+1 for taming the addictive nature of social media.
-1000 for trying to do this with age-based restrictions. Kids will get around it. Kids SHOULD get around it. Gating content based on age does. not. work. Source: every teenage kid ever.
Also, the notion that dark UI patterns are exploitative of teenagers but acceptable for adults is ridiculous. Plenty of adults are just as (if not more-so) vulnerable to these things than kids.
-1000 for trying to do this with age-based restrictions. Kids will get around it. Kids SHOULD get around it. Gating content based on age does. not. work. Source: every teenage kid ever
My 12 year old son was helping his 10 year cousin set up Pokemon Go and he told him to just put anything in the year until it works.
Heck when I was 8 my 10 year old friend and I used to guess the leisure suit larry questions.
There is really no way to fix this, without creating some kind of goverment id system tied to biometrics, followed by the plot of any dystopian scifi.
Gating content based on age isn't really about preventing access to it. Gating content (on most any basis) is more about blame-deflecting and CYA: make sure you're not the one to be fingered as the responsible party when the "they should have done something!" hysteria hits.
What you are saying is essentially that all restrictions based on age are invalid because some people will manage to circumvent those rules.
We have significant, long term, data that age restrictions reduced the use of alcohol and tobacco.
What has changed, in the modern era of internet age restrictions, is that the enforcement of age restrictions online has been reduced.
For example, online pornography has massive numbers of users under 18, but there has been little enforcement by law enforcement agencies.
The solution is quite simple. If a person under the age of 18 is in possession of an application that is prohibited for minors and the company that creates that application fails to verify their age, then the company should face criminal charges, just like we do with tobacco and alcohol.
To say that age restrictions do not work is to ignore almost a century of public policy.
It does not matter whether kids can circumvent the restrictions. This is all about providing future legal action banning persuasive techniques used on children.
Now: sue tobacco companies coercing children using targeted advertisings.
Future: sue social media companies coercing children using persuasive techniques.
Question is: could insufficient age restriction methods hold companies liable?
So true. I was surprised to learn that kids are using the "commenting" feature in Google Docs to message each other in class in a way that they don't get caught using their phones. This laws can't have teeth unless they're specific and people will just invent new things and paths don't violate the law. If parents are worried, they should worry more about their own kids and parenting them the way they'd like.
I think getting around things like age restrictions and parent supervision is an important experience growing up, but I'm afraid kids these days are less adept with computers than their parents and won't be able to.
I know one 14yo who complains about not being able to see restricted content on youtube and also believes her parents can see her history even if she erases it.
Just because you were able to do it when you were a kid, doesn't mean other kids will be able to. You're posting on HN with a "linuxasheviller" handle, that makes you an outlier.
Also, these kinds of ultra-detailed technocratic rules tend to be bureaucratic disasters. The UK government is now going to be going feature-by-feature of every social media system and deciding whether it should be age-gated?
These measures are being proposed because by law in the UK, under 18s cannot have their data used for commercial targetting.
The obvious solution is for the companies to ensure that under 18s data isn't used this way. I will certainly start signing up to all services as a 16 year old.
I don't agree with that statement for "every teenage kid ever". Most kids appreciate separation from adult attention and accompanying concerns, responsibilities, passions, conflicts...
When a boundary is set at 18, its true that many youths approaching that age will look with great interest beyond it. But child friendly networks are important and valuable to children, while they can be children.
Some of this is definitely good. Requiring companies to use plain and truthful language when describing privacy-affecting settings is a great step, and apps/services shouldn't try to hide the "continue without enabling" button.
With that said, requiring different rules for children seriously increases barriers to entry for new services hoping to attract users in areas where these rules take effect, and kids will ALWAYS find ways around it. Nudges like snap streaks and the Like button encourage daily active use, but they also encourage actual social interaction between people to some degree.
Additionally, nudges like the Like button or Snapstreaks, though they do encourage a potentially unhealthy relationship with technology, also encourage social interaction with peers. It's certainly more complicated than "these are bad!"
I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Until about a year ago I myself was one of the under 18’s and although I myself have never had a “streak” or used social media much in general I do have some experience with these kind of things because I see my friends and peers partake in these kind of things. What I mostly see is that the upkeep of a streak consists of sending a black photo with some text on it like “goodnight” and then it being sent to dozens of people. Not much comes from it other than maintaining a streak.
