Online threats to children are real, but the headlong pursuit of age verification that we’re seeing around the world is unacceptable in its approach and far too broad in scope — and we simply can’t afford to get this wrong.
To be clear, parents’ concerns are valid and sincere. Few people would argue that kids should have unfettered access to adult material, to self-harm how-tos, to social media platforms that manipulate them and expose them to abuse.
But it’s the very depth of those worries that is being cynically exploited. Age verification as is currently being proposed in country after country would mean the death of anonymity online.
And we know exactly who stands to gain: The same tech giants who built the privacy nightmare that the internet is today.
When done correctly, and someone’s ID remains anonymous from the general public if they wish so, then I’d also be fine with that. Way too many trolls and other forms of bad actors on the Web who intentionally or unintentionally use ad hominems or other toxic communication, it’s so hopelessly divisive and draining.
I recently saw a documentary about looksmaxxing. The forums these kids peruse echo the deepest pits of hell; insisting on suicide and all the forms of psychological bullying one cannot even imagine.
Whether it’s the best solution I don’t know, it’s probably not. But from my point of view, taking away the anonymity from the authorities would significantly lower the amount of depravity on the Web. The crux in this whole matter is of course that the authorities are virtuous, fair, just. If they are not, which all too often is the case, then removing anonymity can be an equally dangerous thing as well.
Obviously everything boils down to education, which needs a complete overhaul. But that’s something that will take decades if not a century to turn humanity into a predominantly virtuous species.
Hey, guess what you need to buy an internet connection in the first place! Wanting more ID verification is only fascism.
How exactly would id verification help against that. Do you want “toxic speech” to become a crime and punished by a court of law?
Bullying and disinformation, absolutely.
From the paper What Deters Crime? Comparing the Effectiveness of Legal, Social, and Internal Sanctions Across Countries, citing a meta-analysis:
The paper concludes as follows:
As I said, is it the best solution? Science hasn’t a clear answer either. What does seem to be agreed upon is that:
My hypothesis is that complete anonymity, so a low probability of getting caught, increases toxic behavior because people suffer no bad consequences whatsoever and therefore never learn. Ever hung around a spoiled kid? They’re the worst. The same happens online. Naturally, proper journalists and whistleblowers are a different thing, absolute anonymity is crucial for them. But how to square both these realities remains to be discovered.
Exactly this + all the trolls promoting fascism with great success.
Also, congrats on going against the groupthink on lemmy. The pro anonymity crowd here is especially toxic, which only further proves our point.
It’s just remarkably disappointing that so many of said cohort is all for freedom or libertarian, but they simultaneously downvote comments into being hidden and offer no counter-arguments. The irony.
But I sigh at discourse online in general, on all sides, for it’s riddled with fallacies. Or even downvotes and upvotes, they mean little to nothing. I know because as an admin I realize there’s tons of people who use multiple accounts, not two or three, but tens of accounts, to skew the votes in their favor.
I have downvotes disables on my instance so I really don’t care about them. I know groupthink is strong on lemmy. Usually I just ignore it but when I’m bored I like to poke people a little bit. Some people are actually interested in discussing things, most just follow the masses. It’s disappointing but that’s internet for you.
Toxic for freedom!