alt Hacker NewsI live in an area that has been declared among the safest in America. Two months ago a 17 year old girl from our city disappeared. Turns out she had been being groomed for a year over Discord and in Roblox by a 39 year old the next state over. He eventually convinced her to let him pick her up, after which he filmed himself having sex with her, killed her, and then dismembered her body. He apparently was grooming other underaged girls in a similar way as well.
The digital age presents with it novel forms of danger for children, and for adults for that matter, and there is absolutely no way to effectively address these risks without some amount of reduction in privacy. And before someone inevitably says “where were the parents?” and wash their hands of the situation, a healthy society should care for and protect all children, especially those whose parents do not.
It’s one thing to hold the opinion “I am willing to sacrifice some number of lives, in order to preserve privacy”. That is an honest and potentially justifiable opinion someone may hold. But declaring the situation to simply be a facade to harvest people’s data seems to me like a reflexive response to avoid uncomfortable truths regarding the situation.
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If the government knew every single user on the internet's name, address, phone number and what they had for breakfast, it would not stop monsters like this, or even slow them down.
There will always be weird tail risks. The law should only get involved where there are widespread systemic problems.
People are occasionally hospitalized due to self, family, or friends handling food improperly. That doesn't warrant a legal intervention whereas dining establishments do.
> before someone inevitably says “where were the parents?” and wash their hands of the situation
Nope, that's exactly what I say. The law cannot reasonably replace responsible parenting if society is to remain a pleasant place to live.
Discord & Roblox - no encryption, privacy, or anonymity on either of those platforms, by the way.
Still none of that necessitates the type of mandatory partial-ID verification being pushed by these laws.
Roblox can straightforwardly require ID verification on their own, of both the parent responsible for the account, as well as the children directly (request documentation from their school, birth certificate, etc. Yes, high touch to verify these documents. But we're talking protecting children here, right?)
If anything this type of legislation is about absolving them of the responsibility of doing so!. Imagine a company making their offering "for adults only", with de facto kid usage as parents relent and just let their kid use an older age on the computer.
I'm sure the same government that held the Epstein class responsible will get right on to making sure his proteges are brought to justice, we just need to give up more freedoms first.
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> But declaring the situation to simply be a facade to harvest people’s data seems to me like a reflexive response to avoid uncomfortable truths regarding the situation.
Well, your example wouldn't be solved by age verification in any way. They could still legally access Roblox or a discord private chat (or even another private chat method) after this law.
So the example show how it is about irrational fear and not protection in any way.
And this is an tragic edge case, if you want to take this kind of edge case in consideration, you also have to take in consideration what the age verification would imply as tragic edge case.