So not a lot of social interraction in that case, more so a reward for substanceless and ultimately unrewarding behaviour. Even more so, I saw my peers getting distracted from actual social interaction IRL by these kind of things.
I don’t think social interaction has anything to do with things like streaks or other addictive nudges. I think the most that is needed for social interaction is a chat client (or voice for that matter) and the ability to send photo’s or use a webcam. It shouldn’t be more than that. Other things often get in the way of real social interaction be it online or offline.
Do they really encourage social interaction? From what I can tell, they're pretty much just an addictive feature.
If you want to encourage social interaction, promote less popular content. If you promote more popular content, then it becomes a popularity contest. Services want more eyeballs on their platform, so there's no way they'd promote less popular content because people will switch to a platform that gives them the reward for being popular.
It always ends up with "we do something to make your experiences better", to "help us continually protect and improve your experience", etc.
I'll be rather explaining along the lines "we're a corporation, we have shares to sustain and employees to pay, so we're going to milk you and your personal information for our sole benefit. You have to know that it will be better for you if you don't make it easy for us to do so".
Interesting white-hat application of behavioral economics. It's no surprise this is happening in UK.
Based on Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's book "Nudge," the UK set up a behavioral economics team charged with helping British subjects interact with their government. They had some notable successes. That's now called The Behavioural Insights Team. https://www.bi.team/ It's possible their national experience led them to adopt new rules against black-hat UX (tiny gray opt-out buttons, etc.)
User experience standards based on behavioral economics principles might be a very productive route to improving social media. It's CERTAINLY worth a try.
I don't see a good reason why anonymity should be a good default for social networks in particular. It's quite literally in the name, the primary function is social interaction.
The idea that anonymity should be guaranteed on every website, in every context without justification needs to be argued for, it's not self evident.
Sad to think that the Internet is becoming increasingly censored by many governments.
Maybe the Unabomber was right ,and you can't have technology and freedom at the same time. People just don't like freedom when it affects them negatively or benefits someone other than themselves.
That's always been the case, right? Freedom of speech, EXCEPT when it directly negatively affects the person due to reputation or fear.
Freedom to protest, as long as it isn't interfering with certain government functions and you aren't messing with the police.
I think as a society, it's our job to figure out the best balance of freedom and security. People are all up and down the spectrum, so you'll never make everyone happy anyway.
Despite many posts criticising the recommendations, the ICO _doesn't recommend age verification_ as a solution.
From the actual document:
> 2. Age-appropriate application: Consider the age range of your audience
and the needs of children of different ages. Apply the standards in this
code to all users, unless you have robust age-verification mechanisms to
distinguish adults from children.
The commissioner is saying that the companies should make the sites adhere to the rules covering children, with a get out IF some new age verification system could be developed.
Less bad then expected then, although adding a get-out-of-consumer-protection-free clause for sites that commit age discrimination isn't all that much of a improvement.
What are people's expectations of the effectiveness and the iatrogenics of this policy?
Before alcohol prohibition in the United States, most alcohol consumption was low-proof/ABV drinks (such as beers). The introduction of prohibition attenuated some demand for alcohol but created a black market for those still wishing to consume. Black-market suppliers shifted alcohol production to higher ABV/proof alcohols to mitigate risks and increase profits. The results was increased consumption in spirits and other more damaging alcohols.
The same phenomenon occurred during the US's 1970s "War on Drugs" milder drugs such as cannabis were outlawed, suppliers shift to more profitable and potent drugs, consumer preferences change, more addictive and damaging drugs are consumed (e.g. Fentanyl).
Social-media moralizers "save the children" with prohibitions -> marginal demand is attenuated but persists -> satisfaction is attained through less preferable way to the individual.
Humans are risk averse given relative options. Given the choice they will opt for the least damaging vice satisfier. Denied that option, preference shifts up the risk ladder. I don't think social media is healthy or advisable without moderation but the "solutions" will cause more harm than if left alone.
A treatment that's beneficial on the individual level is all but guaranteed to be detrimental on the aggregate: "The country's average mass is overweight! Everyone is now mandated to skip one meal a day until we are at an acceptable weight" kills malnourished people
I expect it to be completely worthless for the nominal purpose.
As for backfiring teens already prefer "not used by their parents" social media. I would expect moving on to less lawful platforms - at least when it comes to the UK.
I think compared to the war on drugs, this would be incredibly effective.
Social media is all about network effects - the more your friends are on social media, the more you want (/need) to be on it to keep up with them.
