Very cool video on the topic
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The problem is that the government is trying to do the job that parents are supposed to do
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So what is gonna happen when many teens use tools and tricks to bypass discordās verification? Is there going to be a retaliation like forced id check with picture of your ID or something? Which can also be bypassed Iām sure or at least kids can always use the ID of someone elseā¦ I talked to some people my age (25) and they will comply fully with the check, no questions asked. Perhaps tech-savvy kids will be safer but not good citizens that respect law and obligations. Thatās what I fear.
Mandatory state-run electronic identification look at Denmarkās MitID, Switzerlandās SwissID, UKās digital ID etc just everywhere.
In April this year, Discord started to test age verification systems using facial or ID scans, as a way to comply with Australiaās and UKās new laws.
[. . .] but donāt be surprised if it soon gets implemented at the account level for users everywhere.
@em totally called it.
The last thing I want to be is Mr Dystopian, but combining the increasing adoption of ID/age verification for mundane things with the recent events surrounding ICE and their subpoenas[1], I fear that the future is looking very dark and despotic. If age verification is inevitable, which it is looking to be, then the next best thing is to ensure that it is private wherever it is implemented. So I agree that this is a positive, if anything.
However, take a look at this paragraph from Emās article (linked above):
Conducting verification āon-deviceā offers only few additional protections considering this information still has to be checked and reported with an external service, somehow.
Moreover, processes used to keep this data āon-deviceā are often opaque. Taking into account how valuable this information is, it becomes very difficult to trust any for-profit third-party services which such a sensitive task.
There needs to be additional protections to ensure privacy. Not just at a legal level, but at a technical level. The on-device processing also only refers to facial scans. The other method for verification, which is more invasive to privacy, is the use of official identity documents. Discord claims this method is āprivacy-forwardā in the following ways:
Quick deletion: Identity documents submitted to our vendor partners are deleted quicklyā in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.
IDs are used to get your age only and then deleted.
Discord only receives your age ā thatās it. Your identity is never associated with your account.
Our vendors perform these verifications in a way to minimize the data collected and stored. [. . .] IDs are processed to get your age only and then deleted.
The privacy advocateās goal is to keep Discord accounts and legal identities decoupled, so this is good if we take it at face value. But itās unclear to me how they guarantee this. Is this more like a privacy policy? or is it impossible on a technical level?
Which vendors are they using? They claim that they and their vendors quickly delete any submitted identity documents, but they also āminimizeā stored data. What other data do they store? and is this stored data able to backtrack the submitted identity documents (effectively mitigating privacy protections)?
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After thinking about this a bit, my prediction is that Apple will step in with a solution. Iāve already added my US passport info to the iOS wallet app for domestic flight use. My guess is they will come up with a way to use it to prove adult status to third parties in a blind way where they donāt see your name. Just a confirmation that youāre an adult.
Theyāve already got one, although I havenāt seen anywhere I can use it yet:
This is at the core of the issue
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Can a parent be on the school bus when your kid who doesnāt have a phone is exposed to god-knows-what by another kid who dos have one? Itās far too easy to dismiss this as a parenting issue. Especially when many people saying that donāt have kids.
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Thatās how the world has always worked. Thereās a difference between looking over someones shoulder and seeing a pair of titties and having complete access to the degeneracy of the internet 24/7
mods if this breaks the rules just remove it and tell me lol
Iām so sad there is not tats fruit emoji available right now. 
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I donāt blame the parents.
I would say the think what we need are free software based parental control solutions, instead of government intervention by means of trying forcing ID checks on everything.
If the government wants to help, they should fund such tools instead of making new laws.
Everything is already available at the router level. And itās not complicated. Itās just scary for non tech-users.
Most countries are teaching kids how to do math the conventional way, before showing how a calculator works.
Weāre missing that for tech.
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this one.
The amount of stuff I studied at school like:
- how some countries were at war for no real useful purpose
- how is the geo-political situation of a country at the opposite of the globe
- the subjective opinions on an old man regarding peopleās life choices
- how to ask for a bill at a restaurant in spanish
- etc, etc, etc
Thatās cool, I guess.
Oh but I learned how a DNS works and what a WiFi SSID is by myself. And everything else that I do use on a daily basis while interact with any device with a slice of RAM in it.
Sad that we indeed do not teach that where I grew up[1].
Yet everybody needs to use different UIs, security protocols and various tools every single day.
Priorities are not the same for everybody but could be nice if people would have had that taught to them, for sure. 
I mean they do at Uni, if you ever go there
ā©ļø
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If a device has a SIM card, it can circumvent any router level restriction for itself and any device it can grant hotspot/tethering to.
The solution would be to have a tamper proof module embeded into the operating system, where parental control apps can build own.
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The school system wastes so many time my teaching low utility knowledge
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I never witnessed that people show each other porn on the bus, and even if it happens one time, what do you think would hapen?
@Throwaway makes a valid point. Parenting alone is not enough. Even the best parents will come short, because thereās no such thing as a perfect parent. No parent knows everything. No parents can teach their kids everything. Other institutions like school and the right government policies matter. They have a role to play.
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I want to add to this that I would like to know what you expect the government to do?
I think playing porn in public would be public disturbance and be illegal anyway
I think itās a similar societal problem as the war on drugs.
The government can ācrack downā on these things and tighten laws around access, but if thereās a deep desire for drugs/porn then people will find a way regardless.
I think the only viable government solution is to invest in areas that cause or study this desire in the first place. People donāt do meth because itās cool. They do it because it fills an emotional void. I donāt think porn is much different, but obviously not as immediately destructive as meth.
This is also very broad and vague, but I think itās a better direction than banning VPNs and forcing ID verification. I do see the merit in some prohibition laws to destructive substances (e.g., ID to buy liquor), but itās a fine line between consumer safety and consumer freedom (US alcohol prohibition).