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Elon Musk being against the social media ban on under 16-year-olds is him basically reaching a good conclusion from the wrong equation, because he’s not doing it out of privacy concerns about how everyone would probably have to verify themselves to prove that they’re older than 16 years old. He’s doing it because it would not be good for his business.
I’m not sure how they could implement this without requiring ID verification on every single internet user. I guess I’m not familiar with the topic enough to say if there is another way that they could pursue, but even if there is, at the same time, I’m not too confident in the governments opting for the other options. I’m from neither Spain nor Greece, so I guess I can’t speak on this, but I’m just referring to governments as a general group. And because a lot of different countries are trying to do this at the same time, I’m also not too confident about my own country not doing this at some point, sooner or later.
But the problem is not doing it right. If the page asks only “is this cert from a person older than 16 y.o.?” with an answer that can only be yes, no or bad cert, problem solved. The page doesn’t say which user has that cert and the authority doesn’t give any personal data except “older than 16”.
Certificates that can’t be tied to a specific person can and will be shared, making them essentially worthless.
We‘ve had that in Germany about 20 years ago. Some websites asked you to verify your age by entering a part of the encoded data on the back of your ID card. It took maybe a few days until lists with valid IDs were all over the internet.
Sure, certificates are marginally more reliable because they can be revoked but at that point, websites need to update their revocation lists close to real time which isn’t practical and still can’t catch every shared cert.
Reliably verifying your identity without revealing too many personal details is an extremely hard problem that has troubled computer scientists for decades.
I don’t think we should be taking advice on children from somebody in the Epstein Files. Even if it might have just been him being a pathetic loser begging to go to the cool kids’ party like he’s 13 in body and not just in personality.
He’d have a higher chance of getting in if he was actually 13
Musk doesn’t’ have fury, he whines like a little nazi bitch
What’s the argument against a ban? I don’t see a downside to banning social media for kids. In theory they would be forced to build in-person social connections and local communities. After 16 they can expand into the social media space. Personally, I think it should be tied to something like drinking age.
Build in person social connections?
Think of the shareholders! I mean, think of the children who will have to go through that awful process!
It depends how it will be implemented. Do you want to send your ID to Facebook etc.? Or do you want to make a video call before you can use a social media site? Will only the big players be required to keep your age verification details, or will each forum, each Fediverse site be required to gather and keep your personal ID?
They don’t need to gather your data. Only the answer to the authority about the age and not even that.
Exactly:
not so terrible way to do it: to verify your age you get redirected to government run service, you authenticate with you digital ID, get redirected back to original site with information about you age only
terrible way to do it: tell each site to handle age verification on their side
Knowing Spanish government they will go with the terrible way.
So now the government has absolute detail on every single thing you need to authenticate for, online. Nothing could go wrong there.
I don’t think there’s any good safe way for verification to even be achieved, even if there was a good reason for it, which, honestly, I think there isn’t.
That’s why I said it’s ‘not so terrible’ way, not that it’s a good way.
I don’t see a big issue with people authenticating this way for Facebook or Twitter. They government will basically know that “this person is using Facebook”. They don’t even have to know your username or anything. It gets problematic when we get to more controversial apps and porn so it’s still bad, just not as bad as letting Facebook scan people faces and IDs.
Agreed this way is bad, but there can be a safe way of doing it. Basically, your digital ID has a way of signing that you are over 18 without giving any details. Estonia’s digital ID can do this. Imagine your digital ID has a way to sign documents with your age, but no other information. That way sites can know you’re over 18, without knowing your name, and the government doesn’t know what site you’re signing up to.
A less technical example of how this could work for the sake of explanation: You ask the government for a piece of paper that says you’re over 18. They don’t ask why you need it. All it has is a government stamp on it, saying you’re over 18. You give that piece of paper to someone trying to verify you’re over 18. They now know nothing about you other than that you’re over 18, and the government knows nothing about your activity other than that you want to prove your age for some reason.
Kids can still just use a VPN to get around this, but at least it doesn’t compromise the security of adults.
Kids can still just use a VPN to get around this, but at least it doesn’t compromise the security of adults.
And I can just sell my “you’re over 18” paper to some kid and he can use it. Spanish government proposed anonymous age verification certs some time ago. It’s also better solution than letting privet companies handle the verification but it doesn’t really solve anything. One leaked cert can be used by all the kids in Spain. If it’s truly anonymous you will never know who leaked it. If it’s not anonymous then… you know.
Find info on cl@ve.
Not if the procedure is like cl@ve.
What do you mean? With Cl@ve I’m still redirected to government website and back. The governments knows which site I’m visiting. It’s like the first solution.
But the site doesn’t need to say the user.
Yes, the only issue here is that the government knows which sites you visit. It’s not an issue for facebook.com but is an issue pornhub.com I don’t like the ‘slippery slope’ argument but in this case, I can very easily see the government extend this beyond social media sites using the exact same arguments.
They have precidet! The UK already went with the latter.
So the only arguments against the ban come down to how to perform the age verification and not issues with the ban itself. That makes sense. Maybe we could institute some kind of one time passcode where it’s like an MFA for age. Like picture your passport can generate a hash (unidirectional) that just contains like month and year of birth and is verified via PGP with the passport issuing body as the cert authority. So the only actual information you are sending is a hashed and cryptographically verified month and year of birth. That should probably make everyone happy.
