Harald Wagener
Taggart 
It was my job for a decade to try to keep tweens and teens safe online. Let me tell you what you already know: no law or technology can do it. There are no lengths kids won't go to to talk to friends without prying eyes. The harder you try to lock it down, the dodgier their solutions will be.
And yes of course, none of this legislation is about kids. We've already established these ghouls don't give a shit about kids. But these laws actually will hurt kids, which I guess is right on track.
paculino@mttaggart Yeah, regulating risks is opposed and only regulating information/communication is encouraged. It's not even claiming to do anything about ads aiming to manipulate them.
Nini@mttaggart It's pretty transparent what they're up to but when hasn't it been when a moral panic (i.e. a loss of control over other autonomous humans' development) leads to a reduction in what the kids can see and do?
Varx@mttaggart I mean... That's what got me interested in cyber security. Over zealous parental control software and how to work around it so we could play stupid free flash games lol.
Never underestimate the power of motivated tweens with too much time on their hands.
Tara L. Campbell@varx @mttaggart 100% this. Boundless energy, little lawyers to the core, motivated tweens and teens are going to find a way.
Kevin Karhan@varx @mttaggart meanwhile kids these days just obtain themselves an external SSD and boot Linux from it.
https://jorts.horse/@kkarhan/116395340644109088
https://jorts.horse/@kkarhan/116395340644109088
Kevin Karhan (@[email protected])
@[email protected] +9001% The only things one can do is: - Create a safe *"bright field"* (with good & safe platforms instead of #AntisocialMedia!) - Be good parents/guardiens/friends they can #trust and seek #advice if not help from. - Teach them #TechLiteracy and #MediaLiteracy. Anything else (espechally #Prohibition - #Politricks) are an *insult to the intellect of #teens* - and complete denial of the fact that they are cleverer, have more time and skill on hand than 99,95% of all adults.
FrauZeitlos@varx @mttaggart and I think that's alright. Kids are supposed to test all boundaries. But I also see it as my job as a parent to set the boundaries and keep them. Social Media makes this very hard. It is like being forced to leave your child naked in the town square at night.
dexternemrod"But I also see it as my job as a parent to set the boundaries and keep them."
I, personally, see it as my job to keep my child protected (not in a helicopter-parent way), but maybe we mean the same, and so I agree with you.
So from my point of view it is the parents job to take care of this and the society (and government) has to play its role as well, incl. enable parents to have the possibility to do their jobs and provide positive rolemodels.
PeterAnd they aren't secretive about these techniques - by that I mean, it's not "just the tech savvy kids".
At least in my daughter's middle school, the techies seem to thrive on getting as many non tech kids to bypass the school restrictions as possible.
My 7th grader is clever, but in no way tech adept.
She comes home and shares with me a new way to get unfettered Internet access at school maybe every other week.
@phpete @mttaggart true, true…
Basically at some schools #Millenials speedran who could bypass the #Nannyware and get #CounterStrike copied on all the school computers the fastest...
https://jorts.horse/@kkarhan/116395340644109088
Nowadaxs they have it so easy with #Tails!
Kevin Karhan (@[email protected])
@[email protected] +9001% The only things one can do is: - Create a safe *"bright field"* (with good & safe platforms instead of #AntisocialMedia!) - Be good parents/guardiens/friends they can #trust and seek #advice if not help from. - Teach them #TechLiteracy and #MediaLiteracy. Anything else (espechally #Prohibition - #Politricks) are an *insult to the intellect of #teens* - and complete denial of the fact that they are cleverer, have more time and skill on hand than 99,95% of all adults.
Shoxx Ft. Richter - Counter-Strike Flavour [Full Lyrics]
Stu@mttaggart Kids in our school figured out that while the main domain of a popular console was blocked, the cloud streaming subdomain was not. Thus, Fortnite on Chromebooks.
Devlin 
@tehstu @mttaggart back in the early 00s I learned how to bypass the school's blocking to get on sites that were banned, in response to this I was taught the bare basics of linux by the IT techer who maintained said blocklist, as well as a week's ban from the library so it looked like I was being punished.
