Fighting the age-gated internet

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Parental Responsibility vs State Control

  • Many argue device and internet access are fundamentally parental responsibilities: adults pay the bills and should monitor kids’ devices rather than outsourcing this to the state or websites.
  • Others counter that kids get online via school Chromebooks, public Wi‑Fi, friends’ phones, etc., so “just parent better” isn’t enough, especially for overworked or less technical parents.
  • Several say the realistic goal is “make it harder to stumble onto the worst stuff,” not perfection; determined teens will always find workarounds.

How Big Is the Harm? Porn vs Social Media

  • Some downplay porn as a major social problem, noting pre‑internet generations had easy access to porn and gore without mass dysfunction.
  • Others worry about extreme porn shaping norms for kids who haven’t yet learned boundaries, and about P2P sharing and grooming regardless of site blocking.
  • Many think algorithmic social media is more damaging than porn (addiction, body image, radicalization), but note porn is an easier political target.
  • A recurring theme: the real missing piece is honest sex education vs cultural puritanism and taboo.

Technical and Policy Alternatives

  • Proposed non‑surveillance approaches include:
    • No/limited smartphones for younger kids; desktop‑only access with strong filtering.
    • Device‑level parental controls, OS‑level “child accounts,” DNS or proxy filtering (e.g., Squid SSL bump), MAC filtering.
    • An HTTP “rating”/RTA header that sites can set and browsers/OSes can honor, leaving ultimate control to parents.
  • Critics note these tools are weak, complex, or easily bypassed by motivated teens, but supporters argue they’re sufficient to protect younger children without mass ID systems.

Age-Gating as Surveillance and Censorship

  • Strong concern that “age verification” is really about ID‑tying and tracking, not kids’ safety:
    • Loss of anonymity, chilling of speech, creation of porn/interest databases ripe for leaks or abuse.
    • Risk that age‑gating infrastructure will be extended to political content, LGBTQ information, VPN bans, and broader censorship.
  • Some see coordinated global pushes (KOSA, OSA, EU/UK rules, US state laws) as regulatory capture and/or authoritarian drift; others say it’s mostly popular child‑protection politics plus tech backlash.

Nostalgia for the Early Internet and Fragmentation

  • Multiple commenters contrast BBS/early‑web freedom and pseudonymity with today’s real‑name, ad‑driven, surveilled platforms.
  • Some predict or welcome a split: a heavily ID‑gated “TV‑style” internet for most people, and parallel anonymous/peer‑to‑peer or overlay networks for those who insist on a free, open net.

Strategy: Fight or Shape “Reasonable” Solutions

  • One camp insists age‑gating must be opposed categorically as censorship and an existential threat to privacy.
  • Another argues total resistance will fail politically; instead, they advocate pushing for minimal, non‑tracking mechanisms (content headers, local controls) and explicit limits on surveillance and VPN restrictions.