I don’t think this one can be solved this way. Or at least not without pretty substantial trade-offs for freedom of speech and privacy.
The first thing to remember is that keeping kids off social media would require everyone to prove their age. It will not just affect those under 16. Everyone will have to prove they are not under 16.
The second thing to remember is that proving your age online would be a bit different from proving your age when you walk into a bar and order a drink. In the real world, the bartender eyes you up, having no reason to care who you are. The bartender can quickly triage people, like me, who cannot possibly be under 18, those who are obviously under 18, and those whose IDs need to be checked.
Only a fraction of attendees need to be checked at all.
If you are checked, you show the bartender your driver licence or other ID with your age on it. The bartender keeps no record and does not care who you are. Your ID doesn’t go into a database to help the bar do a better job in its marketing. It doesn’t go to the government to help them keep track of your drinking habits. The only thing that matters is that the bartender can tell the police or the licensing officer that the ID was checked, it looked real, and it showed the holder was over 18. That’s it.
If the bar says it wants to take a picture of your licence for its records, you can tell the bartender what you think about that and go somewhere else – if so inclined.
Online is very different.
Two proposed members’ bills seeking to impose age restrictions on social media use sit in Parliament’s biscuit tin.
One from National proposes following the approach of Australia, which is making designated social media platforms liable if they are insufficiently diligent about keeping under-16s off their sites. The fines are large. The legislation comes into effect in December.
Nobody yet knows which platforms are going to be subject to the legislation. There’s a suggestion that platforms will also be liable if they do not take steps to stop people from using Virtual Private Networks – VPNs. These enable people to make it look as if they are contacting a website from a country other than the one they’re actually in. They make it easy to get around country-specific bans. A lot of people use VPNs as a matter of course for better internet security. Some corporates require VPNs.
The legislation requires platforms to prevent youths from having accounts; they could still view content on those platforms without having an account. Adults wanting to have or maintain an account may have to prove they are not under the age limit and may be prohibited from using a VPN. There are some ways platforms can guess your age. But they are far from foolproof, and many adults will wind up having to provide ID.
I post online under my real name. Some people cannot – they use pseudonyms. There are plenty of very good reasons for using pseudonyms. On X, I follow a fair number of people who have real-life jobs in government or council. They can’t post under their real names because it could be seen as partisan. I learn a lot from them – they know what they’re talking about.
Others post under pseudonyms for more important reasons.
I moved here from Canada and sometimes post rude things about Canadian government policy – particularly about their years of deliberately violating the dairy access provisions of the trade agreement they signed with New Zealand. I am not worried that the Canadian government will retaliate against me or my family in Canada.
If I had moved here from China, I would be posting under a pseudonym while using a VPN. If the platform had my real identity, the Chinese government could hack it and exert pressure on family back home. The chilling effects will be real.
Being able to post under a pseudonym has value even if you don’t use one. In the mid-2010s, it was risky to post conservative views online; in parts of the US now, it’s risky to post left-wing views online. And in the UK, police seem to find it easier and safer to arrest harmless people for offensive online speech than to arrest dangerous people.
If the worst comes to the worst, and whatever views you have become politically risky, you can always set up a new account under a pseudonym. But if the platform knows who you are, the police can issue a production order. Then the government will know who you are. It is not going well in the UK currently. The threats are real.
We have no clue how this is all going to pan out in Australia. But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wants to follow them anyway, and quickly, despite this. It sounds good and is likely to attract votes from a cohort that National has difficulty attracting. Surely waiting a bit would have some value.
Labour also has a proposed bill in the biscuit tin. That one suggests following the UK’s example rather than Australia’s. It has the support of 34 Labour MPs.
The UK’s approach differs from Australia’s. Australia will levy penalties on internet companies if they let under-16s set up accounts. The UK’s levies penalties on online content providers if they do not do enough to prevent minors from seeing material that may be harmful.
There are an awful lot of awful things on the internet to be sure. But the consequence in the UK has been that even Wikipedia now requires Brits to upload their ID if they want to read some of its articles. As the UK legislation took effect, Brits downloaded VPNs to pretend to be in countries that did not have these restrictions. And now the UK is looking to ban VPNs.
Not all systems require showing your ID. Some verification methods try to guess your age from a selfie, or from a short video of yourself. It will be fun to see which New Zealand MPs who vote for these legislative atrocities wind up having their selfie granting access to dodgy porn sites hacked and released on the internet for all to enjoy.
There are terrible things online that children should not see. But the regimes proposed by National and Labour will have terrible consequences for adults’ freedom of speech and privacy. They set a path towards everyone expecting to have to provide ID to do things online. Important bulwarks for freedom will be lost.
