> may make provision for the provider of a relevant VPN service to apply to any person seeking to access its service in or from the UK age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not that person is a child
"The law we made is like super duper good!!"
> Children may also turn to VPNs, which would then undermine the child safety gains of the Online Safety Act
"The law we made is easily circumvented :("
> may make provision for the provider of a relevant VPN service to apply to any person seeking to access its service in or from the UK age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not that person is a child
I think you're reading it wrong. Regulations may have a provision that allows providers to apply age assurance [systems ?] if the age assurance is highly effective at determining age.
I'm always surprised how ambiguous the writing is for this kind of stuff. Maybe that's the point. If the regulations don't (may is optional) have the provision, does that mean they need to demand ID?
IMO, highly effective = our buddies' tech that we declare highly effective. The whole ID push around the world is big tech trying to set up government mandated services that you're going to be forced to pay for, either directly or via taxes.
The end game is probably digital IDs with digitally signed requests for everything you do. And, of course, corrupt individuals and criminals will somehow be able to get as many digital IDs as they want.
That money should be spent on education. We're being robbed.
> I'm always surprised how ambiguous the writing is for this kind of stuff.
That's because--
(a) The actual legislators vaguely realize that they're too lazy and stupid to get anything right in detail, so they delegate to the regulatory apparatus.
(b) Neither the legislators nor the regulators are ever quite sure what they can politically get away with actually demanding, or how fast they can politically get away with moving, so they want both the ability to grab anything that looks like they can hold it, and the ability to deny that they ever meant to ask for anything that's blowing back too hard on them.
(c) Both the legislators and the regulators want to be able to threaten various actors with draconian actions that are at least possibly authorized under that kind of vague language, in order to get concessions that they are not authorized to demand (and that would be too hot politically to give them authorization to demand).
Does that mean that VPN providers now need identification before you can open an account?
If this becomes law, then yes. But then people will turn to VPS providers instead and set up their own VPNs, which will then prompt a law to demand age verification before renting any server. I wonder how far they're willing to go down this rabbit hole.
You're implying pervasive KYC and tying everything to your real-life identity is some unfortunate side-effect rather than a deliberate end. I have contempt for people who pass policies such as these but I do not think them foolish; they are likely aware of what will happen.
The people who pass the policies may not know, but the people who formulate and drive the policies know for sure. The Window of Overton is fundamental to today's political environment, more than any other time in history.
the purpose of a system is what it does, not what it purports to do. doubly so, if it does what it purports to do poorly but does something else very well. this system purports to protect children from adult content online but what it does is offer a legal justification for eliminating any and all anonymity.
Age verification to wake up in the morning, age verification to breathe air, age verification to use the restroom, age verification t...
You got a Loicense for that?
..o ask for a license, age ve...
Watching laws like this play out in real time adds some color to the other discussion about software in Europe right now.
>If this becomes law, then yes.
Or they just operate outside of UK jurisdiction, in which case they can politely decline. Any executives/directors of said company might be liable to arrest if they decide to vacation in uk, though.
The UK already has ISP's blocking sites. Anyone that ignores the law will be blocked, will be interesting to see what happens if they end up blocking one of the cloud megascalers.
Hilarious that they think they can prevent motivated people from accessing information using technical measures. China has been working on this for decades. It's a lost battle. Shadowsocks, V2Ray, xray; protocols like vmess, vless, trojan, etc.
The British government, for all their effort (London has a higher geographic density of CCTV than Beijing) is wasting their time competing for the gold medal at International Totalitarianism Olympics, even the the world's current undisputed champion is losing the internet censorship battle, and always has.
Central planning doesn't work and it never has. That includes central planning of what your citizens are allowed to see, hear, think, and feel.
Depends on the how you formulate the goal in the totalitarianism olympics. The goal of totalitarian regimes is not really to completely prevent the flow of information to motivated people. It simply needs to raise the motivation bar high enough so that all but the select few is fed only government-approved propaganda. The few that retain access is tolerated as long as they don't raise a stink. In this view, the efforts of China or Iran is fairly successful.
The UK has a different flavor of authoritarianism centered on surveillance to (ineffectively) improve "safety", and general paternalism at all levels. It doesn't really intend to prevent the flow of information all that much.