Putting up a barrier won't stop _everyone_ from accessing the sites, but I feel like it will easily stop _enough_ that the network effect deteriorates and so it's not worth circumventing anyways.
But while spirits became a larger share of alcohol consumed, "per capita annual consumption [immediately after the repeal of prohibition] stood at 1.2 US gallons (4.5 liters), less than half the level of the pre-Prohibition period". Likewise, "[d]eath rates from cirrhosis and alcoholism, alcoholic psychosis hospital admissions, and drunkenness arrests all declined steeply". In short, prohibition worked as a public health policy.
You can't just point out that something will cause unintended consequences. You have to actually weight them against the benefits the policy provides. Obviously fewer potheads for more heroin addicts was a bade trade, but fewer cigarette smokers for a slightly larger black market has proven to be a great one. We haven't seen the nicotine equivalent of fentanyl your "risk ladder" model predicts.
> A treatment that's beneficial on the individual level is all but guaranteed to be detrimental on the aggregate: "The country's average mass is overweight! Everyone is now mandated to skip one meal a day until we are at an acceptable weight" kills malnourished people
This Ayn Rand fever dream ignores the fact that the government has tons of policies that are beneficial on the individual level: banning trans fats, mandating nutrition labels, and taxing sodas just to name a few.
It's interesting to understand what is happening internally in these social media companies engaging in blatantly shady and unethical behavior.
Its more than weird that inspite of HN being a place where many of these individuals are there is little to no discussion on the actual forces and pressures at work driving these decisions, are there ethical dilemmas, difficult decisions? Because there is nearly nothing on this discussion wise or whistle blowers that would suggest this is something people working inside these companies are grappling with.
If this does not concern engineers its unlikely discussion on issues being raised by outsiders and regulatory bodies are going to lead to any kind of productive discussion beyond dilution and denial.
In my opinion this would be best applied to everyone not just the under 18s. That would go a long way to taking some of the addictive behaviours out of social media.
Probably not a popular opinion though, either with the users, or with the companies that run the social media platforms.
Any recommended legal social networks for a 12.5 year old? What are the legal hurdles for starting one with no advertising, or unnecessary tracking? (Dublin Ireland). Too retro to go IRC?
Well the article says:
To ensure its success, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says that online services must also adopt "robust" age-verification systems.
My guess is they'll ask for a valid credit card before allowing users to access the interface for likes and such. Which, IMO anyway, means many less people will be liking things in the UK, not just under-18's. Then some clever kid will find a way to get around it and before you know it the only people liking anything will be kids under 18.
I would say the best compromise would be something along the lines of having to send them government ID (which brings up a whole other ball of wax with privacy/data retention issues) - most teenagers might get a drivers license at 15-16 which I would subjectively say is close enough to adulthood to avoid these literal popularity contests online.
I thought the back button was one of those intermediate-page-with-a-redirect situations, but even a quick double tap of the back button does absolutely nothing. How is this even possible?
What would be the best way to capitalize from a personal investment standpoint in what I can only imagine will be massive growth in VPN usage? The EU and UK are going to end up cutting off large swaths of the internet from their population but I have no doubt people will still want unfettered internet access.
Don't view any such purchase as a long term investment. It probably won't be long before the UK government demands that ISPs block all VPN usage. It looks increasingly likely that many western countries will soon be taking a Chinese-style approach towards the internet. There's always some small benefit to restricting liberty, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
[+] [-] linuxasheviller|7 years ago|reply
-1000 for trying to do this with age-based restrictions. Kids will get around it. Kids SHOULD get around it. Gating content based on age does. not. work. Source: every teenage kid ever.
[+] [-] cirgue|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dec0dedab0de|7 years ago|reply
My 12 year old son was helping his 10 year cousin set up Pokemon Go and he told him to just put anything in the year until it works.
Heck when I was 8 my 10 year old friend and I used to guess the leisure suit larry questions.
There is really no way to fix this, without creating some kind of goverment id system tied to biometrics, followed by the plot of any dystopian scifi.
[+] [-] T-hawk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] areyouseriousxx|7 years ago|reply
We have significant, long term, data that age restrictions reduced the use of alcohol and tobacco.
What has changed, in the modern era of internet age restrictions, is that the enforcement of age restrictions online has been reduced.
For example, online pornography has massive numbers of users under 18, but there has been little enforcement by law enforcement agencies.
