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The book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt had a really clever idea. Create a regulation for operating systems that requires that their parental controls include an option that labels a device as belonging to a kid. When that option is toggled, requests will include some sort of header that labels the request as originating from a kid. Then, place onus (probably through some sort of legislation) on web platforms to restrict what content is shown to kids.
consider though - politicians nowadays don't think. they think so little, in fact, that the last time i checked websites for self harm/sexual assault support or reporting were considered "too adult" for kids to have access to in the UK
if it was about kids' safety, this wouldn't have been omitted
Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that this tide of "think of the kids" is just a fascist dogwhistle (and one with a double-entendre at that).
You should read the Anxious Generation. It goes into a lot of detail on research showing the damage social media has had on an entire generation. It's pretty undeniable that something needs to be done to stop/control social media's influence on children and teens in their crucial development years. There are some people that are definitely using it as a cover for control, but there are plenty of well educated people that see a real problem and are trying to do the best they can to find a solution.
I mentioned it in my original comment! I thoroughly enjoyed it. As an older member of Gen Z, a lot of what's written there jives with my lived experience and the intuitions I've developed around social media. And as a relatively young father, I'm also invested in figuring out how to give my kids the healthiest relationship with the online world possible.
I'm also a strong proponent of digital freedom and privacy. A lot of the age verification technology that's being rolled is tied to companies like Palantir or organizations like DHS, which seem to have a rather unambiguous interest in neither the freedom nor the privacy (nor really the general wellbeing) of the populace.
I'm of the opinion that any system that could enable or facilitate mass surveillance is not an acceptable solution to the problem of protecting kids online.
The idea I laid out in my original comment was inspired by the idea Jonathan Haidt presents in Chapter 10 (What Governments and Tech Companies Can Do Now), Section 3 (Facilitate Age Verification), 6th paragraph:
You should listen/read Steve Gibson's podcast episode from Security Now that goes over Zero Knowledge Proofs: https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-1034.htm
It seems like the ideal solution that can be implemented if we take the time to do it right.
Thanks for the read, I learned something today! I worry, though, that even if someone could devise a ZPK for age verification, can end-users actually trust that platforms are using it? Say for example Meta provides a biometric-based ZPK for age. Can we trust that they're not harvesting our biometric data? In the podcast's examples, it's easy for Peggy and Victor to understand that they are using a ZPK system. However, the age verification problem most often arises in arrangements where the prover is using a client app into whose inner workings they have no insight (either because it's closed source, they're not technologically literate enough, or who has the time to scrutinize the source code for every program they use) and which is most likely developed by the verifier. So the problem kind of moves upstream: how can you trust that ZPK is actually being used?