Not necessarily - how is a kid paying for a VPS server?
A personal debit card (which requires ID verification anyway, and likely has their parents able to see activity)? A personal credit card (which definitely requires ID + 18+)? Stealing their parents' card (works for like 5 days)? Does the VPS company block VPN ports without verification, similar to how most companies handle email? Do you think VPS services have any interest, at all, in an underage clientele?
The proposed law is plenty effective - saying otherwise is like saying kids can bypass age verification at the knife shop or alcohol store by using eBay. No sane mind says that age verification is therefore useless.
When they block adult content behind age gates, children still view adult content, via VPN or via websites that have no interest in complying with the UK but may well have worse motivations to access children's data.
Age gating legitimate VPN or VPS will result in the same thing. Children will end up using less safe services to view what they want to view.
When my children are old enough, if we're still in the UK, I will be providing them with enough education to avoid ill intentioned sites, and will also provide them with a private VPN.
We learn nothing from history.
When my daughter was young, maybe 8, she had access to a laptop. She wasnt glued to it, but it was her little computer for fooling around on. One day my PC died and I had important things to do, so I used her laptop. As I typed into the address bar some prior history popped up and I had a moment where I wondered if I should respect her privacy or make sure shes being safe. By the time Id done my emails I decided to take a peek. I regretted it as soon as I saw her search for "funny memes" or something followed minutes later by "funny memes for kids". To this day she complains that nobody in her age group knows how to use a search engine without writing a full sentence in the form of a question, instead of using key words.
The govt is a shit parent.
If having a credit card and the ability to make purchases was good enough as an ID system, they could have simply made it the law instead of requiring tech companies to collect those sweet, sweet personal ID document photos.
The UK law doesn't say you have to use ID photos, that's porn companies knowing that charging even £1 a visit would be devastating to the business. Credit card verification is a completely legal method in the UK.
They can check for credit cards without requiring any payment. Are you sure that's sufficient given these vaguely worded laws? If so many HN readers could solve the whole problem by making websites which issued digital signatures of random numbers to anyone who can support a £0.01 debit which is then immediately reversed.
The problem is porn companies know full well nobody, nobody, wants that on their credit card statement. Kinda weird that something supposedly as natural as rain needs such levels of privacy; the hypocrisy is notable (if it's so natural and so many people do it, own it).
They can have whatshisface's digital certificates, Inc. on their statements.
authorizations don't show up on statements, but still allow you to verify the card is valid
Authorizations may not show on statements; but they are full well in financial records which could come up in court or a divorce claim later. Credit card companies are absolutely not allowed to turn a blind eye to any kind of usage.
>but they are full well in financial records which could come up in court or a divorce claim later
Does this even matter in the age of no-fault divorces? Is any court going to sanction a spouse for having watched porn?
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Single people don't care, and they are becoming the majority of adults and probably more likely consume porn too.
I have always wondered how this would go if you applied for a loan through your bank. Or a rental that wanted 'last three months financial transactions' in the application.
I'm confused by what you mean (I'm an American though).
I don't think I'm unique for putting miscellaneous stuff like this on a credit card, and not even necessarily the one my bank offers. Not to hide the transaction, but because charging to debit/checking would make tracking my monthly expenses less straightforward. Payments online are also safer on credit in case a chargeback is required.
Also, are you sure you don't mean "proof of employment" showing the last three months of direct deposits? I've never heard of anyone asking for any other transactions. Similarly, pretty sure loan applications are based on credit reports. Transactions aren't relevant unless they got flagged for something so bad they showed up in the credit report (fraud, missed/late payments, etc).
All the properties ive rented over the last decade required an application with "full financial transaction history" for three months. I know ive submitted a statement before where a lot of expenses were "paying off credit card" and they complained the credit card expenses werent shown. I would have to imagine a rental agent looking at months worth of pornhub spending is going to count it against you.
Ive never been hit by something like this but I have friends who have:
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/12s8257/la...
(Maybe this is just the horrendous Australian market talking).
Wtf they ask for bank and credit card statements to rent an apartment in Australia? You don't have credit bureaus and pay stubs?
