If you wanted to actually empower parents in helping their kids, you'd make sites emit some form of standard as TXT, SRV, /.well-known, whatever end points
Then you'd make sure that the owner of the device has the ability to enable this, factoring in some tags for the category
Then I can use my existing parental controls (including on a linux laptop if I don't give my 13 year old root) to apply or not apply rules
If I don't want social media regardless, then I apply a rule "no scoial media". Or I can apply "1 hour max" per day for the category
If I'm happy with my 16 year old spending half an hour on playboy.com or whatever, then that's fine too -- I'd rather they went somewhere like that then some of the shadier sites
This gives no power to large companies, but helps the parents, who can apply "default" profiles -- hell you can distribute default profiles as part of the onboarding process.
There is an unfortunate lack of unity for such things. It would work if governments made it easily understandable how to categorize content, but the vast majority is handled by closed boards of people, so no "case law" exists for the difficult edge cases.
Additionally, some jurisdictions have laws based around religious and cultural values which are not immediately obvious, I'm sure many webmasters would be happy to spend 30 minutes or so writing something for such a framework, but the current subsequent obligation of learning the laws of relevant jurisdictions, the decisions of age rating boards, etc. would blow things out to weeks of research and potentially quite a bit of lawyer money.
> There is an unfortunate lack of unity for such things. It would work if governments made it easily understandable how to categorize content, but the vast majority is handled by closed boards of people, so no "case law" exists for the difficult edge cases.
Who cares if some sites get it wrong? It would still be a better scenario than we have now
> Additionally, some jurisdictions have laws based around religious and cultural values which are not immediately obvious,
The beauty of the GPs suggestion is that site owns don't need to learn that. They just submit what the site content is and parents get to chose what they want to expose their children to.
Also we already have a jurisdiction problem here were some countries, or even sub-division of such as US states, are passing law that affect the websites and software of people worldwide.
FYI for adult content, there's a standard called RTA-Label that already integrates with all parental controls and is already deployed on all major adult sites.
Yes but isn't that limited to only tagging adult sites? That's great and it works but it only applies to a small piece of the stated problem. It seems to be largely social media that's driving popular support for this latest go round.
RTA is an excellent demonstration that a self categorization system can be expected to work provided it's standardized and service operators make use of it. What's missing then is granularity and a way to coerce the vast majority of sites to adopt whatever gets standardized.
Given the current browser duopoly coercing adoption should prove relatively straightforward. So we just need an RFC document and then to somehow gain public support for it.
Simple, sites without a rating are not viewable if parental controls are enabled. That will be motivation for site publishers to get their ratings in order.
No, the browsers would need to reject the sites unconditionally since no one is going to enable parental controls if it breaks everything. Otherwise I expect the current situation of parental controls not working and thus everyone avoiding them and complaining would continue.
Recall that this is exactly what happened with TLS. When browsers started gating all new features behind TLS being active suddenly all the mainstream sites had it working across the board in record time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260215201718/https://www.rtala... seems a bother, nevermind the lack of granularity that RTA has. The competing options seem to have a Christian focus as well, from what I recall. There does not seem to be any good option currently.
You can't offer a workable solution to an excuse. Nobody pushing this wants to protect the children, therefore offering a solution that will protect the children is irrelevant.
While the powers pushing this aren't doing it for protecting children, there are many people who want restricting the internet to protect children. This is why it's a good cover instead of an obvious power grab, because parents want to stop their ten year old children from seeing porn or getting addicted to social media, but they don't know much about how to do it, the technology involved or who is pushing it.
You might not want any child control, as many in HN don't, but in general the people do. And if you make parents choose between the current free for all and the government knowing the identity of every user, they will choose the second.
Sure, the government would probably not protect the children even after requiring ID, but by then it would be too late.
Yep, and the social media and other tech companies could have solved this 10 or 15 years ago on their own terms but chose to pretend that it was all just a "parenting" issue and not their responsibility. Now they are facing the heavy and clumsy hand of government regulation.
I have an 11yo. I know a ton of parents. And I don't know a single person - not one - who thinks this is a good idea. And I've asked.
Obviously this is just an anecdote and not a substitute for data. But... is there data on sentiment? I don't think it's actual parents who are pushing for this.
You’re downvoted but you are right. Speaking from experience, buying the rhetoric and offering alternatives in that “framing” doesn’t work. In my country all adults sites are already banned for two decades (for adults as well) yet they implement this exact ID verification scheme and promoting using the exact same rhetoric.
I am shocked, shocked to hear that there are ulterior motives behind age verification and that the stated benefit is in fact exactly the opposite of what happens irl. Shocked!
The nice solution would be <adult age="18"> content </adult> tags, standardized by w3c.
https://fipr.org/20260526-GrowingUpInTheOnlineWorld.pdf Actual response, instead of an article reporting on an article reporting on a response.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Information_Pol... Context of FIPR
Obviously? I'm shocked that lawmakers are so okay with giving up their sons' and daughters' personal information.
It's not for the Fortunate Sons, silly.
