At the device level is a much better place to put it. It’s a place that could actually work, and it’s a place where it’s much easier to do it in a privacy-preserving way.
The best solution would be to use parental controls. A lot of operating systems already have something along those lines, but they’ve tended to not be very good. If the law instead required that OSes supported parental controls where the parent can set the child’s age, and then apps and websites have to respect that, via an operating system API (with websites accessing a browser API, with the browser calling the OS’s API), that would remove any privacy concerns, because the only “verification” is the parent.
Or there’s this option, which preserves privacy along with a more robust age verification. Somebody (preferably the government, rather than a private company) has to do official age verification, once, and that would then get stored by your device and could be reused in a way that can’t be traced on different sites. The age verifier can’t see which sites you use your verification on. The sites can’t learn anything about you other than “yes, this person is old enough”.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 1 week ago
That’s actually much better than what they’re currently doing. If all you had to do was verify with your phone that you are >16 it would mean that each social media app and then every other site that the government demands do age verification doesn’t need to verify you. It means you only verify once, on your device.
Unfortunately that’s why they’ll never do it - the government wants to ram through a universal digital ID, and this is how they do it.
Enoril@jlai.lu 1 week ago
No fucking way. This is not a valid solution.
Don’t you learn from history?
You have other way than locking and taking the control of everybody computer (as smartphone are today).
Look how the corporation are trying to reduce our liberty by removing us the choice of choosing our marketplace, locking our applications, removing our capacity to say no to IA, actively scanning our photos, videos, making link between our contacts, our needs, our interests.
This is already to much power too give to external people.
And you want to give even more? The total control of what can be used on it?
Are you that blind?
For this problem, only one solution: parenting!
Stop deporting local issue to worlwide consequences.
Discussing with the kids about the risks and why they should be wary of these social networks for their future is the only way.
These platforms are no different than drugs and alcohol. You can deal with it with good parenting.
And definitely by not screwing everybody else with more control. It’s just an excuse anyway. And it’s far far far worse that having gouvernement ID card.
We all have one here, than doesn’t block us to manifest.
Matty_r@programming.dev 1 week ago
Absolutely not, nothing good can come of this. All youre doing is giving more power to Apple/Google to control everything youre allowed to do on your device. You now have to have an approved phone, with their approved Operating System, apps installed via their approved app store, an approved browser… Etc etc.
That digital ID stuff is horrible as well, they already tested it during covid with the checkins nonsense.
minorkeys@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Better for what? So they can indoctrinate kids into normalizing absolute government overreach and a further slide into a technofascist state?