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<title>Techdirt. Stories filed under &quot;age&quot;</title>
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<image><title>Techdirt. Stories filed under &quot;age&quot;</title><url>http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gif</url><link>http://www.techdirt.com/</link></image>
<item>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:57:24 PDT</pubDate>
<title>Sorry,  Having IMDB Accurately List Your Age Doesn't Entitle You To A Million Dollars</title>
<dc:creator>Tim Cushing</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ <p>
Junie Hoang has lost her lawsuit against IMDb. She <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml" target="_blank">sued the online database</a> for "breach of contract" after it replaced her fake birthdate (1978) with her real one (1971). The case had a few twists and turns, most of them "wrong ways" and "dead ends."
<br /><br />
Claiming the posting of her real birthdate to be an invasion of privacy, Hoang first pursued this suit anonymously for fear of being tossed aside by Hollywood's ageist tendencies. Unfortunately for Hoang, Judge Marsha J. Peschman told her she'd have to <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml" target="_blank">reveal her name</a> to proceed with the lawsuit, finding Hoang's worries of industry blacklisting not sufficient enough to justify continued anonymity.
<br /><br />
Now, while Hoang claimed revealing her birthdate was an invasion of privacy, she sued IMDb for breach of contract. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2307453/Junie-Hoang-B-movie-actress-41-FAILS-bid-sue-IMDb-revealing-real-age.html" target="_blank">Here's how this all went down</a>.
<blockquote>
<i>Hoang signed up for a subscription service with the website called IMDb Pro... </i><i>She said she initially listed a false birth year - 1978, instead of 1971 - because she usually plays characters younger than she is.</i>
<br /><br />
<i>But eventually, she moved from her hometown of Houston, Texas, to the more competitive entertainment market of Los Angeles, and as what would have been her fake 30th birthday approached, she decided she didn't want any age listed on her profile.</i>
<br /><br />
<i>IMDb refused to remove the age listed unless she could provide evidence that it was incorrect. She asked the company to check its records to see if it had any information that would substantiate that age.</i>
<br /><br />
<i>The company did so - using her account information to find her real name, and then using her real name to conduct a public records search and discover her true age. IMDb posted her real age on her profile, over her objections.</i></blockquote>
In essence, Hoang sued IMDb for doing <i>exactly what she asked it to do</i> -- verify her age. She claimed this investigative work violated IMDb's privacy policy. IMDb disagreed with this assessment (along with pretty much every other claim), stating the privacy policy is in place to protect actors' contact info -- not their date of birth, and that listing the date of birth was its First Amendment right.
<br /><br />
Hoang was seeking $1 million in damages for harm done to her career by having her real age outed. The jury was not convinced by Hoang's less-than-stellar case, <a href="http://www.geekwire.com/2013/jury-sides-amazons-imdb-age-case/" target="_blank">as IMDb noted in its post-trial filing</a>.
<blockquote>
<i>&ldquo;Hoang did not present any testimony, documents, or other evidence supporting her damages allegations of lost income and profits. Neither Hoang nor her agent Joe Kolkowitz&mdash;her only two witnesses on damages&mdash;offered any testimony about future damages, and neither offered competent testimony on which a reasonable jury could base an award of damages for acting jobs allegedly lost to date.&rdquo;</i></blockquote>
Perhaps her career to date made it difficult to prove a tremendous upside was being destroyed by IMDb's callous recordkeeping. As was <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120107/01461317324/actress-who-wished-to-remain-anonymous-under-40-is-now-officially-neither.shtml" target="_blank">noted earlier</a> here at Techdirt, she has made an appearance in Penn &#038; Teller's <i>Bullshit!</i> This is in addition to roles in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1293561/" target="_blank"><i>Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver</i></a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1261419/" target="_blank"><i>Hoodrats 2: Hoodrat Warriors</i></a>.
<br /><br />
Of course, it isn't over until the last appeal has been exhausted and Hoang announced (pretty much as soon as the verdict was read) <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/12/actress-vows-to-renew-suit-against-imdb-com-for-posting-her-real-age/" target="_blank">she will be appealing the decision</a>. She still believes it's unfair that IMDb lists birth dates for actors and actresses and makes it harder for those of a certain age to land roles. She points out that it's illegal for employers to ask interviewees how old they are, but IMDb's listings save those in casting the trouble of skirting the law.
<br /><br />
Whether or not another court will find this argument worth $1 million remains to be seen, especially considering Hoang's career arc to this point. She and her agent didn't seem to be too persuasive the first time around and unless they've got something more compelling than "Hollywood is ageist," this appeal will likely fail.