If you wanted to actually empower parents in helping their kids, you'd make sites emit some form of standard as TXT, SRV, /.well-known, whatever end points
Then you'd make sure that the owner of the device has the ability to enable this, factoring in some tags for the category
us-min-age:21:drinking gb-min-age:18:drinking au-min-age:16:socialmedia us-min-age:13:socialmedia
Then I can use my existing parental controls (including on a linux laptop if I don't give my 13 year old root) to apply or not apply rules
If I don't want social media regardless, then I apply a rule "no scoial media". Or I can apply "1 hour max" per day for the category
If I'm happy with my 16 year old spending half an hour on playboy.com or whatever, then that's fine too -- I'd rather they went somewhere like that then some of the shadier sites
This gives no power to large companies, but helps the parents, who can apply "default" profiles -- hell you can distribute default profiles as part of the onboarding process.
There is an unfortunate lack of unity for such things. It would work if governments made it easily understandable how to categorize content, but the vast majority is handled by closed boards of people, so no "case law" exists for the difficult edge cases.
Additionally, some jurisdictions have laws based around religious and cultural values which are not immediately obvious, I'm sure many webmasters would be happy to spend 30 minutes or so writing something for such a framework, but the current subsequent obligation of learning the laws of relevant jurisdictions, the decisions of age rating boards, etc. would blow things out to weeks of research and potentially quite a bit of lawyer money.
> There is an unfortunate lack of unity for such things. It would work if governments made it easily understandable how to categorize content, but the vast majority is handled by closed boards of people, so no "case law" exists for the difficult edge cases.
Who cares if some sites get it wrong? It would still be a better scenario than we have now
> Additionally, some jurisdictions have laws based around religious and cultural values which are not immediately obvious,
The beauty of the GPs suggestion is that site owns don't need to learn that. They just submit what the site content is and parents get to chose what they want to expose their children to.
Also we already have a jurisdiction problem here were some countries, or even sub-division of such as US states, are passing law that affect the websites and software of people worldwide.
FYI for adult content, there's a standard called RTA-Label that already integrates with all parental controls and is already deployed on all major adult sites.
Yes but isn't that limited to only tagging adult sites? That's great and it works but it only applies to a small piece of the stated problem. It seems to be largely social media that's driving popular support for this latest go round.
RTA is an excellent demonstration that a self categorization system can be expected to work provided it's standardized and service operators make use of it. What's missing then is granularity and a way to coerce the vast majority of sites to adopt whatever gets standardized.
Given the current browser duopoly coercing adoption should prove relatively straightforward. So we just need an RFC document and then to somehow gain public support for it.
Simple, sites without a rating are not viewable if parental controls are enabled. That will be motivation for site publishers to get their ratings in order.
No, the browsers would need to reject the sites unconditionally since no one is going to enable parental controls if it breaks everything. Otherwise I expect the current situation of parental controls not working and thus everyone avoiding them and complaining would continue.
Recall that this is exactly what happened with TLS. When browsers started gating all new features behind TLS being active suddenly all the mainstream sites had it working across the board in record time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260215201718/https://www.rtala... seems a bother, nevermind the lack of granularity that RTA has. The competing options seem to have a Christian focus as well, from what I recall. There does not seem to be any good option currently.
Yes but that's not what this is for, it's for boiling the frog of enforcing ID checks online.
I’m pretty certain they understand that and are offering a workable solution instead of just repiping “age tech bad.”
You can't offer a workable solution to an excuse. Nobody pushing this wants to protect the children, therefore offering a solution that will protect the children is irrelevant.
While the powers pushing this aren't doing it for protecting children, there are many people who want restricting the internet to protect children. This is why it's a good cover instead of an obvious power grab, because parents want to stop their ten year old children from seeing porn or getting addicted to social media, but they don't know much about how to do it, the technology involved or who is pushing it. You might not want any child control, as many in HN don't, but in general the people do. And if you make parents choose between the current free for all and the government knowing the identity of every user, they will choose the second. Sure, the government would probably not protect the children even after requiring ID, but by then it would be too late.
Yep, and the social media and other tech companies could have solved this 10 or 15 years ago on their own terms but chose to pretend that it was all just a "parenting" issue and not their responsibility. Now they are facing the heavy and clumsy hand of government regulation.
I'm sorry, what?!
I have an 11yo. I know a ton of parents. And I don't know a single person - not one - who thinks this is a good idea. And I've asked.
Obviously this is just an anecdote and not a substitute for data. But... is there data on sentiment? I don't think it's actual parents who are pushing for this.
You’re downvoted but you are right. Speaking from experience, buying the rhetoric and offering alternatives in that “framing” doesn’t work. In my country all adults sites are already banned for two decades (for adults as well) yet they implement this exact ID verification scheme and promoting using the exact same rhetoric.
Another instance of pure power games if you track the political "reasonings" and technological "solutions".
It's the same fight with yet another face; we must keep pushing back at the hydra.
[dead]
I am shocked, shocked to hear that there are ulterior motives behind age verification and that the stated benefit is in fact exactly the opposite of what happens irl. Shocked!
It was never about the children
It's not about the children, never was.
The goal is to use one ID system for everything.
I sound like Alex Jones, but we already have a system for bank login, and other trusted identity login. They want to use this for everything.