HN

Comments (272)

• Menu

  1vuio0pswjnm7
  Back to the internet's peer-to-peer roots. Many protocols besides the wwwThe www became infested with so-called "tech" companies acting as intermediaries (middlemen)Lots of folks making money from surveillance ad system on the www. Oversized, unmanageable websites calling themselves "platforms"The www is an ad network. Not a great place for non-commercial activityFortunately, the internet is more than the www. The internet was not created to collect behavioral data and deliver advertising as its primary purposePeople pay for an internet subscription, not a www subscription (or now a "social media subscription")
• jvvw
  As a parent of teenagers, I feel like the sites make it hard for parents.When they were young, you had a choice between YouTube being completely locked down with no option to whitelist channels or letting them watch almost anything (although I think this has changed since but it's too late now for those of us with children that age).Now, there is no way I can whitelist contact/groups on WhatsApp or Discord servers/friends. Once they hit 13, pretty much any option to restrict anything feels taken away from you as a parent.Luckily, I have sensible children (I think!) but it's really hard as a parent trying to both be reasonably responsible, but not deny all technology, it's really hard to navigate a sensible course.
• Menu

  armchairhacker
  Age verification is fine, at least in theory. It’s the implementations that are bad.More and more people agree that kids shouldn’t be on modern social media, including me. But most people also agree that mass surveillance is dangerous. The solution is to propose ways to block kids from modern social media (that actually works) without mass surveillance.Better parental controls, more parental education, and site-specific age verification (Facebook etc. can require whatever PII they want to use their service) backed by incentives (whitelisting in parental controls, promoted as a “safe site” in parental education). Are these enough? Maybe not, but maybe mandatory ID and blocking VPNs aren’t enough as evidenced by people bypassing them. These (first three) are progress, that don’t yet require mass surveillance, and we can first see how effective they are then go from there.I wish people wouldn’t say “age verification is bad”, it’s like “anti-work” and “defund the police”.
• Menu

  falkensmaize
  One very simple way to give parents control over what their children see and participate in without violating everyone else’s privacy is to create adult and social TLDs and require these sites to migrate to them. So instagram.com becomes instagram.social, etc. Then mandate that all consumer network equipment mfrs and internet providers provide easily accessible ways to block these TLDs. Maybe combine that with some public education materials to teach less savvy parents how to do this.Now you’ve given every parent a way to easily mass block all adult/social sites/apps if they want and no one’s privacy need be compromised.
• jollymonATX
  Yeah a lot is about to change with this all. I've already picked my side and nope not gonna ID to use your website. Will do without, fine with that.
• Menu

  hypersoar
  The article says that California "will require identity verification at the operating system level starting in January 2027", but that isn't true. The bill [0] only requires that operating systems collect age information on account setup and then provide which of four buckets the age falls into. It's not requiring any kind of identity verification by the OS. It's just a box you fill in when you set up the computer.I think that this is actually a reasonable approach. It minimizes the information shared and doesn't create any identity tracking regime.[0] https://media.reclaimthenet.org/docs/california-ab-1043-digi...
• Menu

  asjgGa6
  There isn't much left of the free Internet anyway. Search engines no longer work, all discussion forums are ranked/censored by interest groups, mail delivery is between large entities.Maybe we need an alternative set of root servers for a free Internet.
• Menu

  Animats
  So, to post something in 2027:- You have to have an approved browser.- It has to be installed on an approved platform, Google or Apple, for which you have a valid account.- You have to have an account on the posting platform.- You have to get past moderation on the posting platform.That's without age verification.
• Menu

  mylifeandtimes
  EU law gives every citizen a right to a bank account.I wonder if EU law could give every citizen a right to a google or Apple account, including a forced recovery option if the account is 'deactivated'?If at some point such an account becomes essential to function in society, access to such an account becomes a legal mandate.
• Menu

  trashb
  I wonder (and don't hear anyone talking about it) if kids can't upload on social media and "publishing" platforms. Can they still host a website?I know that my fascination with computers largely began with creating websites and messing about with HTML. Blog platforms can be considered social media I suppose but what if it is just a page of HTML or text?Should I worry about having to verify my age/identity if I want to host a page on a vps in the future?I feel like most politicians and people don't understand privacy and the impact of breaking it. Additionally seems the governments don't consider themselves a thread vector for privacy invasion.
• Menu

