[HN Gopher] Canadian internet bill S-210 is a step closer to bec...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Canadian internet bill S-210 is a step closer to becoming law
        
       Author : llm_nerd
       Score  : 190 points
       Date   : 2023-12-14 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.michaelgeist.ca)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.michaelgeist.ca)
        
       | tempest_ wrote:
       | In 2023 I can't believe they are still naming bills like this
       | 
       | "Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography"
       | 
       | Every time a bill gets a moniker like that I assume it is hiding
       | some major government over reach.
        
         | HumblyTossed wrote:
         | They're appealing to their "fear" base. A certain segment of
         | the voting population lives in fear (no thanks to the
         | politicians who stoke this fear) of ... well everything.
        
           | cibcin wrote:
           | Not wanting your children to be influenced by pornography at
           | a formative age is a very reasonable fear in this era.
        
             | naremu wrote:
             | I assumed this is what parental controls are invented for,
             | but all too many parents don't seem to even have the
             | knowledge to activate those in the first place.
             | 
             | Maybe they should learn how they work instead of supporting
             | a thin veil of totalitarianism.
        
               | pfisch wrote:
               | TikTok and instagram are full of things that are porn or
               | are almost porn. Same with Reddit.
               | 
               | It is unrealistic to lock your kids out of all social
               | media.
        
               | standardUser wrote:
               | I sometimes forget that we consider simple nudity to be
               | "porn". We shouldn't.
        
               | munk-a wrote:
               | It's absolutely ridiculous that we consider nudity to be
               | nsfw - but TikTok and Instagram have a fair amount of
               | content on them that are intentionally as close to nsfw
               | as you can get without getting banned. I agree with your
               | literal point - but there's actual porn on social media.
        
               | vezycash wrote:
               | I've seen actual porn on Twitter. I don't have an
               | instagram account many porn models put links to their IG
               | profiles.
        
               | simion314 wrote:
               | >It is unrealistic to lock your kids out of all social
               | media.
               | 
               | Really? so the state blocks porn, but then that social
               | media will have people that use bad language so the state
               | needs to also protect your kids from bad language, maybe
               | people say on those social media that Santa or Jesus does
               | not exist so state should protect them again and ban this
               | stuff too.
               | 
               | Do not allow your child on social media that is for
               | adults. I am sure PlayStation offer social feature for
               | children with strong moderation, so find similar social
               | media that is targeted for children.
        
               | munk-a wrote:
               | It is perfectly reasonable to lock your kids out of
               | social media until they're mature enough to handle to it.
               | It's actually probably in their benefit to block them
               | from the non-nsfw parts of social media as well since
               | social media has an extremely negative effect on mental
               | health.
               | 
               | Parents are allowed to autocrat - it may feel icky but to
               | parent well you need to occasionally put on your villain
               | hat.
        
               | logicchains wrote:
               | >Parents are allowed to autocrat - it may feel icky but
               | to parent well you need to occasionally put on your
               | villain hat
               | 
               | It's not about icky. If you autocrat too much as a parent
               | your kids will simple resent you and once they're 18/left
               | home they'll do whatever they want now that you're no
               | longer around to control them, because they never learned
               | any self control. Like US college kids going all out with
               | drugs and alcohol.
        
               | belval wrote:
               | What a weird argument in the context of this bill. "If
               | I'm too strict my child will resent me therefore I will
               | vote so that my opinion can be enforced on everyone by
               | the government and I can be my child's buddy".
               | 
               | Must be interesting with other "sinful" activities, "I'd
               | totally let you do cocain but shoot the government won't
               | let me!".
        
               | munk-a wrote:
               | There is a place between a micro-managing helicopter
               | parent and laissez-faire - your parenting should be in
               | that place. And while it'd be awesome to be your kids'
               | best friend forever it's more important that they learn
               | boundaries, self-control and how to human. You can impart
               | self-control without opening every door and, given how
               | psychologically exploitative a lot of the internet and
               | advertising is, it's hardly a fair fight to just let them
               | sink or swim.
               | 
               | Guidance is a responsibility of parenthood.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | My parents were pretty strict with me as a kid, and I
               | missed out on a lot of things that my peers got to do. I
               | did resent them, somewhat, at the time, but by my mid-20s
               | I was able to recognize that they were just doing their
               | best and, like literally all parents, were making things
               | up as they went along.
               | 
               | When I went to college I was fine. I developed a new
               | social circle quickly, and didn't end up becoming a drunk
               | or a druggie. Sure, I did many of the things my parents
               | never would allow me to do, but it was fine.
               | 
               | I totally get that some people end up in a worse place
               | than I did, but that's not an excuse for blanket
               | governmental bans on things. But I would absolutely 100%
               | support any parent that decides to deny their children
               | any and all access to social media. That shit is cancer,
               | and IMO is worse for developing brains than nicotine or
               | alcohol.
               | 
               | I hesitate to present such a hard line on social media,
               | when I'm kinda "whatever" on teens seeing some porn. The
               | problem is that I see what social media does to _adults_
               | with fully-developed brains, and I start to feel like
               | social media is akin to heroin: no amount of it is safe,
               | for anyone.
               | 
               | A more relaxed view might be to give teens access to
               | social media, but only in a supervised setting. Parents
               | should be monitoring what goes on with their social media
               | accounts, and have frank (but calm and non-judgemental)
               | discussions with the kid whenever anything concerning
               | comes up. Also parents need to find a way to impress upon
               | their kids that social media is not real life, and that
               | people present whatever slice of their lives (often an
               | unrealistic rosy picture) they decide to paint. And then
               | there's all the misinformation and echo chambers, and...
               | ugh, yeah, no, just don't let kids on social media.
        