<br /><br />
</p><br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130414/18230022702/sorry-having-imdb-accurately-list-your-age-doesnt-entitle-you-to-million-dollars.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>be-careful-what-you-ask-for...</slash:department>
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<pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:51:22 PST</pubDate>
<title>Facebook Apparently Doesn't Believe Anyone Over 100 Could Use The Service, 104 Year Old Has To Lie</title>
<dc:creator>Mike Masnick</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130220/11211422040/facebook-apparently-doesnt-believe-anyone-over-100-could-use-service-108-year-old-has-to-lie.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130220/11211422040/facebook-apparently-doesnt-believe-anyone-over-100-could-use-service-108-year-old-has-to-lie.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ There are plenty of stories about children under the age of 13 having to lie (often with the assistance of their parents) to get on Facebook.  This is due to the ridiculous <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121220/08112321450/ftcs-overzealous-attempts-to-protect-children-may-do-serious-harm-to-internet.shtml">COPPA</a> law that the FTC supports strongly, despite it doing close to nothing to actually "protect children."  But what's the excuse for people lying at the other end of the scale?  A 104 years old woman is <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Woman-104-forced-to-lie-about-age-on-Facebook-4293735.php?cmpid=twitter" target="_blank">forced to be perpetually 99 years old</a> because Facebook apparently refuses ages higher than that.  It makes you wonder if they just never thought someone with three digits in their age would use the service and only set up the database to handle two digits.  Oddly, rather than defaulting down to 99 years old when Marguerite Joseph tried to enter her birth year of 1908, the system automatically took 20 years off her life and said she was born in 1928.  Either way, just as parents are helping children lie about their age at the youth end of the spectrum, in this case, it's Marguerite's granddaughter who's the accomplice here, since Marguerite is legally blind, but still likes to keep in touch with people via Facebook.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130220/11211422040/facebook-apparently-doesnt-believe-anyone-over-100-could-use-service-108-year-old-has-to-lie.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130220/11211422040/facebook-apparently-doesnt-believe-anyone-over-100-could-use-service-108-year-old-has-to-lie.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130220/11211422040/facebook-apparently-doesnt-believe-anyone-over-100-could-use-service-108-year-old-has-to-lie.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>for-the-encouragement-of-lying</slash:department>
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<pubDate>Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:16:51 PST</pubDate>
<title>Actress Who Wished To Remain Anonymous And Under 40 Is Now Officially Neither</title>
<dc:creator>Tim Cushing</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120107/01461317324/actress-who-wished-to-remain-anonymous-under-40-is-now-officially-neither.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120107/01461317324/actress-who-wished-to-remain-anonymous-under-40-is-now-officially-neither.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/profile.php?u=jdoe668">That Anonymous Coward</a> sends in the news that <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/actress-suing-imdb-reveals-name-279213" target="_blank">the anonymous actress who sued IMDB for revealing her age is now, officially, no longer anonymous</a>. Late last month, the actress was told that she would have to <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml" target="_blank">reveal her name</a> in order to pursue her case against IMDB, and it appears that being anonymous and of an indeterminate age is less appealing than being 40 and Google-able, but with the possibility of a large payout in your future.
<blockquote>
<i>Huong Hoang is the actress who sued claiming the Internet search database had violated her right of privacy and opened her up to rampant age discrimination in Hollywood by telling everyone she's 40 years old. She says in an amended complaint filed today in Washington that she typically goes by her Americanized stage name, Junie Hoang, because her Asian name is difficult to pronounce and has led to discrimination in Hollywood. </i>
</blockquote>
Junie Hoang has amended her complaint and is proceeding with her lawsuit, holding IMDB and Amazon responsible for the damage done to her career by revealing her age, allegedly by pulling the information from her credit card. Of course, all the information she wished to keep hidden is now public knowledge, but on the Pyrrhic-esque bright side, this situation may allow her to increase the potential damages claimed. After all, everybody knows now, including the people who only thought they knew and the people who knew it wasn't Lucy Liu but secretly hoped it was. (That might just be me.)