Patrick Loftus 🖖
@tehstu @mttaggart Our school canceled a computer class. It then became a study hall. We turned it into a game of cat and mouse installing Quake II (Action Quake Mod) on the devices. They deleted everything and prevented installs. We made self booting CD-Rom versions and continued to play.
Tarale@mttaggart someone I once knew was a very experienced computer engineer and no matter what they did their kid circumvented it. At some point they realised they were just training the next generation of security professionals.
Stuck HereAbout the time routers began to give parental rights in the 00s The Onion did a joke piece about all of the high school kids using an obscure plumbing website thread to share URLs, pictures, meetup times, and general shenanigans.
They'd taken it from real life and had made the story more insane.
But yes, the whole internet lock down with age verification is not for the kids. Kids will find a way to get what they want to see and do.
The Wrew (Mesh Edition)
Scott Michaud@mttaggart And then, of course, there will be attempts to exploit parents whose initial reaction to lock things down... because every source of complacency is fair game if someone is a scammer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentry_Parental_Controls
That one sold the kids' private information to marketers.
Pixelcats⁷@mttaggart So. much. this. And the more covert and secretive kids need to be to stay connected, the less likely they are to seek support from trusted adults when things go wrong.
Pat@mttaggart back in the early 1960s, teens discovered an open chat line during busy signals. Dozens of kids could use it at one time. Yes, kids will always find a way to circumvent the rules
stonedonkey 🕹️🎮👾@mttaggart IRC is still a thing.. message boards can be self hosted... Hell listserv still works ... There's a myriad of work arounds that they'll migrate too it just takes is a nudge.
Personally I hate some of these walled gardens and maybe it's for the best.
Paul_IPv6explain the risks and tech like you would to any adult, then step back, give them space, let them know they can come to you with anything (no blame), and let them try.
the harder you squeeze, the more things will squirt out in places you don't see or expect, and the messier it will be.
it's like abortion. you can't outlaw abortion. you can only outlaw medically safe abortions.
SupermoosieThere are also so many kids using social media for great purposes. And learning skills on the way.
Raising money and awareness for charities and causes
Organising volunteers
Organising protests
Organising environment awareness
Running their own busineses
Running art/crafts groups
Organising hobbies and sports
sabik@SuperMoosie @paul_ipv6 @mttaggart
Kids are also using social media to escape hermeneutical injustice... and some adults do love to see children under hermeneutical injustice...
Kids are also using social media to escape hermeneutical injustice... and some adults do love to see children under hermeneutical injustice...
Joe Alexander@mttaggart i want them to talk to their friends, i don't want suggestion algorithms pairing them with pedophiles because it keeps them on the platform viewing ads
people mentioned things like IRC - love that
the companies we have now should be dismantled
Tatjna@mttaggart I've never worked in online safety but I have decades of experience in drug harm reduction and the headline learning from all that is that banning stuff doesn't stop people from doing it, it just makes it more harmful.
Eggs now in different baskets.@Tatjna @mttaggart And society and social norms suffer as "collateral damage".
Witness the prohibition experiment in the US.
Organised crime never had it so good.
And organised crime bosses, once "elected" can never be voted out of office.
@the_wub Do not get me started on Harry Anslinger and his bullshit. Him and his thinly disguised racist vendettas are responsible for more deaths that we can even count, never mind how much money has been wasted that could have been spent on making the world a better place.
@Tatjna I had to read up about Harry Anslinger. I know the generalities of the prohibition era and the way it strengthened organised crime in the US but not the details of the individuals involved.
It reminds me of how the "Sus" laws were applied unequally in the UK in the 70s and 80s.
You could be stopped by the police on the suspicion that you were up to no good.
That rule got applied to young men of colour far more often than any other group in the UK population.
Westcoastmaven 🇨🇦@mttaggart I'd much rather see the social media firms held to account for the problems they have created. It isn't just kids that get addicted, there are millions of adults too. Supposedly adults know better than to let a software get the better of them, but apparently not. It isn't an age thing, it is the addictive aspects of social media programming.
