Thank you Moonchild, for saying No to censorship!

[Gemmaugr]

Re: the main forum notice:

"No censorship!
We will not restrict your access to our forum based on arbitrary censorship laws in your country (looking at you, UK! With a side-eye to Australia and the USA...). This forum is hosted in a politically neutral space (and we will move it if our hosting co. ever becomes hostile to this) and our visitors are welcome to continue to use this forum without any draconian ID or age verification.

This notice is to be clear that this forum contains user-submitted content that can (and often is) aimed at people with a reasonably adult mindset and may contain content that would potentially require age verification under the laws currently being pushed in several countries. We don't care. It is not our task to be regulating access based on this. We will not yield to demands from people who get offended by opinions.

Visitors are called upon to use their own controls to stay in compliance with the forum rules (in particular, the minimum age limit of 16 years, and non-age-bound social common sense). You can be anonymous if you want to; we only require that you use a valid, non-temporary e-mail address."

Digital ID is something I've seen coming since the 2010's, and it's a worrying thought indeed, as is censorship in general. Even now I refuse to use the Swedish Bank-ID, which is a pre-cursor to Digital ID. I was sadly forced to register my pre-paid SIM phone's, and now they're forcing me to abandon anything not specifically 5G. Goodbye my trusted e1080. Hello Brave New World.

[suzyne]

100% supportive of this stand.

Living in Australia, I shake my head in disbelief as my government has committed to restrict access to huge parts of the internet based on age alone, and by extension will be requiring age/identity checks of some kind. They haven't yet said how it will work, which it presumably won't for anyone under 16 who is determined to by-pass the restrictions, anyway!

[Pentium4User]

More and more so called "western" and "free" countries want to implement the restrictions of autocratic countries. I hate that.

Although, if the pressure increases, people might need to move to the TOR network to reach a place for real anonymity and freedom of speech.

[Moonchild]

If necessary and ISPs are being forced to start implementing e.g. filtered DNS servers or what not, I'm certainly going to consider broadening what I publicly make available under the Pale Moon umbrella - e.g. a private DNS server, maybe even a search aggragator. I can't offer VPN but I can offer some core services that "make the internet work" that can allow a non-tracked movement without having to resort to the disaster that is TOR.

As far as the age check and usage of the Internet by children is concerned which is the blanket reason they are pushing this under "think of the children!", it's actually very simple: that is not the responsibility of service providers, content providers or webmasters. It is certainly not the responsibility of any political body or government. It is the responsibility of parents. And guess what? Decades of parental controls have proven extremely effective and putting that control in the right hands.
So, no, this project will not step on that slippery slope, and solidly call upon parents to control their children's movements as long as they are not old enough to safeguard themselves.

[RealityRipple]

Futurama, literally like 22 years ago to the day:

[Mæstro]

I agree with Moonchild entirely. Online safety courses from the noughts stressed that children should not browse the unfiltered net, there were many children’s versions of common sites and parents were instructed accordingly. These seem to have decayed since the early tens, such that typical usage of most SNS breaks the basic principle that one should avoid linking one’s online and private identity. Legislation now assumes the common man will neglect these basic duties. Widespread smartphone addiction convinces me that this assumption is often correct, and the rest of us are just dragged down in the process. Survey suggests most Britons approve the new law; what in the world are they actually thinking?

[moonbat]

children should not browse the unfiltered net

That went out of the window after smartphones arrived and parents started using them as babysitter substitutes. Every damn time I see people out with a kid under ten, the kid has their nose buried in some video or game. No wonder they end up looking at unwanted stuff.

[jobbautista9]

Here in the Philippines a senator has a bill that is pretty much similar to the UK's "online safety act". I hope it will never see the light of day!

https://web.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/4666242667!.pdf

[Moonchild]

children should not browse the unfiltered net

That went out of the window after smartphones arrived and parents started using them as babysitter substitutes. Every damn time I see people out with a kid under ten, the kid has their nose buried in some video or game. No wonder they end up looking at unwanted stuff.

