Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank

I suspect they don't really; once you give a teen a smartphone your control over what websites they visit ends.

(you will reply "don't do that then")

But also: cutting one kid off from social networks ostracises them. The parents recognize it's a collective action problem.

Network effects from the other side:

If one parent forbids their child then their child becomes a pariah. If no child is able to access social media then they will all interact without it. So yeah, a parent needs their peer's children to also not use social media so that their child is not left out.

In general I'm against age based bans. I think there are alternatives where we would identify and just generally regulate the harmful features of social media. In the meanwhile, I feel empathetic towards the difficulties of parenting in this era.

Yeah, this I will seriously never understand. When I was a kid, if my mother didn't want me doing something then she would make sure I couldn't do it. Is nobody parenting their children anymore? Do they just let them do whatever they want these days? I've got a 2 year old of my own and can't imagine just handing him an iPad and ignoring him all day like I see other parents do. I can't tell if it's laziness, or ignorance, or some combination of the two.

There are more angles on this, not exactly easy. The easiest way to make a kid to do something, is to forbid that very thing.

If you are the one cutting it off, while your kid's whole school is very much up to date with latest brainrot content, then you still lose.

Your kid is the outcast, while it will be exposed to it anyway, through peers. Meanwhile you are the bad one, making it much harder to have an actual conversation on the topic.

I am vividly interested in this, as my kid is growing up. I hear how a bit older kids play and what they talk about on the playground and feel that I have very little time left to react (kid is still just now starting to show interest in phones and such). A ban on all social media for kids would make this so much easier.

That's like arguing against bans on alcohol and cigarette sales to minors because parents "have the power" to ban it for their kids themselves. There is a role for the state to help parents socialize their children properly.

This statistic comes from here -- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/parental-support-... -- a preliminary analysis of the consultation. The headline statement is:

    "Of the parents and carers of children aged 21 and under who responded to Question 12 on the full-length version of the consultation, 89% supported “a legal requirement for social media services to have a minimum age of access”." 

However, what the government (and the media) are _NOT_ reporting is that the consultation also paid an independent firm to undertake a nationally representative survey of adults in the general population. The above document acknowledges this itself, by stating:

    Caveats and limitations

    Users should note the following when interpreting these results: 
    Self-selecting sample

    The consultation was open to anyone who chose to respond. The results reflect the views of parents and carers who were motivated to take part, and are not representative of parents and carers nationally. As with any open public consultation, respondents may differ systematically from the wider population in their views and characteristics. 
    Question routing

    These questions were only presented to respondents who wanted to respond to Chapter 2: Interventions for safer, more positive experiences. All questions in this section were optional. Finally, Question 13 was only presented to respondents who answered “Yes” to Question 12 (i.e. those who supported a legal requirement for a minimum age of access in principle). The 96% figure therefore relates to the level of agreement with a minimum age of at least 16 among those parents and carers who opted to respond to this Chapter and already supported some form of minimum age requirement. It does not represent the views of all consultation respondents, nor all parents and carers who responded.
    Full consultation only

    The figures relate only to the full-length version of the consultation, not the streamlined parents’ and children’s consultations.

Status of results

   These figures should be treated as provisional. A comprehensive analysis of all consultation responses will be published separately.consultation, respondents may differ systematically from the wider population in their views and characteristic

So, it's 90% of 9499 parents who specifically went out of their way to respond to a consultation widely heralded as being predetermined and about blocking access to social media. For context, in the 2021 census (massively disrupted by covid) there were 11.5 million schoolchildren and full-time students whose parents were the target of the survey.

The representative study isn't published yet. The provisional headline 90% number is.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/educatio...

> They have the power to do it.

Do they? It seems like schools are pushing tech and "ed-tech" in schools pretty hard while being typically incompetent at actually controlling how students use it[1].

Some choice exerpts:

> Lisa Sunbury is a professor of early childhood education in Santa Cruz, California, and she had a child at Mission Hill Middle School. Her 7th grade daughter has a set of serious issues that require an IEP. Lisa did her part at home, enforcing the low-screen policy. One element of this plan was supposed to be minimal access to school devices and a clear requirement that the device be inaccessible outside of certain classes. This was all on doctor’s orders.

> Yet, Sunbury would regularly find her daughter awake at 3am, playing video games on the school Chromebook that she wasn’t supposed to have. She discovered a prohibited TikTok account, made on the school device, with dance videos posted from gym class using that same device.

> Beverly Hyde, a parent in Concord, North Carolina, was explicitly told that if her son wasn’t going to use his Chromebook, “he will just sit alone and spend the day doing nothing.”

> And this was no empty threat. Linda in Texas discovered that while her doctor-ordered opt-out request for her 2nd grader was technically being honored, the school wasn’t providing any alternative instruction. They were just “having her sit and draw while the other kids were online.”

