Meta Joins Google in Turning Back on Open Web over 'Child Protection' Mandates

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/11/28/meta-joins-google-in-turning-its-back-on-the-open-web-and-embracing-unconstitutional-mandates-that-pretend-to-protect-the-children/

by rntn • 3 years ago

27 36 3 years ago

techdirt.com

s1gnp0st2• 3 years ago

As someone whose first job was at an early parental controls company which focused on the first generation of social networks and IM services, I question the use of scare quotes in this title.

I will be the first to defend the open internet and decentralization generally, but to imply there's no problem here is catastrophically naive. I am still troubled by some of the things I learned about predators in that job. We put people in prison.

We should strive to solve both problems, keeping an open internet, and not allowing our children to be destroyed by pretending psychopaths don't exist.

mistrial9• 3 years ago

similar statements apply to public response to mental health -- some situations actually are dangerous, and need attention that is appropriate. A simplistic response is "present govt ID at all times" but that is neither sufficient, nor the way forward IMHO.

benatkin3• 3 years ago

I’m supposed to believe Facebook cares? Absolutely not.

importantbrian2• 3 years ago

This is next-level cynicism. Zuckerberg has 3 kids, most of their execs and a lot of their employees are parents. They've also employed a team to try and keep that stuff off their platform for a long time. The idea that they don't really care about this kind of stuff is asinine.

mulmen4• 3 years ago

I’m not convinced Meta or Google actually care about protecting children. This is all about power.

As the article points out these mechanisms are ineffective. And as is well documented Meta has no problem exploiting children on Instagram.

I’m sure there are awful things happening online and in the real world. We should try to stop those things with actual honest efforts.

Selling our souls to the likes of Meta and Google doesn’t help children. To the contrary, it creates a sick world for them to grow into.

koube4• 3 years ago

Why is this comment downvoted? Outside of internet forums which tend to be very free speech, parental controls would be incredibly popular, and companies that don't have tight content controls receive a lot of scrutiny. As the article notes, Facebook is already being criticized for not tightly enforcing minimum ages, and there was a popular article out just yesterday[0] about Instagram just showing things that are vaguely "risque".

If you ask someone on the street if Google and Facebook should have parental controls the answer would be unequivocally yes. This is the normie position the vast majority of the time. Are we able to engage with normie positions? Is it not genuinely concerning if we're unable to?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38439280

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

I don’t even like the term “normie” because, honestly, that blinds us into a perspective that we are superior to the perspectives of most people; when there isn’t any actual guarantee of that superiority.

mulmen4• 3 years ago

It’s downvoted because it’s the same tired think of the children argument. It’s a red herring. Age verification doesn’t protect children. Legislation protects incumbents.

Meta are experts at manipulating emotions. That’s exactly what the “think of the children” argument does.

ghusto• 3 years ago

I have a near foolproof solution for parental controls; it's called parenting, 1.0

If you don't have a close enough relationship with your children where they trust and communicate openly with you, no amount of technology is going to keep them safe. It's an arms race you will be losing most of the time.

munificent3• 3 years ago

Children with shitty parents don't deserve to be targeted by predators either, though.

ChrisKnott• 3 years ago

The fact you are immediately downvoted for this even handed comment which speaks from personal experience, while worthless "DAE 1984" comments are not, proves how close minded most HN commenters are on this issue.

benatkin3• 3 years ago

I can't tell if the personal experience is relevant, irrelevant, or a conflict of interest. The parental control companies profited from a sense of security was often false, for which it watered down the experience of using the web in its early days. Back in the 90s if I were subjected to buggy parental control software I couldn't have learned as much as I did.

Maybe parental control software was worse back then than it is now, because it took away the experience only afforded to my generation of growing up during the birth of the Web.

csdvrx4• 3 years ago

We should strive to solve both problems, keeping an open internet

I recently looked at HTTP/3 proposals. TLS is required, but you can't use a self-signed certificate: without the CA root it will not connect, and the specifications for HTTP/3 says this should be the default.

This is horrible. It's using security and performance as good excuses to remove features, like how in practice, chrome changes result in extra hurdles for ad blockers.

In my perfect world, the identity problem (is this website really mybank.com?) would be handled at the DNS level (DNSSEC!), and for a new HTTP format based on UDP (great idea!) it would be the http CLIENTS that would each create their own keys and give public keys to the servers.