<br /><br />
But you know who knew before anyone else? An unregistered Techdirt reader <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml#c528" target="_blank">commenting under the name "Paul."</a> That Anonymous Coward also pointed out in his submission that Paul (real name unknown) nailed it, with a short, Holmesian blast of logic:
<blockquote>
<i><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0387470/resume" target="_blank">Junie Hoang</a> seems more likely as her resume lists her as 26-33 and her <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0387470/bio" target="_blank">bio</a> lists her year of birth as 1971.</i> 
</blockquote>
So, pre-SOPA internet kudos to both Paul for his prescience, and TAC for remembering everything that has happened on Techdirt ever. Now, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you Junie Hoang, appearing as herself on Penn &amp; Teller's Bullshit!. Starting at 8:09, Hoang appears onscreen in a bathing suit and shortly thereafter, has a toilet plunger applied to her. The clip would be totally Safe For Work, if only Penn Jillette didn't swear like a ponytailed sailor.<p></p><div align="center">&nbsp;<object width="480" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lhhOFdpWTgg?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lhhOFdpWTgg?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&start=489&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div><br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120107/01461317324/actress-who-wished-to-remain-anonymous-under-40-is-now-officially-neither.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120107/01461317324/actress-who-wished-to-remain-anonymous-under-40-is-now-officially-neither.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120107/01461317324/actress-who-wished-to-remain-anonymous-under-40-is-now-officially-neither.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>it's-tough-to-remain-anonymous-while-blowing-things-out-of-proportion</slash:department>
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<pubDate>Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:15:00 PST</pubDate>
<title>Anonymous Actress Who Sued IMDB For Revealing Her Age Ordered To Reveal Her Name</title>
<dc:creator>Tim Cushing</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ A few months back, an anonymous actress <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml" target="_blank">sued IMDB</a> (or rather, Amazon, IMDB's owner) for revealing her age, kicking off several rounds of WTF and some rather more serious discussions about "ageism" in Hollywood. The unnamed plaintiff's case hinged upon the assertion that "because lesser-known forty-year-old actresses are not in demand in the entertainment business, Plaintiff has suffered a substantial decrease in acting credits, employment opportunities and earnings since Defendants' addition of Plaintiff&rsquo;s legal date of birth to the Internet Movie Database."
<br /><br />
Whether or not this statement is true is still being debated, but the lawsuit went further, stating basically that the actress in question looked so much younger than her actual age that she couldn't even land roles that asked specifically for 40-year-old women. This presumably was also hotly debated and (more likely) swiftly derided.
<br /><br />
Unfortunately for Ms. Whomever, <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/judge-actress-must-lose-anonymity-imdb-age-reveal-case-33915?page=0%2C0" target="_blank">the presiding judge has ordered her to reveal her name in order to proceed with the lawsuit</a>.
<blockquote><i>
U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman granted an order to dismiss the plaintiff's case on Friday, pursuant to a rule that requires a complaint to name all parties. Pechman gave the woman 14 days as of Friday to include her real name in the complaint.
<br /><br />
</i><i> "[W]hile Plaintiff may face public ridicule and embarrassment if she elects to go forward under her real name, the injury she fears is not severe enough to justify permitting her to proceed anonymously," Pechman noted in her order.
</i></blockquote>
This is the sort of thing that happens when you try to bury "unsavory" facts: you set yourself up for a full-frontal Streisand. In order for her to collect from Amazon for "breach of contract, fraud, and violations of Washington State's privacy and consumer protection acts," she'll have to give away the only remaining bit of information everyone needs to put 2 and 2 together and come up with "over 40." This leaves her with two choices, neither of which could really be considered satisfactory: drop the lawsuit and retain her anonymity or proceed with the lawsuit as "Actress Over 40 Who is Unable to Land Roles, Thanks to Both 'Ageism' and 'Reverse Ageism.'"
<br /><br />
Judge Pechman realizes the unpleasantness of these choices, but points out that the "unpleasantness" the actress faces from revealing her name is an order of magnitude below the potential "unpleasantness" faced in previous anonymously-filed suits that were allowed to proceed. Pechman quotes from an earlier case that the actress' lawsuit borrows some case language from and compares the two:
<blockquote><i>
The Plaintiff in the present case borrows this language and asserts that disclosing her identity will subject her to "industry blacklisting and loss of livelihood." (Dkt. No. 25 at 7.)
<br /><br />
However, while revealing Plaintiff's identity may negatively affect her prospects of being hired as an actress, the harm she faces is of an order of magnitude less than the potential harm faced by the foreign garment workers in Advanced Textile Corp. In this case, Plaintiff is not working on a small island where her immigration status is directly tied to her employment. 214 F.3d at 1062. She is not facing eviction from company-owned housing. 214 F.3d at 1062. She faces no risk of deportation or retaliation directed at her family. 214 F.3d at 1062-63. Instead, Plaintiff argues she faces "new-age harms" such as "cyber bullying." (Dkt. No. 25 at 7.) While the economic harms she alleges may be real, Plaintiff present no evidence that the retaliation she may encounter is at all similar to the truly grave harms plaintiffs feared in Advanced Textile Corp.