The solution is quite simple. If a person under the age of 18 is in possession of an application that is prohibited for minors and the company that creates that application fails to verify their age, then the company should face criminal charges, just like we do with tobacco and alcohol.
To say that age restrictions do not work is to ignore almost a century of public policy.
[+] [-] edejong|7 years ago|reply
Now: sue tobacco companies coercing children using targeted advertisings.
Future: sue social media companies coercing children using persuasive techniques.
Question is: could insufficient age restriction methods hold companies liable?
[+] [-] snarf21|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meruru|7 years ago|reply
I know one 14yo who complains about not being able to see restricted content on youtube and also believes her parents can see her history even if she erases it.
Just because you were able to do it when you were a kid, doesn't mean other kids will be able to. You're posting on HN with a "linuxasheviller" handle, that makes you an outlier.
[+] [-] oarabbus_|7 years ago|reply
Do you mean to suggest that you too knew kids who falsely clicked "over 18" when visiting pornographic websites?
[+] [-] aetherson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|7 years ago|reply
The obvious solution is for the companies to ensure that under 18s data isn't used this way. I will certainly start signing up to all services as a 16 year old.
[+] [-] strainer|7 years ago|reply
When a boundary is set at 18, its true that many youths approaching that age will look with great interest beyond it. But child friendly networks are important and valuable to children, while they can be children.
[+] [-] zachr|7 years ago|reply
With that said, requiring different rules for children seriously increases barriers to entry for new services hoping to attract users in areas where these rules take effect, and kids will ALWAYS find ways around it. Nudges like snap streaks and the Like button encourage daily active use, but they also encourage actual social interaction between people to some degree.
Additionally, nudges like the Like button or Snapstreaks, though they do encourage a potentially unhealthy relationship with technology, also encourage social interaction with peers. It's certainly more complicated than "these are bad!"
[+] [-] SanderSantema|7 years ago|reply
So not a lot of social interraction in that case, more so a reward for substanceless and ultimately unrewarding behaviour. Even more so, I saw my peers getting distracted from actual social interaction IRL by these kind of things.
I don’t think social interaction has anything to do with things like streaks or other addictive nudges. I think the most that is needed for social interaction is a chat client (or voice for that matter) and the ability to send photo’s or use a webcam. It shouldn’t be more than that. Other things often get in the way of real social interaction be it online or offline.
[+] [-] beatgammit|7 years ago|reply
If you want to encourage social interaction, promote less popular content. If you promote more popular content, then it becomes a popularity contest. Services want more eyeballs on their platform, so there's no way they'd promote less popular content because people will switch to a platform that gives them the reward for being popular.
[+] [-] scoutt|7 years ago|reply
It always ends up with "we do something to make your experiences better", to "help us continually protect and improve your experience", etc.
I'll be rather explaining along the lines "we're a corporation, we have shares to sustain and employees to pay, so we're going to milk you and your personal information for our sole benefit. You have to know that it will be better for you if you don't make it easy for us to do so".
[+] [-] ehnto|7 years ago|reply
Without a like mechanism, people would have to genuinely interact by adding to the conversation in order to be a part of it.
[+] [-] OliverJones|7 years ago|reply
Based on Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's book "Nudge," the UK set up a behavioral economics team charged with helping British subjects interact with their government. They had some notable successes. That's now called The Behavioural Insights Team. https://www.bi.team/ It's possible their national experience led them to adopt new rules against black-hat UX (tiny gray opt-out buttons, etc.)
User experience standards based on behavioral economics principles might be a very productive route to improving social media. It's CERTAINLY worth a try.
[+] [-] grawprog|7 years ago|reply
>To ensure its success, the ICO added that online services must also adopt "robust" age-verification systems.
Imply that ID of some kind would be required to use certain features of different sites?
It seems like this part in particular is another attack on internet anonymity.
[+] [-] Barrin92|7 years ago|reply
The idea that anonymity should be guaranteed on every website, in every context without justification needs to be argued for, it's not self evident.
[+] [-] Nasrudith|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandov|7 years ago|reply
Maybe the Unabomber was right ,and you can't have technology and freedom at the same time. People just don't like freedom when it affects them negatively or benefits someone other than themselves.
[+] [-] BowBun|7 years ago|reply
Freedom to protest, as long as it isn't interfering with certain government functions and you aren't messing with the police.
