alt Hacker NewsSo in red states porn is being used, and in blue states TikTok and Instagram are being used. Is anyone tracking who is behind the concerted efforts here? For example, which organizations, executives, lobbyists and politicians are valid and responsible parties?
Replies
Tech incumbents whose businesses are reliant on selling ad space need to designate who is a verified human on the internet as soon as possible or their businesses go to zero once the entire web is AI bots and all the traffic is fraudulent and worthless, so they have to play as many angles as they can to achieve this.
Its ad tech, as always.
These bills all suddenly appeared, as if by magic, in multiple state houses only a very short time after Zuck was on the stand in the Facebook trial early in the year testifying that "the right place to do age verification is in the operating system".
Now, granted, correlation is not always causation. But it sure stinks of something Meta had their lobbyists push just after Zuck's testimony so as to shift the liability risk of handling age appropriate material away from Meta properties and onto operating systems (Microsoft, Apple, Google (Android)).
This seems to have more information. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1rshc1f/i_traced_2_b...
You raise an interesting point in the first sentence. It might be that age sniffing could actually violate the US constitution.
As for lobbyists: I think we can probably determine the key lobbyists, e. g. if we map the data and names. And ideally also the money given to them. Ultimately they are faceless though, because corruption is easily exchangeable. The issue here is systemic though. The US "democracy" no longer exists due to that corruption. It is not rule by the people but rule by bribery.
I used to run a parental controls startup and after talking to lots of parents, I can tell you this sentiment is shared among most parents. Parents on both sides of the isle think they're going to keep their teenagers off the internet forever, I had parents look me straight in the face and say their child wouldn't be allowed online until she was 16.
Parents aren't interested in the nuance of good and bad guys, they see the internet, think it's too much trouble to keep around, and want it blocked. I suspect politicians are just mimicking this sentiment after talking to thousands of parents
Meta is one of the biggest ones pushing for this, because they don't want to be accountable so these types of laws pass the buck onto the delivery platforms (Apple, Google, other OSes)
Meta is then funding/lobbying alongside a bunch of other conservative groups like Heritage Action, and the digital childhood alliance (also made up of a ton of other conservative lobbying groups)