- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/55094518
“The UK government wants technology companies to block explicit images on phones and computers by default to protect children, with adults having to verify their age to create and access such content,” the FT report said. “Ministers want the likes of Apple and Google to incorporate nudity-detection algorithms into their device operating systems to prevent users taking photos or sharing images of genitalia unless they are verified as adults.”



OMG. These plans are getting on my nerves.
When a parent gives a kid their device and sets the child’s birthday, then enable these. If the birthday is over 18, the let them do what they want.
Let parents parent the kid and get the government out of my life.
Or just don’t fucking age gate shit.
Seriously who the fuck cares if a kid sees a titty?
Especially with titties, you think your five year old can’t deduce that those bumps on women’s chest have a nipple on it just like theres. Even if they can’t I doubt that revelation will be traumatic or earth shattering.
BLOCKED!
NSFW, sorta?
Worse is that it likely won’t be able to distinguish between intentionally titilating material and material intended to educate. Only over 18 are allowed to learn about human physiology after submitting identifying information.
I’ve been watching porn since I was 10.
That’s all. Porn is great.
Well porn (as in actual porn) is bad for your mental health. But seeing a titty here and there isn’t.
There already should be a distinction between what is a child and what is a teen - there is a huge difference and these laws don’t take that into consideration. The only thing these laws do is remain as an ageist weapon that create discrimination.
Children generally aren’t that interested in nudity and most don’t understand porn, just that it’s something shocking
That is true, the problem with nudity isn’t with age anymore - it’s with the perceived notion that nudity is damaging in some mysterious way.
Some countries are allowed to have nudity on tv which brings this indoctrinated viewpoint to perspective. In fact, this is viewed as normal no matter the age in such countries. In addition, sex-ed for older children and teenagers is of higher quality compared to western countries which prohibit nudity.
worst thing for sexuality the UK ever did was let the protestants flee to the US instead of executing them (which they had no trouble doing with so many other “undesirables”), now their braindead dogma is spreading back across the pond
Ah yes the simple answer to the world’s problems is… genocide?
It’s kind of unfortunate how much this has been encourage by petty online fights. People were very excited when “will somebody think of the children” was applied to, say, some social media content or gaming loot boxes because the Internet did not like those things, so they were very happy to ignore the pre-existing parental control devices and request blanket bans. Then people remembered that a bunch of old, prudish people on both sides of the political aisle don’t like porn and it was too late.
Man, people love the “they first came for” argument online and I should have guessed the first time it really pays off in the 21st century it’d include the absolute most depressing things possible instead.
Anyway, this is bad and I don’t like it, but UK politics are almost as bad as US politics, so I’m happy to let both stew in their own cautionary tale juices.
None of those other things should require any sort of identity or age verification, though. In the case of loot boxes, government should be able to tell companies, “hey, you can’t sell that here”. In the case of age verification and nudity scanning there’s a whole host of issues from the fact that people don’t find loot boxes to be taboo or embarrassing to the fact that people do find nudity and porn embarrassing, to the fact that any scanning systems will false flag, to questions about who has access to the data that is submitted and how long it is stored, to how easy it could be to misuse the systems to go after disadvantaged groups (we all know LGBT content will intentionally be covered by this, whether they’re open about it or not, right?), to whether or not the system will be used for other purposes that either aren’t being said aloud or won’t be realized until after it’s implemented.
I… don’t know where you’re from, but actual gambling is legal here for adults. Are you suggesting that people should be able to place bets on actual sports but not buy a random loot box in a game? That seems incredibly extreme.
Which still leaves a bunch of other stuff people have used kids to attack on all sides of multiple political aisles, but hey, if that’s the one you want to caveat I’m happy to flag how weird the caveat is.
I think commercialized gambling should be illegal too
Gambling is a scam anyways. It’s always rigged.
I think there could be reasons a government/people would want loot boxes to be not allowed that don’t relate to gambling and/or kids. I know there were some people that said “think of the kids!” when the discussion was going on, but my point is that there may not be direct overlap because the implementation and its effects are greater than simply disabling the ability to buy loot boxes in a particular region.
The loot box issue is more like telling a vape company that they can sell oils as long as they don’t contain THC. This issue is more like saying, “You can sell the THC oils in any market or store, but every market and store in the country must check every item every user wants to buy for the presence of THC by to sending an image of that product to an AI that will tell you whether or not the user needs an age check to buy the item. If they do, the user cannot buy the item unless you take a photo of the user’s ID and send it to some random company that will use the photo to verify the user is allowed to use THC.”
It’s an entirely higher level of complication and risk, so I’d excuse the “think of the kids” people that went after loot boxes in this particular case. But I’d also be curious about how much “think of the kids” overlap there is anyway.
I didn’t mention any other cases because I didn’t know which specific issues you were referencing other than loot boxes. I wasn’t sure which social media content you were referring to, but you can imagine how I’d view it if it’s something like chat control or any other system relying on AI or age verification to control access.
Also, the lower the taboo of the item being accessed, the more generous I am with these things. I still don’t like it, but no one is going to be ashamed if their love of loot boxes is leaked, for instance.
I genuinely don’t know that I follow that explanation. For one thing, what reasons would there be to ban paid blind boxes, online or offline, while allowing outright games of chance with a monetary payout? In what world is a Magic the Gathering blister more of a problem (for a consenting adult, anyway) than an online casino?
But also, by the larger point you’re making it seems like you’d be fine with a government saying “porn is banned for everybody because reasons” but not with “porn is banned for kids”, at least in a scenario where that comes with age verification.
To be clear, I agree that both of those are… not good. I just don’t know that I can wrap my head around the logic of thinking the more extensive issue is more acceptable than the alternative. You could argue that the porn ban is an excuse to add mass surveillance, but at that point we’re not talking about the porn ban, we’re talking about the mass surveillance.
Oh, and for the record, there is plenty of will someone think of the children regarding loot boxes. Both on its own and bundled together with a blanket assessment that gambling is immoral and/or illegal. It’s actually a fairly close match to the porn issue, where concerns about children are being wrapped around a more targeted hostility around the concept from both sides of the political spectrum.
That seems the most sensible way of doing things. Apple probably doesn’t want that outcome though because then they’ll be liable for the implementation rather than, for example, the social networks or websites.
Always gotta be thinking about the Apple shareholders.
Honestly, No. I don’t want my phone making decisions for me or my kids. If its site by site, they can just go somewhere else.
As a parent, I’m far more worried about shitty social media algorithms that push narratives and online bullying and misinformation than I am about nudity. People have bodies, sex happens, it’s normal, whatever. I’d rather my kid learned about all that instead of being sheltered away from it until they turned 18.
If anything, normalizing nudity and acceptance of different body types is probably a good thing for kids to learn, especially females where a constant narrative of “skinny, pretty, perfect” is being shoved on them and shaming them for not being a super model is considered the status quo.
Let me make that decision as a parent, don’t try to protect my kids for me.