
KidSwitch: Identifying Kids in Apps and Sites - tdaltonc
https://blog.superawesome.com/2019/05/23/kidswitch-identifying-kids-in-apps-and-sites/
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derefr
I assume the implicit goal here isn't really "disabling features" like private
messaging, but rather replacing age-gating in apps like Steam that stand
between a non-logged-in user and the landing page for a rated-M game. (Or,
maybe for the first time ever, actually effectively preventing a five-year-old
from accessing a porn site just because the _porn site_ doesn't want to be
party to showing a five-year-old porn, rather than because the parents
installed a content blocker.)

But—possibly-dystopian question here—could this be used in the opposite
direction? To keep adults out of safe-space-for-children communities (like the
now-defunct Club Penguin)? "Prove you're not an adult" instead of "prove
you're not a robot"?

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gizmo686
I can't imagine a usecase for such a feature. It would prevent parents from
auditing the page.

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curryst
I think there are two use cases: the first is a naive "to prevent pedophiles
from having access to children". If you don't think too critically about it, I
can understand the enthusiasm for it. The second, and I think potentially more
legitimate, is to offer children a space to socialize with their peers without
having to worry about parental investigation. Whether or not you agree with
the parenting style, it's an underserved market segment. A side benefit could
be having your juvenile social media sealed somewhat like juvenile criminal
records. Something like offering you the option when you turn 18 to delete
your profile, or archive it with read-only access to those over 18.

Legally, I think it would face troubles in some countries, but countries with
laws granting more self-determination to minors might make it a useful
environment for exploring ideas with your peers without constant fear that
someone may now, or in the future, be offended by your teenage-angst fueled
rants. I know I would have enjoyed that, I had a constant fear of retribution
through highschool that prevented me from significantly engaging in social
media. It wasn't particularly out of line, the usual "my parents suck, my
school sucks, let me be a poorly adjusted adult right now!" kind of thing.

But I also grew up during the start of the "social media is forever" age,
where it started to be common for years-old social media posts by celebrities
to become common. And the posts are always judged by today; not the person you
were then, or the environment you were in.

Frankly I still maintain very little social media presence. I would love to
interact with people like that, but I also know that all it takes is one slip-
up or vaguely phrased statement to sink you anymore. I like that this might be
am opportunity to let kids be kids, and say the darndest thing; but still
allow them to be full-fledged members of an online and in-person community
without fear that their half-baked childhood ideas might ruin their future.

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morpheuskafka
Accuracy stats? This seems like an anti-feature to me, and a little
paradoxical to collect tons of data to exclude others from data selection. I'm
sure it could work, but it seems like there could easily be a couple years
standard deviation which would lead to many false positives.

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salutonmundo
It will probably be amusing to see the amount of decidedly non–kid friendly
abuse hurled at this by adults who happen to like, say, watching toys being
opened.

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Mirioron
The most popular video on LinusTechTips is the unboxing of an RC fire truck. I
think people do enjoy some toys being unboxed.

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derefr
That sounds less like adult subscribers to the channel being really into that
video, and more like tons of non-subscribers (i.e. kids) finding it by
searching for toy unboxings and it happening to rank highly because of the
relative popularity of the channel. So, not really an example of what "people"
do.

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wongarsu
So children who want to use social features will have to browse more adult-
like content to adjust the age estimate? I'm not so sure this will have the
intended effect

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petepete
Nothing will stop driven teenagers. Nothing.

The same way people of my generation had CD/DVD ROMs full of pirate games,
software and pornography - teens today will find the path of least resistance.

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nydel
>Historically the approach to this issue has been age-gating (asking a child
to confirm they’re over 13), which makes everyone feel better but doesn’t
actually solve the underlying problem. > >Today, we’re unveiling KidSwitch, a
new piece of…

Which underlying problem?

I’m more interested in education & intelligence levels, iff* we’re to regulate
content over web.

E.G. you must be thiiisss smart &or demonstrate n% content comprehension to
continue, return, reply etc.

*iff as ‘if & only if’

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wisty
I think the underlying problem is that parents want the entire internet to
babysit their kids for them.

edit: Maybe what we need is a kids.txt to go along with robots.txt. Some file
on websites with some kind list of what interactions a site has (can you leave
a message, chat, access hardcore pornography, etc) so auto-blockers can block
(or even just limit usage).

So what if a site doesn't have a kids.txt? Block it I guess? Prompt to go into
some special mode (no video, no posts, alert parents)?

I guess sites lying might be an issue, then you'd either need whitelists or
blacklists. Maybe tie compliance to whether the browser bar goes green.

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kalleboo
This used to exist in browsers in the 90s. Site owners never bothered
implementing it. [https://www.w3.org/PICS/](https://www.w3.org/PICS/)

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ars
It wasn't that owners never bothered implementing it, rather people were
actively against it because they felt that no content should be filtered
period, and never mind children.

It was actively campaigned against to the point that if you did implement it
you were criticized in public. So sites stopped using it and browsers stopped
checking it.

Some linkes:
[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/di...](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/digicom/121597digicom.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/19/business/technology-to-
le...](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/19/business/technology-to-let-
engineers-filter-the-web-and-judge-content.html)

[https://www.wired.com/1997/02/microsoft-employs-good-
clean-p...](https://www.wired.com/1997/02/microsoft-employs-good-clean-pics/)

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elagost
It would be nice to see some technical documentation on exactly what's being
looked at, but I doubt it's available given that it would just allow users to
game the system.

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SuperNinKenDo
Beyond privacy implications, what are they doing to make sure those with
physical differences such as disability aren't negatively effected?

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Freak_NL
This isn't the kind of technology that focusses on actually getting it right,
this is a product meant to be sold to companies that need a way to off-load
their legal responsibility of preventing children below a certain age from
using certain features.

This product ticks a box, it doesn't actually prevent children from using the
features it acts as a barrier for. It probably works quite well in prepared
demonstrations and with content that fits neatly in certain age groups. Those
demonstrations won't include people with disabilities or quite mature children
of course.

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nulbyte
Speaking of legal responsibility, there is also a legal responsibility to not
discriminate (even if inadvertantly) against the disabled. This seems like a
pot of gold style quick fix, which is why I have strong reservations about its
viability.

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idlewords
This is creepy as hell, since you need a lot of surveillance on children to
train this thing.

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nydel
How could this avoid discrimination against atypical neurologies?

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mirimir
I'm not exactly sure what "atypical neurologies" includes.

But I suspect that some of my personas would rate age~13.

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throwaway66666
Why use Machine Learning to identify kids? Simply ask "Identify the Karate Kid
actor"

if they pick Jackie Chan over Pat Morita, you know they are a kid 100%.

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tdaltonc
The use-cases for this are obviously pretty wide. The really galling thing
about this is that YouTube(Google(Alphabet)) didn't start offering this 3
years ago.