  davkan
  Can someone help me understand? Why is it not enough to just be able to manually set an age on local OS user account. If unset assume adult. If set applications can use it to verify age. Require admin permissions to change. All responsibility on parents to restrict admin and set the age. No data collection. No responsibility for services beyond a simple check. It seems like an incredibly simple solution with very little compromise on either side that gets everyone 95% of their stated goals.EDIT: Oh it seems like that’s what the CA bill does? Seems good to me. I have zero problem with age restriction if age verification goes no further than mom buys kid iPhone enters birthdate, Instagram asks phone is user 18.
• Menu

  locusm
  If you deleted all your social media and AI platform accounts today you would wake up tomorrow and be no worse off.
• pflenker
  As a parent, what I find effective are content rating systems, be it for movies, games or apps, along with the ability to control and fine-tune them.For example, with Apple's parental controls, I can blanket-decline access to Social Media apps, or to apps recommended for a specific age or older, and I can also allow exceptions as I see it fit (for example, my kids have no access to WhatsApp but they are allowed to use Signal, both have the same age recommendations)This moves the responsibility for age verification to me, the parent, and provides me with suitable tools to monitor this. With this, there is no need for my kid or me to upload sensitive data or go through some bad age verification implementation.Websites are more difficult to control, but not impossible.Long story short - improve tooling for parents that allow more centralized control instead of mandating social media to do the age verification on their end.
• Menu

  tobadzistsini
  Growing up I remember all the ads about avoiding narcotics talking about getting hooked on free samples and then going to jail for theft and/or possession. The people behind that propaganda didn't know drugs do cost money, dealers being dorky teens and twenty-somethings who are about as dangerous as a butterfly. But this propaganda also illustrates how some elements aren't very bright. The internet age with free email, free social media, etc. got everyone hooked and now Zuckerberg, et al. are giving doe-eyed, hat-in-hand, and crying poverty. If people were wise to those PSAs, past and present, they'd see how the loyal opposition has been playing with their cards face-up on the table under the guise of good intentions. Much like the pedophile scare during the teens, pun unintended, with Comet Ping Pong and then come 2024 it's revealed Epstein and his cadre of deviant cronies were doing it all along while deflecting poorly to innocent parties. Goodness knows what else is still right in front of our noses but their reality hasn't come to fruition in the zeitgest.
• Menu

  sshine
  It would be an excellent case for zero-knowledge cryptography:All that you need to know is that I am above 18 years of age.You don't need to know how old I am, what my birthday is, what state I was born in, my gender, or when my passport expires.The downside with ZK cryptography is the complexity. Something would have to be insanely inconvenient to justify it.
• Ancalagon
  just leave the walled gardens
• Menu

  JumpCrisscross
  The problem is kids on social media. This doesn't need to be a problem for anyone except social media companies and social media users. Sloppy policymaking is making it a broader problem, but I don't think this is some nefarious scheme (at least in the U.S., it looks sketchier in Europe). It's just policymakers pulling the first proposal off the shelf to respond to intense demand for a policy from voters.
• Menu

  secult
  ZKP is definitely a good idea, definitely more open for this kind of age verification than anything else. And I don't buy the argument of "closing internet", social networks are a proprietary service and if you don't want to obey with the regulations, create your own website and post things there if you want. However you have to provide your identity to the domain name registry or to the intermediary. Also other services require you to verify your age or even provide your identity, this is just another one that comes way too late.
• diebillionaires
  Linux + Website needs to return as the ultimate form of self publishing. Back when an internet search was the platform.
• gaiagraphia
  10 years ago I thought all the cool cats would be hanging out on old skool communities on Tor via meshnet connections.Instead, in 10 years I'll probably have to log in with an iris scan to check the (ai-powered) time, and pay for the privilege.
• SapporoChris
  So there are walled gardens with restrictions. The internet will route around these restrictions.
• 8cvor6j844qw_d6
  Just wishful thinking, but I hoped more will move to IRC and GPG emails.
• Menu