[1] https://www.persuasion.community/p/inside-the-anti-tech-rebe...

denying smartphone basically makes your kid an outcast, which might be fine for some kids, not fine for others, but ignoring that, the school basically requires smartphones, even uses apps to open the lockers, or to communicate about group projects.

apple's parental controls are total joke, per app blocks are not good at all, what you want is content type blocks, which of course is impossible.

example: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254480754?sortBy=rank

You fail to understand just how good kids are at getting around restrictions. This despite having been a kid yourself who would have found ways around it.

Often we don't really have the power we want either. It is easy to say ban everything. However realistically that isn't the correct answer, too much school work really is on devices - often provided by the school so I can't lock them (except for the limited controls the school gives to us - if the correct app works on our devices that then we are expected to have). Every week some new hole in their block app gets spread around school - until the school figures it out and blocks it all the kids have it.

The only think unique about the above is devices. I guarantee if you go back 3000 years in history you will find parents complaining about their kids in similar ways.

Are you a parent?

That does not mean that these parents understand the technical aspects of it.

e.g. How effective it will be: less than they might think, software is not infallible magic

What the side effects might be - more than they might think - excluding the underage means verifying the age of everyone.

So articles like this aim to raise awareness, all of this is clearly spelled out in the article.

Most parents probably don't think, and just say an automatic yes when it comes to governmental restrictions. I am not sure why that is so - they are probably happy with their assumptions about how the world works, so they are fine with governments being restrictive in general.

Has been discussed here again and again.

Apparently parenting "its too hard", you "dont know how hard it is", and the alternative of "not having kids" is somehow impractical.

We're not right back where we started, we're in far far worse place where all online activity of every single person is de-anonymized (associated with their full legal ID). Tech companies are salivating at the thought.

Yes. It's astounding how stupid average voter is.

What law requires that? From what I've seen laws like the one in Utah require any account to be in "child mode" until you can prove you're an adult.

Also these law makers don't want their kids on social media.

It's not for the Fortunate Sons, silly.

Those can only work if there is some way to ensure that everyone uses them correctly. I guarantee there will be many sites that don't - every single week the kids will discover a new one and spread it to all their friends (in their school)

> Is that really such a naive suggestion?

IMHO, yes, but that'll depend on the kid, their friends, and all the parents involved. If everyone does line up and agree, than it might be possible, but I think the reality is that kids are remarkably clever and resourceful and will find a way to access what you don't want them to. They'll do it secretly and maybe you'll find out or you won't.

My child is 18, and from about 7th grade onwards, everything important with friends happened in one of the various "group chats" for the various friend circles, sports circles, etc. These are app-based, not SMS/RCS/iMessage based. In our family, we opted for "you can use devices" but with some limits around time of day and work completeness. Phone and apps were open to review by mom and dad on demand.

When reviewing, we weren't looking to micro manage or police the conversations, but to make sure that nothing alarming was happening with respect to addiction to the media, stranger conversations, etc. And yes, random phishing, spam, and inappropriate messages did occasionally come through and provide a great opportunity to talk about how to identify the scams, and how to report the inappropriate messages.

As the kid got older and demonstrated ability to manage things, restrictions loosened, but on-demand access is still allowed with random checks every now and then. Obviously we can't see everything, but it's a balance of protection and safety vs. releasing a fully functional and independent human in the wild that can handle these things on their own.

Again, this is going to depend on the situation, the kids, and the families. My sample size of raising a child is 1, so what worked for us may not work for anyone else.

Parents will get their kids phones worrying that they're missing out. The more parents do that the more the kids without phones are actually being left out. If the government puts restriction on these things than parents are much less likely to worry.

I've heard of parents of children for a certain grade getting together and all signing a pact that the kids won't have phones until a certain point, say 16. It only goes into effect if something like 75% of the parents for that grade sign on. I like that idea.

US voters are defined by their apathy. Collective action is difficult even on areas most American's agree on due to shades of grey and implementation differences.

It may be analogous to vaccine adoption, with requirements in place for all (with some exceptions).

Who sets and applies the exceptions? A state or federal agency that runs afoul of free speech issues? An AMA type public board for social media use, quickly captured by the industry they serve to regulate? Parents themselves via opt out paperwork or ignoring the regulations?

I want to see more options debated or proposed for this sort of management, starting with right to privacy and your data, harsh punishment for promoting misinformation, and disclosure of algorithms/etc on what your feed includes.

Make all fines a flat % of revenue or an otherwise real amount to companies like Meta, not just a cost of business. Maybe pay users when their data is used/sold/etc, or otherwise increase the cost of what are basically information dragnets for advertising and manipulation.

> Say the 40-year-old millennials who were exposed to the Wild West of internet content as children and are still fine.

Prior to college, my only computer was the crappy family pc in a corner of the living room. Only had a flip-phone until college too.

