alt Hacker News(repost)
- Let's limit children's use of social media and screens.
- Great! Let's do it.
- We need to identify who is 18+, so here's your digital ID for everything. And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.
- WTF!
- That "WTF" just cost you 100 social credits.
Replies
> And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.
We could have a real conversation about tradeoffs (and maybe this one isn't worth it!) but not if you just assume/pretend the worst-case scenario is real. I'm Australian and I'll happily bet that N years from now I'll still be able to criticize the government without being debanked or sacked.
If we do ever fall to authoritarianism, I doubt this will have been a crucial step; it's already easy for the government to deanonymize most posters if it wants to, and an evil future government that wanted to go further could probably just... do it, regardless of precedent.
I don't have the solution. But it seems like a problem which needs to be addressed and regulation isn't a crazy place to look. As a parent, it feels like I'm constantly battling with Meta, Tiktok and Google over my childrens' development and we have very different goals.
Can't zero knowledge proof solve this problem?
Submit a zkp that you are over 18 to the website that requires it. The proof need not be tied to the identity of the user.
I personally don't think self-regulation works. It's harmful so the next best option is the government regulating it.
Also in the meantime kids find their way to other sites / work around and they claim to be adults so now ... NO PROTECTIONS for the kids ...
Completely the opposite of what you would hope.
> And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.
When has this happened in the countries you listed?
An an Australian, the social media ban legislation specifically requires than non-ID methods be available (it specifically says that also included digital ID).
Why are you lumping Canada into that group? Only UK and AUS are doing the digital ID.
Also Rahm Emanuel: "Let's take Second Amendment rights away from everybody on the no-fly list." [1,2]
1: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/rahm-emanuel-hey-lets...
2: https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/816qf/rahm_eman...
This is probably controversial, but this reason I would much rather things like social media and pornography be outright banned rather than age-gated.
Children’s welbeeing being a dog whistle? You should go out and talk to real parents and teachers in the real world.
This is a speculative, intuitive reflex meant to derail an argument.
Sorry what do you think is happening in New Zealand?
> It's amazing how coordinated it is.
It's not really "amazing" at all, when you consider that the working class in those countries has finally woken up to the fact that their biggest present day issues, like housing unaffordability and low purchasing power, have been caused by the intentional fiscal policies of their governments over the last 30+ years, instead of the usual boogeymen (Xi Jinping, Putin, Covid, immigrants, etc).
And now after 20+ years of constantly vote hopping between left and right, hoping "this time it will be better than last time" but in practice it always ended up worse, the people are trying to hold them accountable for it, so the elite are switching tactics now that the ye olde reliable tactic of gaslighting the people doesn't work anymore.
If the carrot doesn't work anymore, time to move over to using the stick to keep the peasants in line.
Meh, the gov can do this already. The effect of social media on our kids is a bigger evil at this point.
I would suggest that anyone who says modern social media isn't damaging to people in general, but particularly young people, either (a) has never used it; or (b) is being deliberately disingenuous.
From that point I would view social media essentially like alcohol.
As an adult you can choose to (ab)use it if you wish, but it's arguably the government's responsibility to protect children at large from social dangers like this.
It's absolutely a thing that people are asked to prove their age to buy alcohol, or even to enter a licensed venue that serves alcohol. I don't think I've ever heard anyone except underage teenagers complain about the invasion of privacy to hand over your ID for beer/etc.
Does the implementation around safe proof of age need work? Probably. Does that mean the whole thing is a not-so-subtle attempt to fire you for swearing?
I don't fucking think so mate.
People are already fired for saying stupid shit on social media, they're already debanked for being out-and-proud White Supremacists.
Given the current political situation in the USA and how it got there, if you have any illusions of a continuing democracy, you should be champing at the bit for anything which reduces social media use.
It's bloody obvious how damaging social media, especially on mobile devices, is to everyone's mental state. Check out what teachers have to say about the attention span of the current generation pupils. But no, your access to whatever it is you're addicted to is more important.
Anyway, the government can already take away your bank account. No need for them to introduce such a complex scheme.