  gvkhna
  Interesting that no one is talking about identity verification likely coming anyway. I’m working on clawchrome.com, a real browser for agents. It can access any website because it’s the real browser.I sure hope agents don’t swarm social media. But at the same time I think identity verification companies have a tougher problem, ai can produce real looking videos and documents. There’s probably no real way to verify someone purely through the internet at this point.
• elwebmaster
  There is no bona fide desire to solve the problem by the social media companies which are profiting from our kids. As a parent, I can never find the option to enable parental controls on apps like YouTube (especially on TV). This option is easy enough to implement locally without requiring any accounts or OS-level age support. However, clearly the goal is not to protect the children but to enable mass scale surveillance and profit from it. Even when I manage to enable parental controls by using a dedicated app or account (what nonsense is it that I need to create an account to restrict access!!!) the content being served is dubiously appropriate for the age group, aside from having no value whatsoever other than the intended goal of perpetuating addiction.
• datagreed
  Social media has never been a part of free internet
• Menu

  gizajob
  “Introducing age verification is based on the state being able to force social media companies to verify their users’ identities”Users have been doing this themselves without state coercion for twenty years now by putting their real names all over Facebook and all the other socials. Nobody forced them to use their real names and post countless pictures of their faces alongside, and pour out the totality of their worthless opinions on every issue. Compared to this, when considered sensibly, the verification is almost a trivial step.
• emodendroket
  Well, no, certainly not the beginning of the end.
• insane_dreamer
  > consequence of introducing identity verification is therefore that freedom of information is restricted (you can no longer visit regulated websites anonymously) and that you can no longer post anonymously on social media.on which major social media networks can you post anonymously today? HN is a rare bird in that regard.None of the social media networks my teens are bugging me to sign up for (IG, TT, Snapchat, etc.) have anonymous registration.
• neves
  Does anyone think of social media as free?
• assimpleaspossi
  I've said this before and I'll say it again. Just like radio was the wild west back when it first started, the internet is so today and eventually it will be licensed and regulated in the same way.
• Menu

  ares623
  If (big if) governments really wanted to help parents and children in any meaningful way, they would ban the actual hardware used to give constant access to these platforms.The ability to seamlessly record, upload, comment, react on _everything_, _everwhere_, _all the time_ is not natural, and not necessary.Let them keep the devices, whatever, but remove the internet access.Or keep the internet access, but remove the display/audio/camera.It's more enforceable in public than trying to enforce whatever age verification solution they come up with.And it gives parents the ability to appeal to authority when they ask their children, and the parents of their child's friends, to stop giving kids access to such devices. Right now a lone parent trying to push for better/healthier online activity to their friend group looks like a crazy person.But of course we know they aren't really interested in helping parents and children. They want the surveillance capabilities.
• Cider9986
  Mullvad VPN is great. Mullvad Browser is a great balance for preventing fingerprinting and also usability vs the Tor Browser. Most browsers I've found, even ones with claimed fingerprinting protections, are easily traced by fingerprint.com and other tests. Mullvad beats it.There's this cool new feature that they added to the Mullvad browser extension, which is built into the Browser. It gives you a random different proxy for each site, kind of like the Tor Browser.Mullvad understands that VPNs overpromise and underdeliver, but if you combine a trustworthy VPN, a fingerprint-resistant browser, and uBlock Origin, you get a damn good internet privacy. The browser is not ideal for daily-driving because it's always incognito so you get signed out on close, but I heard they're working on a persistent version.
• notepad0x90
  i think in most cases sites like HN for example would be exempt due to not having enough users.The internet used to a technology people used to do interesting things, and with that came all its expectations. Now in addition to that, it is how modern live is negotiated. What used an optional thing is now a critical infrastructure upon which a person's life revolves, in most cases without any choice of their own.When you drive your car on the road, do you complain about not having "a free road like back in the day" for being require to have a driver's license, and a registered car? not too long ago, you didn't need any of that to ride a horse or horse and carriage.A free internet, as in the internet is like a public square, that isn't what society wants. Ultimately that is the issue, and you can't fault the public either. The public expects change, things to improve, and policy makers need tools with which they can enforce their policies. Telling both parties "um..no, i like my freedoms" won't stop the this train.Let's take the example of mullvad here, and being able to purchase a VPN with bitcoin/cash (been there, am a customer) and access any site. It is entirely reasonable for governments to not want that. but the real enemy is the acceptance of this false dicthotomy of extremes. one of the things the internet has allowed us to have is to be able to prove entitlements without disclosing our identity. It is possible to prove that meet whatever legal requirements by having a government notarize a certificate of identity which you can present to sites and software as proof, while removing the government's own knowledge of what sites or software you're using, and removing your identity from the sites that are verifying your entitlements.You're allowed to be in public without having to prove your identity (well.. that used to be the case in the US at least, now if you look like an immigrant, no longer the case). But to sell things, or buy restricted items, you have to show your identity, even in public. Certain businesses are required to verify your identity before engaging in commerce. Even worse, once you're in public everyone can record everything you do an identify you. Facial recognition, license place tracking, etc.. are all very real parts of the physical world today.Lots of reform is needed, but we're getting the worst end of it because people gravitate to extremes out of laziness. if accessing social media, sensitive sites and commerce could be done in a privacy preserving way, there is no need for (or you can make a strong argument against) silly things like installing ubuntu requiring your ID, or needing to verify visitors IDs to your personal blog.
• Topology1
  "Will the police stop and search people on the street looking for unauthorized phones? Prison sentences for buying a non-state computer on the black market? Charges of organized crime for smuggling in containers of open-source software on USB sticks?"Come on, do people seriously believe this will happen?
• Menu

