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.
I don’t know why you think an online ID will stop botting, people get viruses and hacked all the time. All this does is make people’s data more valuable, and create a valuable repository of people’s personal information. Not to mention the centralization of user data, which will no doubt be used to monitor average people. Both by governments looking for dissenters, and by advertisers, who will use that data to squeeze every last cent out of you via Surveillance pricing.
What do you think will happen when the nations collective web browsing information inevitably gets leaked and anyone can look up anyone’s name, see their license and what they’ve watched on YouTube or elsewhere? It’s creepy tech, not protection.
The solution to these ‘social problems’ is funding education. But that doesn’t work quickly, costs money, and various groups of people in power oppose widespread critical thinking. Making sure people aren’t exhausted because they can’t afford anything and are always working would help too, but it’s not ‘sexy’ to uplift people’s standard of living I guess