I once rented a place where you needed either a decent credit rating or three months of full bank statements to prove income. (Paycheck stubs were not deemed sufficient.) Very invasive, fortunately I passed the requirements and didn’t need to provide that info.
> Not necessarily - how is a kid paying for a VPS server?
The same way the kid is somehow paying for a VPN apparently.
The kid could easily be using a "free" VPN that harvests all your data in return for its services. No payment required. Not the case with VPS. Even free tiers require credit cards.
They can buy the server without KY paying with crypto or PayPal (11+ can have debit cards in the UK).
Or ask their parents.
All of this would easily be solved by just banning social media. Nothing will convince me they are a net-positive to society.
If you apply the logic of your comment's parent to your suggestion you'll discover that banning social media would soon lead to using any and all communication under mandatory supervision and only after an application and a written permission for every individual act of communication.
Did banning heroin soon lead to consuming any and all substances under mandatory supervision and only after an application and written permission for every individual act of consumption?
No, but they issued an umbrella ban on anabolic steroids of any kind, regardless of chemistry, even on those not invented yet. FDA criminalizes or makes prescription-only whatever they want, willy-nilly and without any consequences - drug enforcement opened the door for that.
I'm not saying that drugs should be legal, only that given perverse intensives, legitimate problems are routinely used as a Trojan horse to sneak in oppressive regulations.
In the case of communications and speech, the government's incentives for censorship, eavesdropping and control are enormous - otherwise there wouldn't be a Constitution, 1st amendment or the entire Bill of Rights that depends on it. Once the routine circumvention of these becomes acceptable, any kind of true but inconvenient for Big Brother speech will become impossible - with or without a written permit.
The manner of doing it doesn't matter, the permit was a figure of speech, kind of telling that I have to state it explicitly.
Severely disabled people need social media to get any form of communication with others. It is a key mechanism of infrastructure that provides connection for those limit to their homes and bed, which nowadays is an increasing amount of people with Long Covid and ME/CFS patients. We are talking about 10s of millions of people here that you would cut off from each other and the wider world.
Social media isn't just bad interactions, there isn't just one twitter or reddit, its about what you choose to read and interact with and most of its not toxic its just people talking on the same topic.
I don't think social media needs to be banned, but maybe using complex algorithms to drive attention should be. Even Facebook was pretty good back when its feed was a simple, chronological display of all your friends posts and nothing else. It went down the tubes as they moved away from that.
I wouldn't ban social media.
Here in the UK we require cigarette suppliers to advertise the dangers of smoking on every package.
I'd mandate that every social media platform is required to advertise the dangers on every page, and also give a very visible option to reveal the workings of the algorithm that is feeding you the pages.
Put together, it’s likely most people’s friends wouldn’t produce enough content to drive engagement, at least in ‘public’ social media like Facebook.
I remember this phenomenon back when Facebook was less algorithmic — some days there’d just be no new content at all. Especially I’m guessing if you limit adding friends to actually just the people you’d be happy to grab lunch with.
At the risk of doing a "you participate in society", would that include HN?
That depends if it's social media.
The government shouldn't be limiting any legal communications over the internet
That's a tautology. The limited communications are illegal.
Also VPS services because "SSH -D".
This is the real intent
you pay them, isn't that already enough to identify any non-fraudulent account is needed?
How would this work with a VPN outside of UK that doesn't do it ? Will it be blocked?
But think of the children!
That it has its own Wikipedia page is a sign of the abuse of this argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
No. This a motion within one house of Parliament and hasn't become law, nor is there any guarantee it will be. It's something to be aware of.
Did the CEO of Tor announced when age verification features will be implemented?
Very shallow, naive approach to child safety. This is like banning children from riding scooters on a highway. They're just going to use a bike instead. Danger still exists.
VPNs are not the only way around this, so if you want to ban the "method of access" you need to be much more broad, and get the parents involved.
A innefective mandate for the intended purpose, but a very effective mandate to know what adults use VPNs.
Between this and the repeated attempts at encryption backdoors, this is something I would expect from a totalitarian regime that is preparing for civil unrest, not the UK.
> but a very effective mandate to know what adults use VPNs.