I think every way of trying to keep kids off internet sites winds up suffering from at least one of three problems: it will be easily worked around by kids; it will be very cumbersome for adults; and it will be devastating for online anonymity and privacy. I expect a terrible mix of all three.
It has been suggested that the government’s coming ‘digital wallet’ with online ID could verify age without compromising privacy.
Let’s think about that for a minute. You log onto a new version of RealMe. It confirms that you are over the age limit to whichever other app you may have open, without telling that app who you are. That would provide privacy. But it would also mean a 17-year-old could log into RealMe on their 15-year-old friend’s phone, then let their friend use that to log into their social media account. It would be easily worked around.
Avoiding that would require frequent verification challenges, to make it harder for kids relying on a friend’s account. That would be very cumbersome for adults.
The last alternative? The platform would verify your actual identity without anonymity. Hard to work around, a one-time burden for adult users, and a nightmare for privacy.
Meanwhile, it is already possible for parents to limit their children’s access to social media apps – whether blocking them entirely, or setting time limits. Parents know their kids better than Parliament does.
I wish Parliament, and voters, would think a little bit harder about what they’re wishing for.
Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was sourced HERE
The second thing to remember is that proving your age online would be a bit different from proving your age when you walk into a bar and order a drink. In the real world, the bartender eyes you up, having no reason to care who you are. The bartender can quickly triage people, like me, who cannot possibly be under 18, those who are obviously under 18, and those whose IDs need to be checked.
Only a fraction of attendees need to be checked at all.
If you are checked, you show the bartender your driver licence or other ID with your age on it. The bartender keeps no record and does not care who you are. Your ID doesn’t go into a database to help the bar do a better job in its marketing. It doesn’t go to the government to help them keep track of your drinking habits. The only thing that matters is that the bartender can tell the police or the licensing officer that the ID was checked, it looked real, and it showed the holder was over 18. That’s it.
If the bar says it wants to take a picture of your licence for its records, you can tell the bartender what you think about that and go somewhere else – if so inclined.
Online is very different.
Two proposed members’ bills seeking to impose age restrictions on social media use sit in Parliament’s biscuit tin.
One from National proposes following the approach of Australia, which is making designated social media platforms liable if they are insufficiently diligent about keeping under-16s off their sites. The fines are large. The legislation comes into effect in December.
Nobody yet knows which platforms are going to be subject to the legislation. There’s a suggestion that platforms will also be liable if they do not take steps to stop people from using Virtual Private Networks – VPNs. These enable people to make it look as if they are contacting a website from a country other than the one they’re actually in. They make it easy to get around country-specific bans. A lot of people use VPNs as a matter of course for better internet security. Some corporates require VPNs.
The legislation requires platforms to prevent youths from having accounts; they could still view content on those platforms without having an account. Adults wanting to have or maintain an account may have to prove they are not under the age limit and may be prohibited from using a VPN. There are some ways platforms can guess your age. But they are far from foolproof, and many adults will wind up having to provide ID.
I post online under my real name. Some people cannot – they use pseudonyms. There are plenty of very good reasons for using pseudonyms. On X, I follow a fair number of people who have real-life jobs in government or council. They can’t post under their real names because it could be seen as partisan. I learn a lot from them – they know what they’re talking about.
Others post under pseudonyms for more important reasons.
I moved here from Canada and sometimes post rude things about Canadian government policy – particularly about their years of deliberately violating the dairy access provisions of the trade agreement they signed with New Zealand. I am not worried that the Canadian government will retaliate against me or my family in Canada.
If I had moved here from China, I would be posting under a pseudonym while using a VPN. If the platform had my real identity, the Chinese government could hack it and exert pressure on family back home. The chilling effects will be real.
Being able to post under a pseudonym has value even if you don’t use one. In the mid-2010s, it was risky to post conservative views online; in parts of the US now, it’s risky to post left-wing views online. And in the UK, police seem to find it easier and safer to arrest harmless people for offensive online speech than to arrest dangerous people.
If the worst comes to the worst, and whatever views you have become politically risky, you can always set up a new account under a pseudonym. But if the platform knows who you are, the police can issue a production order. Then the government will know who you are. It is not going well in the UK currently. The threats are real.
We have no clue how this is all going to pan out in Australia. But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wants to follow them anyway, and quickly, despite this. It sounds good and is likely to attract votes from a cohort that National has difficulty attracting. Surely waiting a bit would have some value.
Labour also has a proposed bill in the biscuit tin. That one suggests following the UK’s example rather than Australia’s. It has the support of 34 Labour MPs.
The UK’s approach differs from Australia’s. Australia will levy penalties on internet companies if they let under-16s set up accounts. The UK’s levies penalties on online content providers if they do not do enough to prevent minors from seeing material that may be harmful.