  Barrin92
  >and that you can no longer post anonymously on social media. You cannot be certain that your criticism of the government will not be followed up by the authorities.sorry but I don't get this point. If you're on Instagram or Facebook, did you think fifteen different three letter agencies weren't already watching you? It has the word 'face' in the name, the entire point of that site is that people mindlessly share their personal information, it's not some underground space for activists.You can be perfectly anonymous on the internet, but demanding to be anonymous on Facebook is like trying to start a Das Kapital book club at Goldman Sachs or decrying commercial culture while you're in a Disneyland theme park
• falsepositive44
  I think the solution would be to make the business model of surveillance capitalism unfeasible. If algorithmic social media would be prohibited from offering their services for free, it would solve most of the problems the age verification laws are trying to achieve. Kids would basically disappear if their parents are not paying for them. Most parents would disappear too in fact, which would be good for everyone's mental health. And it wouldn't remove choice. You can still choose to use use Facebook or TikTok, if you subscribe and pay. It would basically act like a slop tax.
• Menu

  hkon
  hey claude build me a small social media site i can use with my friends...the beginning of the freedom of every person to become a developer
• IshKebab
  > Today, 30 people are arrested every day in the United Kingdom for posting something online that authorities classify as “grossly offensive.”It doesn't really help their case to parrot Musk-level misinformation...https://www.pragencyone.co.uk/blog/elon-musk-misinformation-...https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-englan...
• SilverElfin
  Age verification is a project 2025 backdoor to ban porn, and also a way for Meta and others to advertise much more aggressively without violating age restrictions, and also a mass surveillance opportunity for the government. It is definitely not for the children or anyone’s safety. It threatens the most basic civil rights we have like free speech. The fact that so many people blindly support it is really depressing and disturbing.
• 3vo-ai
  [flagged]
• modelhub
  [flagged]
• northernsausage
  Whilst getting excited about 'loss of freedom' the reason these companies are getting forced into this is because they've become so large, fundamentally evil and untrustworthy that we can't regulate them in to doing better so we have to ban susceptible citizens from consuming their output. See tobacco, alcohol, porn, cannabis, driving licences for other examples. /s
• GenericDev
  [dead]
• qotgalaxy
  [dead]
• Menu

  IAmGraydon
  [flagged]
• Menu

  palata
  Good arguments there, and for once addressing privacy-preserving age verification.I just don't like that proponents of age verification are systematically (including in this article) dismissed as authoritarians hiding behind "just another “what about the children” excuse to introduce mass surveillance and censorship". Many people genuinely want to find a solution that is better for the children, and telling them "if you are open to age verification you are either a fascist or a moron" is not constructive.Also I find the way ZKP is criticised a bit manipulative. It kinda implies that "fundamentally, any kind of ZKP system can be switched off remotely and without anyone realising", and that is wrong. It can be implemented in such a way that people have pretty good guarantees about it preserving their privacy, similar to end-to-end encryption. I find it hypocritical to say "E2EE can be reasonably trusted, but privacy-preserving age verification fundamentally cannot", just because tech people like the former and not the latter.
• Menu

  apt-apt-apt-apt
  This is so lame, it seems like a small number of pedophiles have forced us to deal with all this age verification stuff.Porn has always been around (national geographic, anyone), and parents can use screen time to limit access for their children if they want.