How? I suppose if the VPN services all started requiring age verification that might tell you this info. But I very much doubt that'll happen, as it runs completely counter to many legitimate VPN services' missions.
This is not about the child safety, please stop believing British politicians. They just say things that are supposed to be discussed and repeated.
People say this, and maybe it is true. But do you live in the same Britain as me? The majority of parents and older people want this. They are ignorant of how it all works and want the government to "do something". They support stuff like this.
It doesn't actually matter how flawed it is. All that matters to the government is votes. Always. Governments exist to buy votes, otherwise they're not governments. Any time you see a government action, you can be very sure they think it will buy them votes.
It's like banning children from owning and carrying handguns. They still have knives and ultimately fists. We cannot eliminate harms, therefore we should not attempt to reduce harms.
But, we do ban children on scooters from roads in the UK, but they can go on bikes? I don't understand your metaphor.. what you are suggesting is what we do and it's sensible.
I don't think they don't mean the same thing you mean by scooters. Difference in the language.
In fairness we essentially ban scooters from practically every public path/road but they're still everywhere
> Very shallow, naive approach to child safety.
It's naive of you to think this has anything to do with the child safety.
If parent could be sufficiently involved, there'd be no need for any ban.
UK nanny state makes it an nonviable place to live. It's pervasive from the moment you step off the plane at Heathrow and see the inane safety stickers covering every surface "WARNING: DOOR" "WARNING: WATER FROM HOT TAP IS HOT" as well as the CCTV cameras.
Not sure if you’re from the US, but they certainly need to remove the log from their own eye…
> "WARNING: WATER FROM HOT TAP IS HOT"
LOL are you talking about the US? With their "don't put the cat inside the microwave" stickers and the "coffee is too hot" lawsuits?
Stella Liebeck was seriously injured by that McDonald's coffee and it's a myth perpetuated by the McDonald's PR team that it was a frivolous lawsuit. She was in the hospital for eight days and required skin grafts. Do some research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaura... "Liebeck's attorneys argued that, at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C), McDonald's coffee was defective, and more likely to cause serious injury than coffee served at any other establishment"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee#Preparing_the_beverage "Optimal coffee extraction occurs between 91 and 96 °C (196 and 205 °F).Ideal holding temperatures range from 85 to 88 °C (185 to 190 °F) to as high as 93 °C (199 °F), and the ideal serving temperature is 68 to 79 °C (154 to 174 °F).
I'm aware of the injuries she incurred. I think it is frivolous because hot temperatures are simply part of the nature of coffee. McDonalds did not select the vehicle with out cup holders for Stella. McDonalds did not select the sweatpants that Stella chose to wear. McDonalds didn't spill the coffee in her lap. Lastly, even non-coffee drinkers are aware that coffee is hot.
Normal people do not serve coffee anywhere close to that hot. Sorry to burst your bubble.
> With their "don't put the cat inside the microwave" stickers
not sure what this means, my microwave does not have such a sticker
> "coffee is too hot" lawsuits
I'd encourage you to look into the case you refer to[1] and decide for yourself whether the lawsuit feels frivolous given the facts. My read is that the lawsuit was justified.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...
If caring that people might burn themselves with hot water is nanny state, then caring that people might burn themselves with macdonalds coffee is also nanny state.
Caring that some restaurant employee is negligent enough to pour coffee hot enough to require an 8 day hospital stay isn't a nanny state, that is basic public safety. If I got in a hot tub expecting it to be hot tub temperature and it burnt my skin off I'd expect them to get in trouble for endangering me by misleading me into believing it was normal hot tub temperature.
That argument is specious to begin with, because typically a hot water heater should be set such that its maximum temperature would not cause a burn (just like how coffee should typically be served at a temperature that is not capable of melting skin), but leaving that aside - the coffee case was a private tort case - a civil suit - and therefore does not and could not by definition support calling the country in which it occured a "nanny state".
Ok, so an airport is a private business and it chose to put "hot water" labels on the taps, and therefore does not and could not by definition support calling the country in which it occured a "nanny state".
- [deleted]
China, Iran, UK. same stuff, different names.
I'm always reminded of the Snowden revelations that the GCHQ was (and still is) saving, catagorizing, and performing deep packet inspection of all internet traffic.