There are an awful lot of awful things on the internet to be sure. But the consequence in the UK has been that even Wikipedia now requires Brits to upload their ID if they want to read some of its articles. As the UK legislation took effect, Brits downloaded VPNs to pretend to be in countries that did not have these restrictions. And now the UK is looking to ban VPNs.
Not all systems require showing your ID. Some verification methods try to guess your age from a selfie, or from a short video of yourself. It will be fun to see which New Zealand MPs who vote for these legislative atrocities wind up having their selfie granting access to dodgy porn sites hacked and released on the internet for all to enjoy.
There are terrible things online that children should not see. But the regimes proposed by National and Labour will have terrible consequences for adults’ freedom of speech and privacy. They set a path towards everyone expecting to have to provide ID to do things online. Important bulwarks for freedom will be lost.
I think every way of trying to keep kids off internet sites winds up suffering from at least one of three problems: it will be easily worked around by kids; it will be very cumbersome for adults; and it will be devastating for online anonymity and privacy. I expect a terrible mix of all three.
It has been suggested that the government’s coming ‘digital wallet’ with online ID could verify age without compromising privacy.
Let’s think about that for a minute. You log onto a new version of RealMe. It confirms that you are over the age limit to whichever other app you may have open, without telling that app who you are. That would provide privacy. But it would also mean a 17-year-old could log into RealMe on their 15-year-old friend’s phone, then let their friend use that to log into their social media account. It would be easily worked around.
Avoiding that would require frequent verification challenges, to make it harder for kids relying on a friend’s account. That would be very cumbersome for adults.
The last alternative? The platform would verify your actual identity without anonymity. Hard to work around, a one-time burden for adult users, and a nightmare for privacy.
Meanwhile, it is already possible for parents to limit their children’s access to social media apps – whether blocking them entirely, or setting time limits. Parents know their kids better than Parliament does.
I wish Parliament, and voters, would think a little bit harder about what they’re wishing for.
Dr Eric Crampton is Chief Economist at the New Zealand Initiative. This article was sourced HERE
6 comments:
You’re all forgetting that these tech companies know everything about you within about 1-2 hrs of usage….your sex, likes, dislikes, political leanings, shopping habits, physical location…..and of course they have a rough idea (within months) of how old you are.
Introducing digital id’s to solve this problem is the govts way of saying we’d like to introduce digital surveillance….but we need an excuse the public will go along with.
They could easily make it illegal for tech companies to serve content made by kids, containing kids, or appealing to kids - that contains certain content….or block the platform.
The question is why are they so scared to regulate or block platforms that generate zero revenue in local income and taxes, while creating enormous social and mental harm amongst users?
Is it because it’s too hard? The tech companies all say it’s too hard, but it isn’t - they serve anorexia content to young girls, they are designed to drive addiction across users…remove these elements or get banned. It might even drive local tech development as we try to find replacements
You would almost think a child's internet access would be the responsibility of the parents. Silly me.
What’s the problem? Age verification from a selfie to the internet, tagged for bio-markers and stored indefinitely in the vault of the cloud. Digital ID and drivers licence tied to cellphone app that accesses contacts and health information that you gave permission to upload periodically to the app creators. Digital currency that tracks and monitors everything you buy in real time. Tracking for RUCs in your car so your whereabouts are known always.
Absolutely INSANE that these are all in the pipeline right now, not even being imagined but actively being worked on. These things are more egregious than anything else the west is facing right now; I wish more people cared about their privacy.
If you thought house arrest under Jabcinda’s regime was over the top, just watch what National has for you in your near future. It’s all part of the plan Billy, all part of the plan.
@cxh you’re absolutely right about internet access requiring proper parental oversight- but what do you do when the kid is at school and the teachers all rely on the kids using laptops and free time on laptops and they have internet access! Just like that parental oversight is out the window!
On top of that it’s dam difficult to police kids around device usage - our kids aren’t allowed to access the internet at home and they know it - they’re not even allowed you tube on the telly ….and then just like that my 7yr old picked up my phone in front of me and pulled up videos on a hair design she wanted.
At her age I had free access to a telephone and I could ring any friend or family member I wanted at any time - at no stage did I feel disconnected from the world around me - my kids can’t do that though - they need my permission to access what should be a basic communication device - because that device has the potential to do so much harm!
So what do we do?
We teach them to use these comms tools and do our best to police their usage and try to teach them responsible usage….and keep our fingers crossed.
Meanwhile the tech companies profiting from all this harm could help us all out a bit and stop practices that drill directly into the addictive parts of the brain and stop delivering harmful content (to everyone), and exercise some of the power they have to stop sending harmful content to kids - and remove the stupid like buttons while they’re at it.
The solution is to ban anti-social media platforms like facebook, instagram and X altogether. They don’t benefit society, adults or children.
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