This is nothing like showing ID at the liquor store 🪪🧵

Finally, it's important to take note that age verification online is nothing like showing an identification card to be able to purchase alcohol. This often-used comparison is disingenuous.

If we stay within this analogy of the analogue world, then online age verification is more comparable to showing an official identification card at the liquor where the cashier would make thousands of photocopies of it, store some in an unlocked drawer, share some with all other liquor stores worldwide, also share some with grocery stores, newspapers, their friends, and random strangers on the street. Then leave a bunch of copies on the floor, for anyone to grab.

Nobody would accept to show their ID at the liquor store if it was happening that way. But sadly, most people ignore the extent to which data is shared, lost, and stolen online, on a daily basis.

(7/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

A ban does nothing to address the harm caused by social media 🧨🧵

The things that harm children on social media also harm adults. A ban of social media for children sadly does nothing to reduce the harm caused by social media, it only reserves it to adult, and postpones it for children.

The addictive and manipulative black-box algorithms, the privacy-intrusive data collection, the harmful violent content and misinformation, are all hurting adults as well.

Moreover, children who do not go around the ban before the restricted age (other implementations have shown that most children will attempt to circumvent the ban) will find themselves completely ill-equipped to protect themselves from social media harm once they come of age, and will be made even more vulnerable by our own legislation claiming to protect them.

A true solution to this is to regulate corporate platforms to forbid addictive algorithms, targeted advertising, intrusive data collection, third-party data sharing, violent content, weak moderation, manipulative tactics, and other abusive mechanisms used by certain platforms to prioritize profits over the safety and sanity of its users.

This would not only help children, but adults and society as a whole as well.

(3/9)

#StopIDSurveillance #Privacy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #CanPoli #Canada

@sarahjamielewis

tech regulation, particularly "save the kids" attempts, are more often (like always) a prime example of "the cure is worse than the disease"...