Nothing suprises me anymore in the UK. It's been extremely dystopian for a long time.
We will try everything except regulating the algorithmic content feeds themselves.
If algorithmic feed is so bad then why are you on hacker news, a website with an algorithmic feed that is notoriously non-transparent and often accused of being manipulated by bad actors?
Because obviously "algorithmic" is an oversimplification. Even a chronological feed is "algorithmic".
What needs banning is the combination of "behavioral personalization + infinite content/scroll". HN's feed has neither of these elements.
"If smoking is so bad then why are you smoking?"
Because I'm addicted like everyone else.
Go to your account page, turn on noprocrast and set minaway to a very large number. You effectively ban your own account once you click confirm. Now set up home firewall / device blocking settings and block the HN domain. The first step towards overcoming addiction is admitting that you have one. I pray for your speedy recovery.
Yo, I'm all for banning all of these companies from my country. That would be ideal.
But then you'll have HN: NOOOO it's not effective, people will just use VPNs nanny state! Oppression! Freedom of speech!
So parents can just sign up for children? What problem is this solving? If my government was censoring my child of course I'd sign up a Facebook/Mullvad account for them.
Yup, I'm signing up for my kids the moment they ask. At this point it's outrageous.
Oh, and I'm also reading on Amnesiac and other stealth VPN protocols. The only thing this will achieve, is kids' deep understand the government is hostile cluster of entities lying through their teeth.
- [deleted]
ah the country of brexit has more "clever ideas"
something I find myself saying often lately watching BBC News every morning
How about Cloudflare Warp? And don't some browsers like Opera have builtin VPN?
What about tunnels like Hurricane Electric?
Papers, please. Glory to Arstotzka!
How to enforce?
Same way as they do with porn? Massive fines. Or the threat thereof.
Every HN thread on social media or porn inevitably gets overrun with "but think of the children" comments calling for banning kids from social media, or the internet, or from having a phone at all.
And then every time a country actually tries to ban children from the internet, they cry "but my privacy!!!" As if having to hand your id to the state to use the internet isn't exactly what you asked for. As if the regimes most interested in "protecting the kid" aren't exactly the ones who puts you in jail for a meme too spicy.
You reap what you sow. Congrats on making the internet worse.
Sounds like the Goomba fallacy: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy
These are not the same people. I doubt that most of the people pushing for mandatory restrictions on child access care about privacy at all.
You will be surprised by the number of people (even among self proclaimed libertarians) who think children have no rights and are essentially their parents' properties.
Granted, but that's different than thinking they're the states property.
Every time this comes up I always take the opportunity to suggest that it should've been a ban on _smart_phones. Not dumb phones, not laptops, not even tablets (i.e. those without sim).
Easier to enforce, you don't have to rely on the very same companies that peddle the thing you're trying to ban in the first place. It can disrupt the network effects that could hopefully be enough to let people voluntarily cut it out of their lives. People are primed to get rid of it, but can't because it is so addicting and said network effects.
It is really hard to find dumb phones to buy. Even the dumbest ones in stores right now, flip phones that look like they are 20 years old, still have some very janky Internet features baked in.
That's because smartphones are objectively superior. When they are banned, a niche will become available for dumb phones and manufacturers to fill. Still having access to janky internet is not perfect yes, but I would argue it is still way better than current smartphones. Just adding a little bit of friction can shortcircuit the addiction people currently have, and the social media corps definitely know this and are super obsessed with removing any friction at all at every step of their user journey.
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46763548
I foresee a lot of VPN companies starting to offer "secure proxy" services or something like that. "It's not a VPN, it's a secure proxy!"
The law doesn't work like that. First of all, the actual regulation that gets made probably has a definition of VPN and won't rely on a company self-describing as VPN. Secondly law enforcement and courts aren't idiots*
* well, many of them are. But not in the particular way that would be needed for a simple rename to work.
Proxies aren't VPNs though. They didn't mean call proxies VPNS, they meant provide proxies.
True if you are being technically rigorous. However the "VPN" services being targeted are already what would be more accurately described as a "secure proxy". So whatever regulation gets drafted will certainly be done so to cover "secure proxies", even if it uses the term "VPN".