That still doesn't absolve the parents of their responsibility or deflect it to the other side (the providers). Parental Controls exist for a reason, and this is exactly one of them. There are also plenty of setups for phones and tablets that are explicitly catering to different age groups. If parents have the money to stuff a few new phones into their kids' hands every year (because knowing kids, they get broken in a hurry) then they can spend a little more to make them kid-safe, too. If they don't, they run the risk of the kid seeing stuff the parents might not want them to see. FAFO in that case, not "oh think of the children" censorship of everything for everyone.

[suzyne]

The "think of the children" position followed by a knee-jerk reaction of censorship, I don't think is ever the way to go. The focus of the legislation here (Australia) is blocking young people from social media, which, I think, is missing a point that social media can have negative effective on people of all ages. Being an adult does not make someone immune to manipulation and adverse consequences. Is there anything magical about turning 17 (or 37!) that makes one impervious to aggressive and cynical algorithms, or toxic chat environments? I don't think so.

Does saying it's the parent's responsibility work for the young teens who are arguably the most vulnerable to social pressures, online and offline? Isn't part of the high school experience, doing stuff without your parent's knowledge! So I would prefer to see controls put on the algorithms of social media companies (sure, I don't know how that would be done) and social media literacy as part of the school classroom.

A couple of links about the "Facebook whistleblower".

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/tearing-our-societies-apart-facebook-whistleblowers-revelations-fuel-concern-in-australia/pbe5l2pz3
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036519/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-algorithms/

[Moonchild]

Isn't part of the high school experience, doing stuff without your parent's knowledge!

Yes, but it's also in a specialized environment. The high school provides a "safe space" to experiment in; given, with less oversight than parents, but oversight nonetheless. Last I checked high schools still have guidance and safety nets in close proximity if necessary. If a teen needs help, they can get it.

Internet literacy is extremely important to be able to navigate around it and it should probably be a compulsory educational point (for quite a few adults too, to be fair), IMHO.

I also don't think heavy focus on social media is doing it justice because the legislation is attacking everything with user-submitted content (including fora, comment sections on articles, and anything else that interacts with other internet users one way or another). It's a sledgehammer approach, on purpose.

[suzyne]

Isn't part of the high school experience, doing stuff without your parent's knowledge!

Yes, but it's also in a specialized environment.

Sorry, that was my poor choice of words to express myself. What I meant was the age one is during high school. Not literally the hours spent in school.

[Moonchild]

Ah I see. Well, the same applies. As a teen you still have guidance and support close-by, no matter who provides it (at least I hope so). And yes, that is still the responsibility of parents (or guardians) in my opinion. Unless siociety is OK with all young generations effectively being raised by service providers and politicians...

[suzyne]

Ah I see. Well, the same applies. As a teen you still have guidance and support close-by, no matter who provides it (at least I hope so). And yes, that is still the responsibility of parents (or guardians) in my opinion. Unless siociety is OK with all young generations effectively being raised by service providers and politicians...

You never had a friend (or knew someone) whose parent(s) weren't home at the close of school time, and you could spend hours unsupervised? It's little to do with providers and politicians, but the ingenuity of 13 year olds!

[Moonchild]

That's entirely beside the point. It's not about being given the space to develop. Or, for that matter, being supervised; it's about having assistance when needed. Every child and teen should have the latter, as it's part of upbringing/parenting. And this censorship and legislation is trying to do the former (and putting that in the wrong people's hands)

[suzyne]

That's entirely beside the point.

It is very much the point of my reply. You decided to emphasise the supervised environment of the high school with support physically close-by, which I wanted to address. Because of the way that teenagers (unless they have helicopter parents) usually have regular time and opportunities away from support and supervision. This is very pertinent to the debate of trying to control what is accessed because of the way society (and parents!) lose that ability (unless they have what I consider unhealthy parents practises) well before the age of 16.

