Techdirt Podcast Episode 415: The Problems With Age Verification
from the segregate-and-suppress dept
It’s hard to create a law about children online without first identifying who the children are. We’ve written a lot about the problems that arise with mandated age verification, and a new paper by Eric Goldman, The “Segregate-and-Suppress” Approach to Regulating Child Safety Online, digs into why the entire popular approach to such laws is paradoxical and broken. This week, Eric joins us on the podcast for a discussion about why regulators should develop a wider and more thoughtful toolkit of online child safety measures.
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Filed Under: age verification, child safety, eric goldman, podcast


Comments on “Techdirt Podcast Episode 415: The Problems With Age Verification”
Oh it has plenty problems, but good luck stopping countries from brute-force implementing them and ripping the internet (and privacy) to pieces along with it.
I wish the paper had more actionable details on what those might look like. Digital Literacy and Citizenship Education for Children., Train Parents to Become Better Teachers.,Fund More Research is kind of just what people have been saying since the 90’s, with limited success.
Re:
Well if no one wants to do the things, it doesn’t follow that these are not good, or even possibly the best, things.
I have to respectfully disagree
It is easy to create and pass a “protect the children” law that does not work, because of the technological incompetence of the general lawmaker. Saying “Nerd harder” does not make any law more effective.
It is hard to make a law that really protects the children (on the internet or against abusive parents.) Privacy and age verification don’t easily mix, and privacy is an important measure to protect people, including children.