</i></blockquote>
Other precedent is cited as well, basically stating that any amount of "discrimination" or "retaliation" as a result of this lawsuit is not severe enough to allow her to proceed anonymously. 
<br /><br />
The sad thing is that most of the damage being done to her future career options is self-inflicted. If this actress thought her ability to land roles was diminished by IMDB's posting of her real age, it's going to be nothing compared to the fallout of this lawsuit, if she decides to proceed under her real name. Her own complaint makes it clear that there's little demand for actresses her age, <i>despite</i> the fact that she looks much "younger." This leaves potential casting directors in an unenviable position: do you cast her in "age-appropriate" roles, knowing that you'll be subjecting yourself to long conversations with the actress and her agent about how she looks "too young" to play the offered part? Or do you take her youthful claims at face value and cast her in younger roles, hoping that the end result doesn't resemble an episode of <i>Beverly Hills 90210</i>?
<br /><br />
Good luck with that.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111227/15545517209/anonymous-actress-who-sued-imdb-revealing-her-age-ordered-to-reveal-her-name.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>dig-your-own-hole</slash:department>
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<pubDate>Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:03:00 PDT</pubDate>
<title>Actress Sues Amazon Because Her Age Appeared On Her IMDB Profile</title>
<dc:creator>Mike Masnick</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Eric Goldman <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/ericgoldman/statuses/125581607208894464" target="_blank">pointed us</a> to a bizarre <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/69002400/Doe-v-Amazon-Complaint" target="_blank">legal complaint against Amazon.com</a> by an anonymous actress.  Her complaint?  That Amazon's IMDB movie info site put her real age on her profile page.  She claims that she never gave Amazon that info directly, but that it pulled the info from her credit card file, which she used to sign up for a "pro" IMDB account.
<blockquote><i>
In Plaintiff&rsquo;s case, Defendants were able to and did access Plaintiff&rsquo;s personal and credit card information by intercepting and recording her confidential electronic communications without or beyond her consent, further using that information to cross-reference public records and other sources to obtain, among other things, Plaintiff&rsquo;s legal name, age, date of birth, and other personal, confidential information, and making some of that unlawfully-obtained confidential information available to the public at www.imdb.com and other affiliated and unaffiliated websites.
<br /><br />
By this practice, Defendants committed fraud, breached the terms of the Subscriber Agreement and Privacy Policy entered into with Plaintiff, and violated Plaintiff&rsquo;s statutory privacy and consumer protection rights as described herein. Plaintiff brings this action seeking declaratory, injunctive and monetary relief to redress Defendants&rsquo; unlawful conduct.
</i></blockquote>
All of this... because she didn't want her age identified on her IMDB page.  The details behind all of this is that the actress is apparently Asian American, but does not use her real name for acting.  Instead, she uses an Americanized name, and claims that she has been meticulous in not connecting the two identities at all.  Thus, she claims that no one could possibly know the real age of the actress' stage name, unless they could connect her real name to the stage name.  She claims that in signing up for IMDBPro, she supplied her credit card, with her real name, which Amazon then used to identify who she was and to figure out her actual date of birth.  The woman insists that she appears much younger, and that she's suffered greatly from having her age revealed:
<blockquote><i>
First, because lesser-known forty-year-old actresses are not in demand in the entertainment business, Plaintiff has suffered a substantial decrease in acting credits, employment opportunities and earnings since Defendants&rsquo; addition of Plaintiff&rsquo;s legal date of birth to the Internet Movie Database. Second, because Plaintiff looks so much younger than her actual age indicates, Plaintiff has experienced rejection in the industry for each &ldquo;forty-year-old&rdquo; role for which she has interviewed because she does not and cannot physically portray the role of a forty-year old woman.