I also don't think heavy focus on social media is doing it justice because the legislation is attacking everything with user-submitted content (including fora, comment sections on articles, and anything else that interacts with other internet users one way or another). It's a sledgehammer approach, on purpose.

Sorry that I am focussing on social media and teenagers, but that is a big part of the context with the debate and the equivalent legislation here in Australia. As far as I know, the proposed Australian law is not targeting anything with a comment section. So, maybe we are talking at cross purposes?

[Moonchild]

Because of the way that teenagers (unless they have helicopter parents) usually have regular time and opportunities away from support and supervision.
This is very pertinent to the debate of trying to control what is accessed because of the way society (and parents!) lose that ability (unless they have what I consider unhealthy parents practises) well before the age of 16.

This is why parenting isn't easy. You have to find that balance between keeping control and providing a safe environment, and giving enough room to develop. That is also individual because some develop faster than others.
But that really is not the point in what is being discussed here/politically, as far as I know (although I have not dug through the actual Australian legislative act and am speaking mostly from a point of what I know of the UK law in effect right now). The laws being discussed and/or enforced are not giving any freedom for development and criminalises that discovery by teenagers by placing the responsibility where it doesn't belong: service providers, social media operators, ISPs, etc. By enforcing strict identity checks it becomes censorship of the teenagers at best, and full surveillance and content control for every person on the Internet at worst, under the same legislative umbrella.

maybe we are talking at cross purposes?

Maybe, but the bottom line IMHO remains that this control should be with the parents as part of their handling of what their children are doing. I'd say it's a gradient between "provide a fully safe environment", via "trust but verify" towards "trust and support" depending on development age of the kids. That is not something any parliament, service provider or forum/social platform operator can (or should!) be tasked with.

[suzyne]

maybe we are talking at cross purposes?

Maybe, but the bottom line IMHO remains that this control should be with the parents as part of their handling of what their children are doing. I'd say it's a gradient between "provide a fully safe environment", via "trust but verify" towards "trust and support" depending on development age of the kids. That is not something any parliament, service provider or forum/social platform operator can (or should!) be tasked with.

To be clear, I am not in favour of this push for online censorship, and I think we agree on the fundamentals. The burden should not be on the provider to restrict access.

But going back to the links I shared, I do believe that there needs to be some responsibility and accountability put back on the big operators (not forums like Pale Moon!) to reduce harm by not exploiting human psychology with the algorithms in toxic ways.

[athenian200]

Yeah, I've been hearing about this censorship thing and wondering what was happening here, and glad to see the big yellow message at the top confirming that this forum is standing against that. I kinda missed these conversations about the way the Internet seems to be changing for the worse I used to have here all the time, and happy they're still going on even as I've been distracted.

I really just don't see how it's reasonable to expect every single website to either verify the age of users or moderate heavily. If they really do that, then it effectively means there is no room for smaller operators to exist at all. Maybe something like that can work for a handful of major social media websites, but I think it is cost-prohibitive for most smaller websites and communities.

Overall, I just think in the end, countries that implement laws like this will wind up blocking a ton of websites hosted in other countries, because I don't think they can reasonably expect everyone to comply the way the big players have.

[Mæstro]

I really just don't see how it's reasonable to expect every single website to either verify the age of users or moderate heavily. If they really do that, then it effectively means there is no room for smaller operators to exist at all. Maybe something like that can work for a handful of major social media websites, but I think it is cost-prohibitive for most smaller websites and communities.

I recall similar questions years ago surrounding §11/17 of some copyright law or other, remembered online as the ‘meme ban’, concerning how file libraries would require licencing. Vaguely, it is expected that the measures employed should match the site’s size and revenue. I admit I am writing from a position of ignorance, but I have not noticed any changes at all in my online experience since that passed. If my understanding is correct that nothing substantial has actually changed for this, then this precedent gives me some cause for optimism.