JoeHenzi@Westcoastmaven @mttaggart ban the algorithm - ragebait was a word of the year last year - it's weaponized... to sell you ads
Evelyn Octavia@mttaggart as others said, might as well for parents to do both supervise their teens, and teach basic cyber security 
Em & future cats 🇺🇦🐈🏳️🌈@mttaggart 💯💯💯💯‼️
Honestly, it’s as if you adults forgot what it was like to be a kid!😹 … wait… you have forgotten, haven’t you 😳
(And yes this is in slight sarcasm, and I already am aware that the “protection of kids” is really not what these companies nowadays are actually concerned about)
Li ~ Crystal System@mttaggart @ielenia guys this is totally for their safety and for them though, the fact their all trying to collectively get around it and helping their fellow friends out is ummm its helping okay? how dare you say its harmful to do this thing that would be harmful to do to anyone else and that they still view as harmful to them
@mttaggart @ielenia anyway first "hacks" i really did were deleting parental controls on the computer, and later -- then later when they tried to restrict the internet .. resetting the router, but they kept resetting it back, so at some point i ripping the reset button off the board to lock them out completely .. while they were gone .. i also got good at being able to figure out passwords from looking at typing and such ..
but yknow "for my own good" .. "for my safety" .. cant just leave me alone,
like gods extremely obvious that i dont want your " protection " or your idea of whats " good " for me ..
Nazo@mttaggart Yeah, I can verify firsthand on this... I got around more than a few things my parents tried back in the day. All it ever does is make everything harder and worse for everyone.
The best thing they ever did was just trusting me in the end.
Surlytom@mttaggart are there any studies or anything you can link to? I want to participate in this discussion but I'm not sure where to start and I want to back up my arguments
@Surlytom I'm unaware of any direct studies of this type, in part because I can't imagine an IRB signing off on an experimental design that guarantees exposing minors to inappropriate/harmful content.
But here's an anecdote: when we had the most restrictive filters and monitors in place, you know where our 5th graders started creating abusive chats?
Google Docs. The tool they were expected to use for classwork. And even when Google (eventually) created some measure of monitoring for that platform, the kids immediately learned how to use emoji to speak in code to avoid said filters.
They always find a way.
@mttaggart +9001%
The only things one can do is:
- Create a safe "bright field" (with good & safe platforms instead of #AntisocialMedia!)
- Be good parents/guardiens/friends they can #trust and seek #advice if not help from.
- Teach them #TechLiteracy and #MediaLiteracy.
Anything else (espechally #Prohibition - #Politricks) are an insult to the intellect of #teens
- and complete denial of the fact that they are cleverer, have more time and skill on hand than 99,95% of all adults.
HardlyWorgen@mttaggart My brother tackled online safety for his kids by not allowing them to have their own computers until partway through high school. There was only one PC in the house, and it was in the parents' bedroom. At some point the kids got laptops so they could type up school papers, but my brother would shut off the wifi to limit the kids internet time.
Jeffrey@mttaggart If I would blindly take a role at an organization, it would be blue team at a middle school. Sounds so much fun.
Mike Cox@mttaggart We did this with phones back in the day.
The school installed a fancy phone system (in the early 80s so no mobiles) with no outside dialling on most extensions.
We found a phone with outside access and diverted calls to it to an outside line. Then we just had to ring that extension from any other and we had an outside line to ring anywhere. Simples!
Kids will always find a way.
Brad Macpherson@mikecox @mttaggart I'd argue it's an important skill to nurture.
Like with your example - I'd hope that there were staff who were aware of the work-around and just let it go, since it doesn't hurt anything (well, maybe the school's phone bill 😂 ) and more importantly shows initiative.
PheebeUK@mikecox @mttaggart and if you didn't have access to a phone (because they were in locked rooms), it isn't exactly difficult to strip the sheath from a phone cable and tap the cable to get access.
D Ingram@Pheebe @mikecox @mttaggart Fax machines didn't have toll blocks. Very few places secured the phone cable ... BYO handset and off you go
@mttaggart This will not just be children in the future either. As adults try to avoid identifying themselves to look at adult content or don't want their chat content scanned by client side scanning and so on.
