I agree with the premise but this article doesn't really provide a strong argument. It mentions stats about child exploitation but doesn't show how that's related to gtlds.

Stats about the block list are good (10% of gtld domains are blocked) but thay requires comparing it with a baseline. How many of non gtld domains are blocked?

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donmcronald 3 days ago | parent [-]

> It mentions stats about child exploitation but doesn't show how that's related to gtlds.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. Any young people I know can barely tell you what a domain is. They're not directly visiting websites AFAIK and I don't think any of the platforms require a domain to participate.

> 9% experience online sexual extortion before the age of 18

That's an astronomical number and I'd assume it has to be an overall total. I hate those kinds of statistics because they're not telling you what you really need to know to make an informed decision. What's the percentage that involved a gTLD?

To me, this smells a bit like another effort at usurping control of the flow of information. Domains are an incredible tool for independence and the fact they've been co-opted by bad actors provides a great opportunity for a select few to seize control over what we're allowed to do with them :-(

They've made no effort to give normal participants an edge over the scammers and jump straight to censorship / control.

For example, consider that person on here with 'web.one' the other day. Why doesn't their expensive, premium domain include an increased level of trust and reputation?

If they want to do KYC, I think that's fine, but it should be an opt in system like the old EV certificates used to be. I don't need KYC and a bunch of controls to self-host things that no one else uses.

The problem with EV certificates is they became a money printing scam for the CAs. Plus, and this is an opinion, I think the platforms like Google and Facebook went out of their way to kill EV because damaging a trust indicator for domains benefits them when there are scams everywhere (as we're seeing now) and people need the platforms to "protect them" rather than having a fundamental understanding of how to evaluate risks on their own.

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xp84 3 days ago | parent [-]

I'm no domain registry expert but I'm inclined to agree with you on 100% of this. Who needs a domain registration to cyber extort? Pretty sure they just DM that type of material to the victim and threaten to DM it to others. Simple. Same for distributing illicit materials. Pretty sure it's either dark web or private groups on platforms.

These days especially it seems like nearly every measure relating to "cybersecurity" or regulation in the online space in any way is always hitching itself loudly to some form of child sex abuse - I don't blame these various lobbyists for trying, since it's obviously a winning formula. Bring up a universally loathed offense, explain that your new scheme is somehow "needed" to cut down on it, then shout down your opposition as "soft on child abuse."

It's the playbook used in 2001 when it was The Terrorists. I suspect that since moral relativism has resulted in many people being unsure if even the sickest terrorists, who behead their prisoners on camera with a dull sword, might actually just be misunderstood freedom-fighters, now there's a new favorite bogeyman, this one more resistant to political reframing.

	▲	donmcronald 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think part of the problem is a lack of explanation and education. 10% of kids are being exploited and no one can tell us how it's happening, but everyone has a plan to fix it? Is there money to invest in resources for kids that need help? Nope. Is there money to implement a global surveillance system that tracks and logs everything for AI analysis while attributing it to verified identities? You betcha! When I was a kid deleting your account and creating a new one was a good solution if someone started harassing you. That's been taken away and, even worse, normalizing verified IDs is eliminating the last tiny bit of privacy everyone has, including kids. The bad actors are going to be able to follow people around forever IMO.