marginalised is... marginal. By definition it doesn't have a sensible impact on profit. That's precisely why it is a problem to be marginalised.

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MichaelZuo 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Isn’t that… life?

Even literal regulated electricity utilities aren’t expected to provide service to every last marginal customer.

For example, a poor old grandma missing many electricity bill payments usually will see leniency if she is polite, the utility eventually won’t try to collect cash anymore and instead put a lien on the home while continuing to provide service.

But if the billing department receives multiple threats from her, then they may just cut the service.

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palata an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Not entirely sure what you are trying to say, other than you don't really care as long as you are not the one who is marginalised.

Anyway it's generally a tradeoff: is it worth doing it? By adding very strict age verification systems and marginalising people, do we make society globally better or not? Will those age verification systems work to prevent underage people from accessing the stuff we don't want them to access in the first place? Not clear. If they do, will it result in underage people being better? Not clear. And if it does, will it have been worth the damage on the people it marginalised? Not clear.

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johnnyanmac 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I really hope our freedom's aren't relinquished on a platform as fortified as "It is what it is".

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MichaelZuo 4 hours ago | parent [-]

This doesn’t make sense?

How does “freedom” relate to an electrical utility deciding whether to cut service?

	▲	johnnyanmac 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"Freemdom" is accepting that mostly marginalized people get their power cut because they are marginalized. Your reaction to that is to shrug and move on instead of investigating the systems below that keep the marginalized as so. Even if we take marginalization out of it, this is the same kind of system that let's Healthcare recklessly utilize AI Systems to automatically reject patients' care, with a Herculean effort required to find a human to talk to. Its easy yo shrug until you are hallucinated into their crosshair. But sure, that's "freedom".

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j16sdiz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It won't.

Do you aware how many people are locked out from access of the bank because the bank think they are too risky by some algorithm and no human review?

And people got rejected for flying because they have same name as somebody on no fly list?

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upheaval7276 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

yep, just like cases now where people are locked out of their accounts for no reason with no recourse. totally solved!

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brookst 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In the aggregate sure. But do you really think profit motive means they will be precise for every individual?

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satvikpendem 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They do already like YouTube and ChatGPT, so they'll ask for your age only when they're unsure.

	▲	creatacc 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		chatgpt began to spam me pretty hard for last a few months. chatgpt basically never sent email and it's regular now - like 2 4 emails per month so, it doesn't look great for chatgpt

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nephihaha 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because it's all about bringing in digital ID and gated internet. Not age.

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

They would prefer to know, not estimate, which is why they are pushing these initiatives basically on their own accord.

Also, if you've ever played with this kind of data, there is immense overlap between how some adults and some kids use the internet. Is this user legally a child, or just emotionally a child? Similar to the problem of "There is overlap between the smartest bears and dumbest tourists" in designing bear proof garbage cans.

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trentor 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you want to use a service that is age restricted either by law or the company providing it how else would you do it? It's the same IRL. I don't like it as well and we certainly lived through the wild wild west times in the 90s and 00s but the more something gets economical important the more scrutiny it gets. Maybe we just need something new.

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docjay 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Well these kind of laws are trying to legislate technology into existence; we don’t have a means to do it, yet “we demand for the technology to exist through ‘reasonable methods’, now get to work.”

If that’s the nearly infinite wiggle room we’re playing with then I’d say what about Adult and Child versions of phones? You have to flash your ID to the clerk to buy an adult one, like buying cigarettes at a gas station, and then you get to do what the internet offers. Child phones - let parents and governments come up with whatever they want to block. The phone autoupdates in the background with the blocklist, the device can’t do those things. There ya go. Each person and family gets to make their own choices and nobody has to give an ID card to PornHub or a company that literally exists to harvest your information. Win-win?

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skinfaxi 9 hours ago | parent [-]

We already have a version of the child phone: it's parental supervision.

When I was a kid there was no TV in my bedroom nor a computer. Everything I watched or did online was on full display in the family room. What changed in the modern home where that's not the case? Are kids glued to their phones because their parents are too?

	▲	docjay 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I completely agree. In fact the tools already exist to make a “child” phone. I was just giving up some inconsequential ground since many people are apparently stuck on the government padding the earth to protect their fuck-trophy. “OK - government mandated OPTIONAL DNS filtering on all routers. Super easy interface, auto-subscribe to government compiled list.” Scratches their itch and doesn’t affect me since I just won’t enable it, nor will I buy the “child phone”, and I don’t have to send a rectal scan to Facebook either. Yay all around.