I think as a society, it's our job to figure out the best balance of freedom and security. People are all up and down the spectrum, so you'll never make everyone happy anyway.
[+] [-] gcthomas|7 years ago|reply
From the actual document:
> 2. Age-appropriate application: Consider the age range of your audience and the needs of children of different ages. Apply the standards in this code to all users, unless you have robust age-verification mechanisms to distinguish adults from children.
The commissioner is saying that the companies should make the sites adhere to the rules covering children, with a get out IF some new age verification system could be developed.
[+] [-] a1369209993|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DINKDINK|7 years ago|reply
Before alcohol prohibition in the United States, most alcohol consumption was low-proof/ABV drinks (such as beers). The introduction of prohibition attenuated some demand for alcohol but created a black market for those still wishing to consume. Black-market suppliers shifted alcohol production to higher ABV/proof alcohols to mitigate risks and increase profits. The results was increased consumption in spirits and other more damaging alcohols.
The same phenomenon occurred during the US's 1970s "War on Drugs" milder drugs such as cannabis were outlawed, suppliers shift to more profitable and potent drugs, consumer preferences change, more addictive and damaging drugs are consumed (e.g. Fentanyl).
Social-media moralizers "save the children" with prohibitions -> marginal demand is attenuated but persists -> satisfaction is attained through less preferable way to the individual.
Humans are risk averse given relative options. Given the choice they will opt for the least damaging vice satisfier. Denied that option, preference shifts up the risk ladder. I don't think social media is healthy or advisable without moderation but the "solutions" will cause more harm than if left alone.
A treatment that's beneficial on the individual level is all but guaranteed to be detrimental on the aggregate: "The country's average mass is overweight! Everyone is now mandated to skip one meal a day until we are at an acceptable weight" kills malnourished people
[+] [-] Nasrudith|7 years ago|reply
As for backfiring teens already prefer "not used by their parents" social media. I would expect moving on to less lawful platforms - at least when it comes to the UK.
[+] [-] ckuhl|7 years ago|reply
Social media is all about network effects - the more your friends are on social media, the more you want (/need) to be on it to keep up with them.
Putting up a barrier won't stop _everyone_ from accessing the sites, but I feel like it will easily stop _enough_ that the network effect deteriorates and so it's not worth circumventing anyways.
[+] [-] ared38|7 years ago|reply
You can't just point out that something will cause unintended consequences. You have to actually weight them against the benefits the policy provides. Obviously fewer potheads for more heroin addicts was a bade trade, but fewer cigarette smokers for a slightly larger black market has proven to be a great one. We haven't seen the nicotine equivalent of fentanyl your "risk ladder" model predicts.
> A treatment that's beneficial on the individual level is all but guaranteed to be detrimental on the aggregate: "The country's average mass is overweight! Everyone is now mandated to skip one meal a day until we are at an acceptable weight" kills malnourished people
This Ayn Rand fever dream ignores the fact that the government has tons of policies that are beneficial on the individual level: banning trans fats, mandating nutrition labels, and taxing sodas just to name a few.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470475/
[+] [-] throw2016|7 years ago|reply
Its more than weird that inspite of HN being a place where many of these individuals are there is little to no discussion on the actual forces and pressures at work driving these decisions, are there ethical dilemmas, difficult decisions? Because there is nearly nothing on this discussion wise or whistle blowers that would suggest this is something people working inside these companies are grappling with.
If this does not concern engineers its unlikely discussion on issues being raised by outsiders and regulatory bodies are going to lead to any kind of productive discussion beyond dilution and denial.
[+] [-] nickcw|7 years ago|reply
Probably not a popular opinion though, either with the users, or with the companies that run the social media platforms.
[+] [-] IanCal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randomacct3847|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] totierne2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickthemagicman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smhenderson|7 years ago|reply
My guess is they'll ask for a valid credit card before allowing users to access the interface for likes and such. Which, IMO anyway, means many less people will be liking things in the UK, not just under-18's. Then some clever kid will find a way to get around it and before you know it the only people liking anything will be kids under 18.
[+] [-] scohesc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huffmsa|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gibolt|7 years ago|reply
Tangent Rant - Mobile back button is completely non-functional.
[+] [-] doubleunplussed|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnClark1337|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hankhill|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tibyat|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] malvosenior|7 years ago|reply
Are there any publicly traded VPN providers?
[+] [-] ytNumbers|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JudgeWapner|7 years ago|reply
McAfee bought TunnelBear