The original act in the United Kingdom passed back in 2023. Recent digital safety rules that went into effect late last week has turned this into the exact sort of Orwellian/dystopian outcome that many of us were aware could happen. It’s a UK law, but it is now having global ramifications (unsurprising).
Let me be clear; the idea of keeping the internet safe (especially for children) is not what I take issue with (that aspect is important). The issue is how all of this is being handled and implemented. Governments are literally clueless and also very much corrupted with being able to deal with this in a way where there won’t be ulterior motives (like surveillance on their own citizens and keeping track of your activities – this more so in this age of polarizing politics/populist movements where very partisan politicians/leaders want to know your political affiliation in order to enact some form of oppression/retribution). Yeah, some of this in the past sounded like tin-foil hat territory but is no longer the case; the powerful (business and political elites) feel so emboldened now where they are doing this stuff out in the open now.
Governments and private businesses leak personal data on occasion (hacks, accidental, etc); just one breach is one too many though when this is information they are supposed to be insuring isn’t getting into the wrong hands to begin with (what they say and what they actually do are two different things). Look at the most recent Tea app data breach. Sure, it’s a dating app meant for women to use to warn others of predatory “cat fishers”; it promised the women using the app that their data/personal information would be strongly protected. Instead, a recent breach leaked out personal information, selfies, government ID’s, etc (personally identifiable information). Over 1.1 million private messages were part of this leak. So for much for prioritizing that safety. And people are going to trust this age-verification process thinking that these governments and/or companies have your best interests (protection of your personal information) as their top priority? If you believe this, I have really high quality frozen ice for sale that is manufactured straight from the source in Antarctica.
A class action lawsuit has been filed (but it will end up being like every other data breach lawsuit; the lawyers representing the lawsuit will make out like bandits on the monetary settlement part while affected users will receive an year or two of identification/credit monitoring). What needs to actually happen is company executives/senior management facing actual prison time. But we know that the corporate structure reduces their liabilities (allowing them to mostly skate/launder their reputation).
But I digress… the image at the top is what has been rolling out not just in the UK (where this particular law was enacted), but has also been test deployed in other countries and is now going to be test rolled out to users in the U.S. (on some platforms). Google owned YouTube put out an update regarding this where they will be using AI to try to determine the age of a user. Read that official posting carefully (or read some of media takes on this) and understand the ramifications of that. If that system decides you are underage, your remedies for verifying your age will be: 1) credit card, 2) government ID, 3) selfie. My response to that (to use anything like YouTube, Twitch, Discord, social media, and anything not of critical importance), is “hell no”. I will close my accounts first. I realize this is going to be an issue for content creators and users who are very much invested in these platforms.
Accuracy (currently) is an issue with AI based workflows of this sort. It’s like all of those account suspensions that plagued (and seems to still be ongoing with Meta with Facebook and mostly Instagram accounts). Some folks are guessing this trial (selected users in the U.S.) by YouTube will be around 50% accuracy with a lot of false positives especially in certain demographics (certain topics like anime and Pokemon might yield the highest error rates when it comes to this system trying to determine ages). Will this accuracy be dialed in? Eventually one day (but the damage will have been done well before that day occurs).
For myself, none of these platforms are important enough to hand that information over for age-verification purposes. At that point, the right thing for me to do is to move on (this is of course a personal decision). The main unfortunate downside of this decision are the content creators and their communities that I’ve been part of and would no longer be able to interact with easily/freely. But there is a point where me complaining/disagreeing with this stuff (which is only ramping up with this latest madness), would be untenable for me to continue using these platforms for extended periods of time (I’m making small exceptions as I did last evening for one creator who was in distress). I am already close to becoming the equivalent of a digital hermit (over 85% reduction in online activities since the start of June while doing a near blanket disabling of most notifications).
With regards to Twitch, the platform is a bastion of hypocrisy when it comes to enforcing their terms of service/rules; they are not equally applied (look at how much anti-semetic BS is allowed to be spewed where a “ban” is just a temporary timeout when you are large enough). In relationship to this, the company rolled out yet another addendum to their terms of service regarding their multistreaming guidelines… like that isn’t equally applied either. What I thought originally was just some rumor, turned out to be true; that Twitch was actually removing the links for Kick (that other controversial streaming platform) from content creators profiles. For the time being, it is only Kick. But their new convoluted TOS has an ulterior motive to introduce vagueness (which again allows staff to apply these rules unequally).
