schnurritoSystem76 on Age Verification Laws
PlzGivHugsI and many others I know who grew up with unrestricted internet access (before and after the corporatization of the internet) were exposed to terrible shit. Like, I grew up with unusually tech savvy parents who were able to protect me from the worst of it, but even I have been somewhat traumatized by accessing graphic content I shouldn’t have. I personally know people who grew up with worse parents who grew up browsing shock/gore websites and who were repeatedly groomed and abused by pedophiles.
Honestly, I don’t really get the backlash to this legislation, beyond that its prehaps being applied to devices it shouldn’t be. While yes, freedom is important, we’re talking about providing the option to limit access to mature content, not preventing them from downloading python or using the internet. There is a justified reason for wanting this, and this seems like the ideal way to do it.
even I have been somewhat traumatized by accessing graphic content I shouldn’t have
Why did you access it if it made you feel bad? It is (and has been since I remember) very difficult to accidentally run across anything shocking on the Internet.
No one ever linked you to lemonparty, huh? No escalating chains of “hot singles in your area” ads? No, you know, human tendency to explore and pursue novel experiences?
OK, if someone actively links me to it, then yes, but there’s also no solution to that because they could just send it (or a screenshot of it) directly to me and circumvent any filters there might be.
I’ve never clicked on a “hot singles in your area” ad, so no idea what that is about.
The entire Internet is of course IMHO about exploring and pursuing novel experiences; but how quickly do you imagine children can get from websites actively recommended by parents to shocking websites? Not very, I think?
It didn’t take me long! I learned the shortcuts to hide what I doing from them and was pretty quickly the one being asked for tech tips. Plotting revolution and pirating media in IRC while mom thought I was playing “Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?” >:)
Kids are way smarter than a lot of people want to admit. I would say more intelligent than adults on average, balanced out by lack of experience of course. That’s why I’m so against government measures to limit their exposure and experience, whatever the pretext. They are our future and they will surpass our capabilities, we’re fucked as a species if they don’t. They deserve our support, not disingenuous constraints or to be weaponized for fear mongering
I definitely agree with all of that.
But if you “learned the shortcuts to hide” what you were doing, then you were clearly accessing things you actively wanted to see, which was my entire point.
Not like alt-tab is rocket surgery :p
What I wanted to see was “the world”, you know? That drive to explore and pursue novelty we talked about? Think it’s a pretty universal experience, and one companies have absolutely learned to prey on. I don’t think yearning to know the unknown is quite equivalent to actively wanting to see anything specific, and you seem like a smart enough guy to be aware of the ways companies abuse that curiousity. That people, children or not, are only shown things they actively want to see is measurably, provably not true. We go down rabbitholes and off on tangents and towards intensity and in all kinds of directions all kinds of people have all kinds of motivations for influencing
Alright, I agree with you that modern “social media recommendation algorithms” are a bad thing that shouldn’t have been invented, if that is what you’re getting at.