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@rnd@toot.cat · activity timestamp 5 hours ago

i think that broad age verification and social media bans are bad because they

(1) don't actually hold big platforms accountable for their abuse,

(2) treat every single website as if it is equivalent to said big platforms,

(3) undermine online anonymity by applying logic that, while practical in the physical world, absolutely does not work in the digital world,

(4) are fundamentally illiberal policies that hold children to be second-class citizens

having said that, i don't think the "i got exposed to a lot of awful stuff on the internet back in the 90s / early 2000s and i turned out fine" arguments take into account how much the internet has changed since then

back then it was thought to be absolutely fine to connect to IRC servers using unencrypted protocols and very few people bothered using proxies or VPNs to hide their location

consider that someone with a good enough geoip database can figure out in what part of town someone lives in just by sending a link to something hosted on their own server (and then having the victim open it)

or can determine even more precise location data, as well as lots more, by convincing them to install a smartphone app

if i had children, i would not want them to be exposed to a predator who actually knows their way around tech

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@rnd@toot.cat · activity timestamp 5 hours ago

the fact that a lot of these laws seem to be directly pushed by big social media platforms should have, in a normal political environment, made them extremely suspicious

since when do we let wolves suggest how to prevent themselves from hunting sheep?

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Woozle Hypertwin

@woozle@toot.cat · activity timestamp 4 hours ago

@rnd I'll take "real problems used as an excuse for awful solutions that make those problems worse" for $500, Alex.

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@rnd@toot.cat · activity timestamp 4 hours ago

@woozle i don't even think people coming up with these laws even intentionally want to deanonymize the internet, though (my guess is that less than 5% of people involved in making these laws actually explicitly want that to happen)

it's more that very few people were actually exposed to the internet in the specific form of it where anonymity was the norm, rather than the exception

most younger politicians are already used to social media websites with either explicit real-name policies or real-name-shaped profiles

and most older politicians just see the internet as merely another medium for talking to their constituents

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Woozle Hypertwin

@woozle@toot.cat · activity timestamp 2 hours ago

@rnd To be fair, yeah, there's probably a lot of {not understanding the implications} going on -- though I suspect most of the impetus for the Terrible Ideas™ comes from intentionally malicious (seeking power/profit) motives.

If it came from positive motivations, I expect we'd be seeing expert panels tasked to come up with recommendations, with detailed evidence and justifications behind them, rather than these seemingly arbitrary "do something even if it's stupid" solutions.

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