This is the result of poor decision making by the top (Clancy opened up this can of worms in October 2023) where they are trying to roll things back without making it look that way. Yeah, I can see myself getting timed out/banned one day for honestly speaking my mind about this stuff (because I am reaching that intersection point). But I don’t want to expend any extra energy on that… this article covers this new BS. Semi-related to this (unequal application of the rules), you think all of that drama with Pirate Software and whether or not he/his mods were manipulating those hype trains (where he has broken several records) is going to result in anything? — those bits and subs are freakin money for Twitch). Yeah, wake me up when all of that happens or if someone ever does file claims that he broke federal and California state laws). This Pirate Software hype train drama; that is another one I don’t want to expend energy on (as if his take on/doubling down on Stop Killing Games wasn’t enough). As for the above mentioned anti-semetic stuff, this isn’t a right/left-wing thing either (each side has used these platforms as their propaganda peddling podium).
There was also that viewbotting issue Twitch mentioned (I read that one and rolled my eyes because that is nothing new especially when you understand that the more egregious ones, are being done by these big agencies who represent some of the biggest creators because those numbers/metrics drive the ridiculous contracts that many of those big creators receive). Can I be even MORE BLUNT? IT’S BIG BUSINESS/MONEY. Part of me wonders when this whole charade will collapse (it’s not just Twitch either BTW, this shit happens on YouTube as well though they at least do try to apply their rules and guidelines a bit more evenly). IMHO, Twitch CEO DJ Clancy is not the right person to deal with this and is the root of the poor “leadership” decision making at the Amazon subsidiary (Amazon itself is a larger problem in and of itself but that rant could fill a library).
Since IT security is partially an illusion (lot of corporate PR IMHO) where these types of breaches have leaked millions of users personal information (remember, those credit reporting agencies like Equifax have suffered their own breaches and during Elon Musk’s earlier rampage with DOGE in the U.S., freely allowed this data to be placed in the wrong hands), many American’s personal financial/health information is now in the hands of who knows who. Just handing this over to even more companies (especially big tech ones) is not a prudent option. I know I am in the minority here where I am prioritizing protecting what personal information I still have control over versus that community aspect.
I already have one burner number to use for their 2FA (required on my YouTube account in order to be an editor on other channels and on Twitch for subbing; which I’ve pulled back on). I have no payment info/actual personal info on Twitch; I bought e-Gift cards to fund that Twitch wallet (that ended months ago with my economic boycotting of Amazon). Yes, Amazon owns Twitch but to date, Twitch does not have free reign to that info (and my Amazon and Twitch e-mail accounts are separate). I know there are some Twitch channels that require phone number verification (for chat) and some Discord servers that similarly require a phone number to message. For Discord, that is already a hard pass for me (thus ANY request for age verification they roll out, will result in me deleting my Discord account). None of this is negotiable at this point. Things like this have been the driver on this recent pull back for me from these platforms.
I came from that period when the commercial Internet was built on this premise of not being censored/controlled by any one person or entity. Instead, we are seeing many companies (with ok by their governments) now performing this age verification step. Some of that process (depending on company) is being farmed out to some third party company. With security being as flimsy as it has been, that is just another vector for more of our information to be leaked. Thanks but no thanks. Lost in all of this is what happened to personal accountability? We should be in the driver seat and making these critical decisions (instead of the government and private companies). Unfortunately, some (let’s be honest here; MANY) parents have ceded that responsibility (self-monitoring what their kids are doing). I’m old school in this area where it is about discipline and respect at home. And as noted, many companies are prone to data breaches because this whole area of IT security is partially a smoke and mirrors act.
Yeah, I could “rant” a lot more about this (well, there are bits and pieces of this all over this blog). It gets old/redundant/tiring after a while. I do dislike that negative slant but this is the idiocracy we are all being subjected to unfortunately.
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