After enforcing age verification to prevent children from viewing those pesky Gaza genocide videos that Israel did not want them to see, they gotta ensure that those brats wont be able to get around it and still see the videos.
Its amazing how this censorship was brought on rapidly and precisely after Netanyahu demanded it at the start of last year. No surprise as half of Starmer government was funded by zionists.
I really don't think governments need a kick in the tail from a foreign power to try to grab more power. It's just what they do by nature.
Not sure what you're going on about. I don't think children should be watching any genocide videos. Is that something you watched a lot of as a child?
The thing is, it's not really children who lose access to this sort of content, it's the user who doesn't want to give Reddit or Twitter or whoever else a copy of their driving licence. Without age verification, they don't see the truth of something like Gaza, because it's ages restricted. They can however view the other, sanitised version of the story.
Precisely this. OP could have been more effective in their message by avoiding the sarcasm. The end game is censorship, not protecting children or whatever.
I'm in the UK and I've been involved in advocating for this.
I find it utterly frustrating to read the "think of the children" mockery here on HN.
I argue that this is good.
There's many reasons why children having unfettered access to the internet and different campaigners care about different aspects, so I'm going to talk about the one I care about: addiction, destroyed ability to focus, and dopamine desensitization. In the UK (and elsewhere in the world, I imagine) there's a huge problem with people addicted to phones and children are especially vulnerable. I don't care if adults are vulnerable, they have to make their own decisions. But I care that parents that do everything right in terms of educating their children on how to be healthy with respect of phones (like me and my partner) then have to send their children to schools where they're given ipads. It's not fair to say "banning doesnt work you should just not give your children phones", but then force you to send your children to schools that give them ipads and other distractions.
It's a matter of network effects (something that HN loooves talking about). In addition to the fact that phones are engineered to be addictive, you have the fact that in many schools EVERY child is on social media, and so any family that wants to stay away has to decide between isolating their child from society, or selling themselves into the "engagement industry".
I think that banning is a valid approach. It won't be 100% effective, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that it will introduce friction (another thing that HN looooves talking about) and so will reduce the total number on children that is on social media and therefore reduce the social need for other children to be in.
So, we're adding friction to break or weaken the network effects that keep these cancer companies harming children in schools.
I admire your intentions, I genuinely mean that. I have children and worry about the horrible impact of social media too.
But your methods are flawed. I'm not even sure I can follow the logic of your post. You're talking about doing school work on iPads at school, so we must make everyone give their personal identifying information to VPNs? How does that follow?
The main problems I have with your methods:
1. You're forcing everyone in the UK to expose their personal identifying data to third party companies who *will* leak the data at some point.
2. You're forcing children to work around this and they *will* work around it and end up on websites that definitely do not have their best intentions in mind. I think your hammer approach is going to partly work, but have some extreme negative outcomes. Will you raise your hand for the harm this causes?
I'd suggest digesting what I'm saying here, really looking strongly at your aims and think if there are better alternatives.
Here is what I would like:
Whenever a UK citizen browses a social media site, I'd mandate banners that advertise the harms of social media, and also mandate that they can view the algorithm that is being used to feed them.
I plan on providing safe ways to browse the internet for my children when they're old enough. I'll give them their own VPN if needed, again with necessary precautions and education.
You're advocating for the wrong thing. Advocate to ban targeted advertising or demand that social media feeds be transparent. Don't advocate for banning VPNs from anyone who does not want to submit an ID to a company that will be breached less than a year later, or any kind of client-side measure; that's ineffective towards the goal you are trying to accomplish, and has so many other negative side effects that the whole thing is just stupid.
In my opinion you're undercutting your own argument. You should be working to remove tablets from the schools instead of advocating for making us register our ID's all over the internet (which has proven to be insecure on an almost monthly basis now).
I don’t think people mocking the reasoning behind the law, just its implementation. I’m all for kicking kids off the internet and phones. I’m not British… fyi, but as kids we were not allowed to drink but we still found ways to get beer or whatever else because the regulations were not effective.
It’s better to be more to the point and straight up identity social media platforms as addictive or otherwise harmful and block them altogether or at least kill the algorithm and endless scroll.