It would be less risky than a breach of trust down the CA authority, as the traffic would not be decryptable.

mmvasq2• 3 years ago

Maybe options for either…people are notoriously bad at key management unless versed in enterprise vaulting. This is why decisions are made to try to help them.

s1gnp0st2• 3 years ago

It's remarkable how many people replied to this comment with an argument against age verification. I am fully in favor of preserving the (semblance of) anonymity we enjoy on the internet, and even improving upon it.

I'll say again more clearly, ignoring the problem of other people's suffering does not make it go away, and one day it spills over into your own life. There are likely solutions which preserve privacy of adult users available for those willing to think.

csdvrx4• 3 years ago

Even if their technology is often very nice, the mere idea of working for Google or Meta, or just being in a company they would acquire, sends shivers down my spine. The rare few bad people are used as plausible deniability to create a technical dystopia.

I care more about tech than anything else, but here the moral bad outweighs the good.

I wonder if that's how people felt 30 years ago about Microsoft, or before that time about IBM?

flashback2199• 3 years ago

It's sad that you are getting punished for asking about something real. How many smart people who would have otherwise worked in software are currently choosing to go in other directions as this industry descends into totalitarianism?

csdvrx4• 3 years ago

I've thought about that question for myself and I think I morally couldn't do that.

If it was about money, I think I would prefer to work for a financial company, or even a crypto one: even if you believe they're doing "bad" (for political reasons, environmental reasons - take your pick), at least this "bad" is done at a local scale and is self-limiting, instead of creating the building blocks for a technical dystopia.

omgmajk• 3 years ago

Just another step towards total surveillance, nothing new under the sun.

lacker• 3 years ago

For a sensitive issue like child protection, Google and Meta are going to get attacked no matter what they do. Too much protection and they are harming LBGT youth, too little protection and they are putting children at risk.

From the tech companies' point of view, it makes sense for there to be regulations here. Then they can just follow the regulations, and if people are unhappy, then the regulation should be changed through the democratic process. It's not really "anticompetitive" because this stuff just isn't a big deal to the business side of the companies. It's a big deal because of the impact on children, not financially.

mulmen4• 3 years ago

Meta could start by not actively preying on children.

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

“Of course, as we keep pointing out, for many kids, parents are the problem. How would this kind of system work when there is an LGBTQ child searching for information or communities where they can express themselves or learn, and they have parents who are not open minded about such things?”

This was about the dumbest argument that could have been said for why this should be opposed because it ties opposition tightly into a still-controversial political perspective.

Also, I respond with: There are school resources, public libraries, they interact with people every day who will probably happily give them information. Their friends in school would give them information. The internet isn’t the beginning and end of access to information. The alternative is letting data miners and worse run amok - and I think that’s a greater evil.

And, in addition to all of the above, who is to say that the resources they find online are safe? How do you know the first link they open won’t be from someone who wants to prey on them? If you care about LGBTQ youth, you’d probably prefer they use school resources first…

munificent3• 3 years ago

There are school resources, public libraries, they interact with people every day who will probably happily give them information.

Not in Florida thanks to the "Don't Say Gay Bill".

There are many people in the US who really and truly do not want LBGTQ children to have access to any information about their identity.

gjsman-10003• 3 years ago

That is frankly a terrible euphemism because the text of the law restricts providing materials through the third grade.

So, sure, if you are a LGBTQ child under the age of 10, it’s a problem. But I don’t think, at that age, the internet will be your friend either.

mmvasq2• 3 years ago

I would never have imagined Google as a bad company, yet someone went on a mission to go through all of my searches, NLP, and medical records without consent then manipulated my father. The terror they put me through running me around was insane and it became evident one individual was actually working WITH GOOGLE on age restriction features when they collected searches from a device designated as for a 13 year old as a test. I was too busy being terrorized to sit down and write their legal department these guys did so much harm to myself and my family (fifty counts of criminal mischief). I was in shock for quite a while. They still sit in a game called Guild of Heroes chatting every day. Pretty sure the chat connection string is assigned by IMEI at download. Never could find anyone willing or competent to test or help verify.

Still disgusted to this day, and the mountain of paperwork too steep to get anything done about them after several attempts with various authorities. One of the guys literally drugged (or overheard) my sister who was being assaulted/ trafficked- and laughed he was “playing with tweakers”.

I am so unhappy with Google right now. Yet part of the challenge is having the capacity with the overwhelming nature of their attack to get it addressed.

I was using 2FA these guys pillaged everything on the back end.

rokkitmensch3• 3 years ago

Please write this story up somewhere other than comments! Sounds like a great read.

Meta Joins Google in Turning Back on Open Web over 'Child Protection' Mandates

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