alt Hacker NewsIt seems a very one-sided discussion. HN seems to defend freedom to contact children without restrictions. It is a very extremists unrealistic position that causes more harm that good.
To let antagonistic governments send propaganda to children is harmful. To let unknown adults contact children in private messages is harmful. To let children access pornography 24/7 is harmful.
I would expect a more balanced discussion. How to keep children safe is a priority, and there are technical ways to do so in a safe way that does not require to share personal identifications with social media.
If you want a better proposal bring technical expertise to the discussion instead of ideology fundamentalism.
Replies
Ideological is the best way to describe the reaction by most people on here I think, counterproductive is another one. The reality is most normal people want children protected, unless we can come to the table with good options we are going to end up with a terrible one thrust upon us.
Slippery slope arguments and things like it are not going to convince people, "just parent your kids" is not going to convince people. Not because they're wrong, but because on balance they feel like the damage to children being exposed to this content is worse than the potential civil liberty issues.
It will be very difficult to explain to people why this is not the same as alcohol being age-gated and you having to prove your identity to access it. Technically there should be no real reason we cannot do age attestation without fully revealing our identities anyway, there will need to be trust at some point in the system but the reality of the real world is that there is already and it's far less secure than we'd like.
> To let unknown adults contact children in private messages is harmful.
But the verification is not to prove you're a children. Everyone will be considered children until proven otherwise, which will not prevent this scenario at all.
> If you want a better proposal bring technical expertise to the discussion instead of ideology fundamentalism.
Fine. All we need is a password-protected toggle in each app that enables child mode, and another toggle in the phone settings that locks app installation/uninstallation. Remote verification schemes are completely unnecessary. For details see:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47273612
The way people are reacting is not extremist at all. Remember, the government protects child predators if they're rich or powerful enough. What more evidence do you need that they aren't doing this for the children? We should call it out for what it is.