Cl@ve works that way. You have to authenticate with a 3 letter code in your cell phone.
elmicha only mentions this one arguments but parents will have more. Some parents claim that this will isolate their kids and since social media is good at radicalizing children fascist parents will see this as simply censorship, cutting their kids for valuable, fascist content.
just as long as they dont require digital ID from everyone.
I would rather authenticate with my digital ID than make stupid videos or send photos of my ID. Your video and ID share way more data about you than digital ID.
none of that is necessary, a digital fingerprint is more than enough to discern the age of any user. digital id, biometrics, and id verification for any social media platform is completely unecessary. its just another tool for the surveillance state to blackmail users into self editing and pre compliance.
What do you think happens when you use digital ID? You know you don’t actually send your ID over to the social media platform? You just send your public cert with minimal information. What’s the difference between this and ‘digital fingerprint’?
a digital ID is your identity turned into data. stored in databases, apps, or wallets, often tied to biometrics. It can be checked remotely, instantly, and at scale. verification can happen without you actively presenting it, depending on the system. It’s usually linked across systems, government, banks, employers, healthcare, platforms. etc. Tracking is trivial. Every check leaves a timestamp, location, metadata. there is also the the risk of breaches, misuse, surveillance creep, account lockouts. to say the least.
the difference is you choose when to present a physical ID, a digital ID removes that choice. and exposes you to a far wider variety of issues.
a digital fingerprint is user data that is provided through the usage of a device or connection, its whatever information you “choose” that becomes available for others to look into on the other side. with no required definite identification. however its easy for algorithms to pick up the age of the user based on the data provided by their daily usage.so digital identification for social media is in fact a pointless persuit unless you want to control the “nodes” with more precision.
at the end of the day, a parent should parent their children, not the state. parents need be less lazy and more present in their childrens lives, especially because of the issues caused by things like social media. forcing everyone to give up their online anonimity so that big brother knows specifically that you like weird porn and express anti big brother views, just allows them to preemptively stifle you from competing or participating in society depending on whos in office at the time. or they leak your information, and someone uses your ID for god knows what else.
digital ID is quite literally the last nail in the coffin for personal freedom and autonomy on the internet, say goodbye to whistle blowers, and virtually any form of online resistance to fascism and authoritarianism.
just ask yourself how much privacy you may like to enjoy in the future, and whether or not you want a government AI or corporate AI combing your data, or your childrens data through their verified digital ID, and deciding whether or not you are allowed to participate in certain functions of society, and what impact you or they are allowed to have. based on the preferences of 1% of the population.
what is legal to say today, or yesterday, may not be legal tomorrow. and the punishments for crimes today, and of yesterday, may not be “fit” for the “crimes” of tomorrow.
basically meaning, digital ID is a fascists/authoritarians/corporations/elites, wet dream. and should be avoided at all costs.
it is very 1984.
Spanish here. Our NID (eDNI) has TWO certs. One to authenticate ourselves and another to sign things.
Was this nonsense generated by AI? People in Spain already have digital IDs. It’s a personal certificated signed by the Governments CA. I import into Firefox and when I visit government website the browser asks me if I want to send my cert and which. That’s it. It has been working like this for decades. It’s crazy how confused people are about basic things.
writes a long winded summary that is inherently anti AI. answering all the questions and potentials of what comes with more acceptance of digital ID around the world, and leaving room for the reader to fill the gaps, assuming they are intelligent enough to do so
“Was this nonsense generated by AI?”
lol, fuck me for having okayish grammar i guess?
“People in Spain already have digital IDs. It’s a personal certificated signed by the Governments CA. I import into Firefox and when I visit government website the browser asks me if I want to send my cert and which. That’s it. It has been working like this for decades. It’s crazy how confused people are about basic things.”
yes thats one use case of one version of one countries digital ID system. congratulations on understanding how to use it. proud of you.
however. another example.
vietnam just forced their citizens to sign up for digital ID and froze their bank accounts until they did so.
“Vietnam has rolled out a national digital identity system around the VNeID platform, issuing over 62 million citizen accounts by 2025 and expanding mandatory electronic identification to companies and foreign residents as policy milestones stack up toward full coverage by 2026. The program now combines biometric authentication, bank integrations, corporate e‑ID mandates, and sectoral digitalization (notably tax) while facing persistent interoperability and data‑sharing challenges that the government acknowledges and is seeking to addres”
you can go quietly into that good night if you want to, friend. But personally, im not so naive to think that its all for the greater good.
if you cant imagine one reason why its not a good idea, then honestly i think you might be some kind of shill. whether you know it or not.
Ignoring digital ID being used as state snooping and control for a moment.
It’s crazy age verification would ever need to exist online. Children cannot buy an internet connection.
Age verification on wifi, got it.
more like parents actually parenting rather than plugging their kids in and leaving them to their own devices out of laziness. allowing the state to parent them (and all of us adults,it seems) instead.
kids should honestly have no more than a dumb phone and limited access to a family computer which should only be used for school work.and light browsing monitored at the parents discretion. until they are old enough to make mature, informed decisions themselves. but the parents should have the right to choose how they engage with technology.
brain development and mandatory critical thinking skills need to be instilled before having unfilitred access to the most addicting misinformation technology on the planet. thats my personal preference, but i am not everyone. and one size does not fit all in this case.
Children cannot buy a connection, so if they bought a modem/router, they couldnt do anything with it.
This is the exact point, its a parental failure if they give their children access to the internet without supervision. Maybe it’s also a fault of the educational and social systems, for not better preparing our parents to be in this world.
No because the internet is just in the air
immediately on side of the ban