> I think that banning is a valid approach
Are we talking about VPNs or phones in general? Because somewhere in this we jumped from VPNs to phones in general, and these things are not equivalent.
A phone ban in general for children, maybe I could agree with you on. But, a VPN ban on those grounds alone is utterly pointless: it's not like there aren't millions of other bits of internet crack children can easily find without a VPN.
Not addressing the actual concerns and instead pointing fingers at a totally different, larger issue reeks of "won't somebody think of the children". All with the convenient downstream effect of revealing which citizens own VPNs.
The reason you want this is because the only way to implement it facilitates your tyranny and it still wont achieve what you pretend to desire.
It seems you want to talk about other things rather than the VPN age-gating or the online safety act this post is about. I'll engage with the content of this post.
> but then force you to send your children to schools that give them ipads and other distractions
What does the online safety act (OSA) or this VPN age check do to prevent this? Are the "ipads" at school giving the users "unfettered access to the internet"? That seems a bit irresponsible, however I would think that your ire should instead be directed towards the schools? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding?
> In addition to the fact that phones are engineered to be addictive
Is it the phones or the content? I interpret your views as someone who should be campaigning for phones and other "distractions" to be restricted in a school environment, however the OSA and this VPN age check do not appear to tackle this.
> there's a huge problem with people addicted to phones and children are especially vulnerable
I will assume this is true for the sake of conversation. Similar to my previous query, how does the OSA or this VPN age check tackle this problem? Will banning certain types of content prevent this, or perhaps shift it? Instead of social media, would it be preferable if children were playing games on their phone? If they were then "addicted" to gaming or socialising around a popular game, would the proposal be at that point to ban children from playing games on their phone? To me, it seems the problem is less the content and more that the environment is setup in certain ways that allows this. It is unclear to me how banning and gating certain content will prevent this.
> different campaigners care about different aspects, so I'm going to talk about the one I care about: addiction, destroyed ability to focus, and dopamine desensitization
What kind of things are you pushing outside of banning material and gating access? Is there a push for educating parents of the dangers of this "addiction"? Perhaps informing people about how to use parental controls to limit the access their children have? Is there a push on companies to provide robust, and easy-to-use parental controls? I feel that parents should have the tools, yet it seems that we consider the problem out of the parents control. Why is that? If parents make an informed choice and choose differently to you, should they be allowed to do so?
> I don't care if adults are vulnerable, they have to make their own decisions.
I feel that if you are caring about children accessing "addicting" material that you should also care about your fellow citizens accessing the same. How would those adults know that this material is addictive? Are they being informed by the state? What avenues are there for them to get help? It seems that the OSA and this VPN age check do not provide any assistance to people that are perhaps already addicted, or preventing people from falling into that trap. Does the care only extend to children and no further? Should we care about building sturdy adults regardless if they are currently children or not?
My general thoughts on this is that there appears to be a lot of restriction and preventing people from accessing certain content, however very little on informing people on what those perceived dangers are. The UK government is especially keen on this restriction, yet I am seeing no push towards informing people, or providing assistance for those afflicted. To me, the proposed motivation and the implementation are incongruent with each other. The perception of safety, as opposed to an improvement in real world safety.
The title of the site "Hacker News" should be a dead giveaway why this law is mocked here
Well, we've tried your thing of letting these companies call the shots. Now we'll try my thing for a bit :-)
What's more hacker than experimenting to get the results you want?
No, we “hackers” will mock it and develop workarounds for it, leak ID databases to undercut support, etc. Worst case we move to sneakernets and meshes and teach kids about old school floppynets. (When I was a kid all the best stuff came by floppy, sometimes by rogue BBS.) More likely we’ll just distribute guides on using Tor and build a better ecosystem around it.
I mean.. Tor isn't gonna help you if there's no computers. We already got smartphones banned from schools. Work in progress.
When I went to school nobody gave me an ipad. We just wrote on paper, the teacher on chalkboard. That was a long time ago, though.
You either ban children from social media through age restrictions or you ban the harmful content from social media. We cant just the next generation get cooked. Both are hard to implement and unpopular and attack freedom but you must pick one because the harm is so clear.