That’s a completely different world than kids growing up glued to smartphones, and screens generally, from elementary school.

Before I respond, I want to point out that I'm against age verification as well.

> "Think of the children!" - Say the 40-year-old millennials who were exposed to the Wild West of internet content as children and are still fine.

While I'm not 40 yet: I was exposed to "the Wild West" and I was certainly not fine. And even then, I'd argue that today's social media is even more damaging for the psyche than everything I was exposed to.

> "Our child will become a pariah without the internet!" - In what way, exactly? They still go to school, still play sports, still go to chess club/band/theater/etc, still ride bikes around the neighborhood, still hang out at friends' houses, etc. All the kids will not hate them because their parents refused to give them a smartphone. (How do I know? I know a kid who grew up without one. Has plenty of friends.)

Not all communities are like this, but I have certainly seen it:

- They still go to school: Sure, but they will miss out on class group chats that, depending on the school, might be important. Or, even worse, will miss information from teachers. - still play sports/go to chess clubs/etc: Sure, unless all club communication happens over chat apps/social media and is required to join. - All the kids will not hate them because their parents refused to give them a smartphone: Maybe not. Maybe they will be because they are the odd one out (How do I know? I was the kid who grew up without the back-then equivalent)

This is by far the best solution and should be the top comment.

Why is the onus on the parents to chase after their kids - screen time is awful and kids get around it.

The social media and porn sites should be penalized and the onus should be on them. Just like when we were kids, the channel couldn't show certain content like nudity and cursing or they'd be fined.

How is it suddenly the obligation of the parent to supervise a million options with horrible interfaces.

How would you know if someone was a minor? Facebook knows even if you don't tell them, but I don't.

Would it be combined with the California-style OS age header?

You're right to be concerned about thinktank-washing, but FIPR themselves are fine: one of the academic:policy bridge groups rather than an astroturfing organisation funneling dark money.

I don't always agree with their stuff, but they're good faith actors.

Unless you make age verification and age assurance illegal with massive fines that are larger than your proposed fines, that is a terrible idea.

Speed cameras, police with radar/etc, self reporting via insurance apps, controlled by GPS or speed limits in vehicles, etc

The tech is there but not applied equally. Regulations could limit every car to 70mph, or the (US) state to state max highway speeds. eBikes are sort of already doing this with categories based on max speed, in some states.

Then like speed limits and (emissions) regulations, people would find ways to bypass them. Rolling coal is one example. Electric 'bikes' that are basically mopeds or mini motorcycles don't require registration or licensing in many places, or at least don't enforce it.

How much freedom is the general populace willing to stomach? These age verification laws apply to everyone but tend to only impact nonvoters (age 17 and under). People are generally apathetic (especially US voters) and may comply with the easy option before fighting and preventing any "foot in the door" for this sort of policy.

I can't use Instagram due to the ratio of ads and sponsored posts yet apparently millions are fine with it. If they can send their ID and likeness to Meta once and continue to scroll, how much will they care?

Adding layers for accountability is a good idea. It needs to start with social media itself, including preventing misinformation and disclosing algorithm/behavior nudges designed to suck people in.

I think it's rather that they want to de-anonymize internet users by linking all activity to one or more identifiers.

An IP address only links you to a physical address, at best. Account requirements with identity verification link the user's real-world identity via government ID, credit card, or face photo.

This is already reality in Finland. Want to schedule a doctor's appointment? Bank ID. Want to pay your taxes? Ban ID. Want to check your pension? Bank ID. The worst part of it is that a significant swathe of the population does not have access to bank ID, so they can't access these services anymore. It's a kafkaesque dystopia that is going places that I never thought would be possible.

It's both. Most people want to protect children, some other people (concentrated among the rich and powerful) see this and use it as an excuse to push surveillance.

FYI for adult content, there's a standard called RTA-Label that already integrates with all parental controls and is already deployed on all major adult sites.

There is an unfortunate lack of unity for such things. It would work if governments made it easily understandable how to categorize content, but the vast majority is handled by closed boards of people, so no "case law" exists for the difficult edge cases.

Additionally, some jurisdictions have laws based around religious and cultural values which are not immediately obvious, I'm sure many webmasters would be happy to spend 30 minutes or so writing something for such a framework, but the current subsequent obligation of learning the laws of relevant jurisdictions, the decisions of age rating boards, etc. would blow things out to weeks of research and potentially quite a bit of lawyer money.

This would do nothing to prevent sending explicit content within chat apps, which appears to be a big focus at the moment.

Yes but that's not what this is for, it's for boiling the frog of enforcing ID checks online.

The other 'side' is playing the same power games.

None of this is truly about the people (even though the sentiment is) - it's the elites vying for power against each other.

The internet is not tribal, but humans are. Those seeking to divide are pushing their hardest right now, because they know division will empower them more.