alt Hacker NewsYou see a slippery slope and I see a reasonable compromise. It's a wildly popular opinion that we should control which age groups can use social media[0][1][2]. Do you think these polls are astroturfed? If not, it's clear people want some sort of age verification, and I think California's way is the least intrusive.
And I know someone is going to say 'then we should regulate social media sites to force them to verify the users' ages...' no god please no. Normalizing cloud-based age verification is far, far worse than AB 1043. If there is a principle to be set that should be: cloud should trust local, not vice versa.
[0]: https://yougov.com/articles/51000-support-for-under-16-socia...
[1]: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/widespread-support-banning-socia...
[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gen-z-social...
Replies
I'm curious what a poll of public opinion would say about certain demographics in 1930's Germany. Does that seem like a good argument for what the government should and shouldn't do?
A reasonable compromise? With who? Who here is somehow required to "compromise"?
People, generally, have no grasp of what they really want or what downstream effects of what they think they want look like. They don't know what it would take to effect that ban. In fact, I would speculate that if the same group were asked "should you, personally, have to scan your ID to visit Facebook," you'd see a meaningful shift in responses. (yes, I know that's not the way this particular CA proposal would be implemented, the point is that people are fickle and polls are not a good guide for lawmaking)
I also don't base my principles on the desires of the masses. It's our duty as people who understand the technology to prevent the controversy-de-jour from wagging our dog.
I share your feeling that if everyone did it this way and the world promised to stop making bad, privacy-invading ID laws I could grin and bear it. I don't see that happening, thus I am hostile to it in any flavor.