</i></blockquote>
So what's the actual legal issue?  She's claiming breach of contract, fraud, and violations of Washington State's privacy and consumer protection acts.  The details suggest that it's not <i>quite</i> as crazy as it seemed at first... but still pretty crazy.  First off, it's not entirely clear that Amazon actually did what she claims (used her credit card info to establish her age).  It's entirely possible that the info on IMDB came from other sources.  Second, even if it's <i>upsetting</i> to her, it's not at all clear that one's age is the kind of info that could ever be deemed "private" or personally identifiable info that is subject to privacy rules.  The case seems to hinge on whether or not there's any real expectation of privacy in one's age.  I just can't see a court buying that argument.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/04154916411/actress-sues-amazon-because-her-age-appeared-her-imdb-profile.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>it's-fraud-to-report-the-truth</slash:department>
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<pubDate>Tue, 17 May 2011 08:32:00 PDT</pubDate>
<title>Should Young People Have Their Votes Count More?</title>
<dc:creator>Mike Masnick</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110516/03545614281/should-young-people-have-their-votes-count-more.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110516/03545614281/should-young-people-have-their-votes-count-more.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/glynmoody/status/70043483112620032" target="_blank">Glyn Moody</a> points us to an article by Paul Sterne, that feels like it might be a Swiftian-style satire, but could just as likely be serious, suggesting that we get rid of "one man, one vote" and switch to <a href="http://www.groundreport.com/Politics/End-One-Man-One-Vote-Shift-to-Age-Weighted-Voting/2939003" target="_blank">age-weighted voting</a>.  At first I thought he meant giving older people more weight, but it's actually the opposite:
<blockquote><i>
Instead, America should implement weighted voting to make voting more objective and fair, and give the young more power, because the consequences of political decisions will affect them the longest. Weighted voting would restore power to twenty and thirty year olds, where it resided before the advent of medical science. With the aid of computers, it would be easy to give everyone a Voting Score, just like we all have a credit score.
</i></blockquote>
He then goes through and suggests a way to calculate this voting score, which would take into effect the level of political understanding, voter participation rates and the amount of time that people would have to "live with the consequences" (i.e., longer if you're younger).  He weights the whole thing out and comes out with the following weights:
<center>
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/QIJXY.jpg" />
<br><br>
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/Tu8f1.jpg" />
</center>
Yes, this would mean that 30-year-olds would have incredibly powerful votes.  I would imagine that might distort the system itself.  Since part of it is based on historical voting rates for each age group, if you give one age group a much higher voting power based on historical voting rates, you're not taking into account that the increased power of their vote will likely bring out much greater numbers of voters.  People who complain that their one vote doesn't count for much, might feel differently if their vote actually counts 7 times.
<br><br>
Also, as he notes, this system means at the age of 80 you lose your right to vote (and, if you are older than that, your vote somehow counts <i>against</i> you?).  Pushing me towards believing this is pure satire is the statement, "But then again haven't these folks beaten the odds and outlived all their friends and they shouldn't be voting anyway."  However, is there perhaps some value in the larger concept?  There definitely are some issues that are generational, in which younger people know that, as they get older, public sentiment is likely to finally shift over (civil rights being a big one), and I wonder if a voting system like this might speed up some changes that could be good.  At the same time, it seems like there could be some pretty serious negative consequences for older folks.  While they may be out of touch on some issues, does that really mean we should deny them the right to vote?  Doesn't seem worth it.
<br><br>
Still, in a world where many people consider one man/one vote sacred, are there better ways to handle things?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110516/03545614281/should-young-people-have-their-votes-count-more.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110516/03545614281/should-young-people-have-their-votes-count-more.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110516/03545614281/should-young-people-have-their-votes-count-more.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>crazy-ideas-that-might-not-be-crazy?</slash:department>
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<pubDate>Tue, 6 Nov 2007 01:34:00 PST</pubDate>
<title>Facial Recognition Software To Tell People They Look Too Young To Smoke</title>
<dc:creator>Mike Masnick</dc:creator>
<link>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071104/182552.shtml</link>
<guid>http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071104/182552.shtml</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ In the aftermath of 9/11, facial recognition software was a hot topic for a while.  The idea was that it could be used to help catch criminals and terrorists as they wandered through cities or airports.  There was just one little problem: <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030902/1022224.shtml">it didn't work</a>.  And, by didn't work, I don't mean it sorta worked some of the time.  I mean, it didn't work at all.  The places that tested it out soon ditched it as a total waste of time and money.  It turns out that making an exact match on faces is not an easy problem, and while the technology may eventually reach that point, it's nowhere near close enough to be useful for things like finding terrorists.  That doesn't mean it can't be used in other scenarios, and over in Japan it appears that they're about to put facial recognition to the test <a href="http://www.textually.org/picturephoning/archives/2007/11/017843.htm">as a way of stopping kids from smoking</a>.  Yes, one company has integrated facial recognition software with cigarette vending machines, so that it will not sell you your pack of smokes if you happen to have a babyface.  You can wonder how effective this might be (my guess: not very effective), but it's still interesting to see those behind facial recognition software looking for different markets where the results don't need to be as perfect.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071104/182552.shtml">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071104/182552.shtml#comments">Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071104/182552.shtml?op=sharethis">Email This Story</a><br />
 ]]></description>
<slash:department>prepare-to-show-id-if-you-look-under-30</slash:department>
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