Why Age Verification And 'Social Media' Bans Will Bite You

It's taken many years of wondering how to reign in the World Wide Web (not the Internet) and finally the catch call of those that wish to control you, "Won't someone think of the children!" has caught the wind and is gaining traction-ish.

As usual many of you reading this will have made up your mind, "There is so much bullying on social media Mike, we have to do something!", "Come on Mike, we all know social media is toxic and needs reigning in", "We can't just let our kids be swamped by this!".

I agree, 'social media' and even the wider World Wide Web can be full of absolute shite, lies, manipulation, propaganda, and is causing untold damage to everyone, even if you don't actually use it. The world would be a better place, overall, if Meta (Facebook, Instagram), X (used to be called Twitter), and many parts of YouTube didn't exist. If we could just turn it off, have a weekend of wondering what the fuck was that all about, and start again on Monday we'd be grand.

By Tuesday something else would have taken all their place.

It's not the tech, it's the people behind it … but the tech allows the human shits to ooze out all over us.

So let's use tech to hide the toxic garbage away from the kids. Hmmm, the tech doesn't work like that as the Aussie's are currently finding out. The biggest issue is that 'social media' (the World Wide Web) can't really be blocked as VPNs exist as do many other technical methods of getting around tech blocks.

But why would the kids want to get to places full of floating turd lies and damage, well it's not all poo and evil, Facebook allows people and communities to connect and stay in touch, Instagram does similar, X can allow for interesting conversations between people who like each other, YouTube has many awesome educational videos, and cat stuff. People want to go there because they get value out of it despite the walls dripping with propaganda slime.

[as an aside, if 'social media' is so toxic why on earth are we only thinking of the children, adults shouldn't have to put up with wading knee deep through political manipulation every time they wanna see a mates new photo]

Ok, so tech can't block it, let's make it an age thing and you have to prove you're an adult before entering the bull pit (although, see previous paragraph). Nearly all website/services have an age limit of 13 and have done for years - this is YouTube for instance:

Age Requirements

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service; however, children of all ages may use the Service and YouTube Kids (where available) if enabled by a parent or legal guardian.

Facebook's is:

We try to make Facebook broadly available to everyone, but you cannot use Facebook if:

• You are under 13 years old.

Yeah, but kids just say they're 18 and move on by, I know, my kids did, so it needs to be verified by those that know, THE GOVERNMENT! But no government really wants to take it on and actively do something as that would cost money, time, and, "Hey, it's not our job to monitor laws" … hmmm.

In true neoliberal / capitalist way let's give it to corporations to do it for us … the government will let these faceless companies see our government sanctioned and stored data, ask for more from potential child, and through data matching give them the OK to create an account of Facebook, or not.

They'll only do that for the kids though eh. Oh, but who is a kid - chicken and egg situation - they're gonna have to do it for everyone, collect the personal data from you and me, match it with the vast trove of government held citizen data, before letting you into that porn site. And they'll probably have to do it for any new 'social media' websites you wanna join, or even current ones that may need to double-check you're not a child as their machines think you might be, heck the checking company may as well store it all, save having to do it over and over from scratch, it'll be cheaper and more efficient.

Black box corporations with no recourse to the citizens of the country are now growing vast amounts of incredibly sensitive and personal information.

What would you do with it all if you were so inclined?

Match it up to the advertising tracking is an obvious start.

Sell it back as a surveillance package to the governments, "Citizen 1234 is a 'bad' person because our algorithm says XYZ and we we know it's her as she verified herself for us!"

Oh, but this approach was only meant to stop kids having crap shoved into their brain, to remove one path of bullying, stop a potential source of radicalisation. It can't even do that, why are we bothering? Gotta do something eh - I agree, but THIS is not that something.

The current solution is a problem, I hope you can see that.

As I say, I agree that there are nasty issues with lies, bullying, manipulation, greed, and other unsavoury behaviours coming at kids via 'social media'.

But still, the current solution is a problem.

If your response is, "I have nothing to hide", think again.

"I don't accept the idea that if we have nothing to hide we have nothing to fear. Privacy serves a purpose. It’s why we have blinds on our windows and a door on our bathroom."

There are those that have ideas, approaches, and techniques that they think can solve the problem, providing a means of removing children from the garbage whilst preserving privacy of us all:

• Proton: What are the alternatives to age verification?
• Zero-knowledge proof

It's a tough problem that needs more research but I see Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZPF) emerging as the favoured approach despite issues.

Further reading on the problem:

• Age Verification and Age Gating: Resource Hub
• The world wants to ban children from social media, but there will be grave consequences for us all
• How about compulsory ID to use the web?

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