The internet crims are already looking at things like Chat Control 2.0 and rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of getting punters to download their malware riddled offerings marketed as "encrypted chat programs that your government cannot read".
s1m0n4@mttaggart I am not sure what this is truly about: ID verification? SM ban? I believe these are two different topics. Once research shows that something has a negative health effects, it has to be limited or regulated. Take alcohol for instance. I believe I am not the only one who drank alcohol before the legal age. So, yes, kids find ways to get around prohibitions. However this is about not letting them drink regularly and become alcoholic.
Would you legalise alcohol at any age?
Would you legalise alcohol at any age?
Fluffy Kitty Cat@s1m0n4 @mttaggart those policies are not and never have been distinct, same with library book bans here on the school phone bans
Cliff'sEsportCorner@s1m0n4 @mttaggart kids get their hands on illegal drugs without much effort, so even if they lack the skills to defeat this stuff how long do you think it would take black market to exploit the demand?
@CliffsEsport @mttaggart
A minority of kids do that. And the numbers have drastically dropped on that front. Gen Z, now adult, is the generation the most focused on health and wellbeing we've ever seen.
Smoking isn't cool anymore.
A minority of kids do that. And the numbers have drastically dropped on that front. Gen Z, now adult, is the generation the most focused on health and wellbeing we've ever seen.
Smoking isn't cool anymore.
@s1m0n4 @mttaggart Doesn't match data I have both from primary data collection myself, as well as lifelong study of crime. Context studied forensics & criminology in college and have received research grant for studying crime. Talk to kids that trust you, local LEO or County attorneys or check local crime data. Or gang activity, etc I've interviewed convicts, kids, including gang affiliated.
@CliffsEsport @mttaggart then I'm asking again: would you remove restrictions on alcohol or drugs just because teens find other ways to get those things anyway?
I don't think that's a valid argument.
I don't think that's a valid argument.
@s1m0n4 @CliffsEsport When it comes to social media (and AI for that matter), there is a galaxy of regulatory options besides outright banning and age verification. Exploring those benefits all, not just minors. As an example, severe penalties for designs found to promote addictive usage.
"As an example, severe penalties for designs found to promote addictive usage."
This would imply:
A research team for every new design or solution paradigm that is suspected to develop addictive behaviours
A research to be carried on to prove the point
The governments issuing fines or a penalties
The actual compliance times to be allowed to modify the solution
We're looking at a 3 years period at best, during which a 12 y/o become 15 and develops such addiction.
@s1m0n4 @CliffsEsport Yes, better solutions can take time to implement. I don't know why you're discounting the harms of age verification regimes, which are no less onerous and destructive to privacy/supportive of surveillance states, etc. And worse: they just don't work for the intended purpose, which was my original point.
@mttaggart @CliffsEsport if you read my first toot, I specifically asked what you were talking about.
For the record I'm totally against providing an ID to access online services.
On the other hand I believe a non-enforceable ban on SM for U16 kids is necessary. Because it has educational purposes on society as a whole. Just like the obligation of wearing a helmet for cyclists under a certain age or age restrictions for certain video games/movies.
And schools would enforce this somehow.
@s1m0n4 @CliffsEsport "Somehow."
No they won't. I was the enforcer. You cannot do it.
I'd also point out the material difference between a positive obligation ("wear a helmet") and a ban ("Don't do x"). Time and again we find that bans and penalties only serve to hurt the users, teach no lessons, and make society actually worse.
I don't want kids using social media. I think bans are the worst way to achieve that end.
@mttaggart French middle schools don't authorize smartphone usage inside the school. Kids get a disciplinary note if they use them.
And the pedagogy follows. There are no WhatsApp group to work on a given project, everything is done inside the school or at home. Smartphones are instead tolerated starting from high schools. That's the enforcement I want.
SM are toxic and addictive. And bans do work. Parents don't beat their kids anymore. That happened thanks to bans and an improved society.