               | blitz_skull wrote:
               | > It is unrealistic to lock your kids out of all social
               | media.
               | 
               | Excuse me, what?
               | 
               | Is it also unrealistic to prevent your kids from doing
               | hard drugs? Sure maybe you can't control them past a
               | certain age, but you certainly can AND SHOULD within a
               | certain age time frame.
               | 
               | Social media has been shown to be so hazardous to
               | developing youth's mental health I think not only is it
               | realistic, but you have a duty and an obligation do
               | prevent your kids from using social media in an
               | unrestricted manner.
        
               | genocidicbunny wrote:
               | > unrestricted manner.
               | 
               | They didn't say unrestricted, they said locked out. As
               | in, not accessible at all.
               | 
               | And you know what is also very hazardous to a developing
               | person's mental health? Being left out of most social
               | gatherings and interactions with their peers.
               | 
               | You can block your kids from accessing social media, but
               | to succeed you also need to force their peers to
               | communicate and interact with them in a unique and more
               | frictive way. And you have no right to force someone
               | else's kids to do that. So the reality is that without a
               | lot of like-minded families that do the same, your kids
               | are going to be left out of a lot of things.
               | 
               | So is it unrealistic to control your children's access to
               | social media? No, not at all. But locking them out from
               | it entirely as you stated, is a good way to negatively
               | impact their social development.
        
               | blitz_skull wrote:
               | I disagree. I grew up without a cell phone while all my
               | friends had them. Beyond that, my friends had online
               | gaming where I barely even had access to the internet,
               | and what access I had was limited.
               | 
               | I find the argument that kids are going to unanimously
               | ostracize another kid without an Instagram account very
               | hard to believe. Kids _will_ be assholes for any reason
               | under the sun, so it's not a question of will my kid have
               | a hard time socially from time-to-time--that's just life.
               | 
               | Hobbies, social outlets, groups in the community--these
               | are all ways to ensure your kids aren't socially stunted
               | without giving them the emotional / mental equivalent of
               | heroin.
        
               | fallingknife wrote:
               | > Is it also unrealistic to prevent your kids from doing
               | hard drugs?
               | 
               | Yes. If they want it, it's not hard to find.
        
               | blitz_skull wrote:
               | That's not the point. The point is that it's your
               | obligation to do your best to protect them from it. "Ease
               | of access" is hardly a reason to not try.
        
               | ipaddr wrote:
               | Loneliness and a lifetime of sadness has been shown to
               | have greater risks. Is cutting out social connections the
               | answer? Because that's what ends up happening.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | Please present evidence that denying teens access to
               | social media causes them to have literally no meaningful
               | social connections. I do expect social interactions to
               | suffer for a teen in that situation. But I find it hard
               | to believe that it causes complete isolation and (gimme a
               | break) a "lifetime of sadness".
        
               | jrockway wrote:
               | Is it unrealistic? Like, social media wasn't invented
               | when I was a kid and I found some way to spend my time.
               | 
               | I don't have kids but am planning on it, and I don't see
               | myself locking kids out of social media. I also don't
               | super care if they see naked people on the Internet. If
               | it becomes a problem somehow I'll deal with the problem
               | myself.
               | 
               | I'm more worried about kids shows on TV with messages
               | like "follow all the rules or you'll be bricked inside a
               | tunnel". I grew up with those, and in retrospect, they
               | are super creepy.
        
               | genocidicbunny wrote:
               | To me, the problem is that while you might block your
               | children from using social media, are all of your
               | children's friends going to be in the same situation. If
               | your kid has a circle of friends that interacts a lot on
               | social media, and your kid doesn't participate in that,
               | eventually they will be left out of that group.
        
               | jrockway wrote:
               | Yeah, exactly. That's why I think a categorical ban is
               | not necessarily "good parenting". I think you have to
               | peek in and see what they're watching on TikTok, and
               | provide relevant information. If they think a video where
               | someone burns down a store as "a prank" is funny, remind
               | them of the consequences; hurting other people, prison,
               | whatever. (OK, TikTok is a little less extreme than that,
               | but you get the point.)
               | 
               | Certainly, I understand why people want to delegate work
               | to the government here; parenting is hard work. But it's
               | necessary work, you don't want the government's children
               | to go out into the world and do their own thing. You want
               | your kids to. And so your touch is going to be required
               | in their formative years. There is no getting around
               | that.
        
               | cf1241290841 wrote:
               | I believe its even more unrealistic to make the internet
               | sfw / children.
               | 
               | While i do sympathize with the impossible difficulty of
               | being a parent in the current decade, there is
               | realistically no way i am going to just accept the death
               | of the adult internet. Thats likely a common sentiment
               | and realistically the people making these laws are too
               | stupid to enforce them against motivated opponents with
               | technical expertise.
               | 
               | I dont see a way out of this other then create a
               | whitelisted subset for children with enforcement being
               | the responsibility of the parents. Because going death of
               | anonymity for access control is a no go either.
               | 
               | Looking on the bright side, to me this looks like just a
               | lack of safe for children platforms that are still
               | tolerable to use.
        
               | laweijfmvo wrote:
               | or you know, talk to your kids
        
               | ndriscoll wrote:
               | Which parental controls, and how would those even work?
               | 
               | Back in the IE6 days I remember there was some setting to
               | tweak allowed content ratings for websites, which I
               | believe was based on HTTP headers, but does anyone
               | implement that anymore (did they ever)? I just checked
               | reddit, and they don't seem to send any headers, and use
               | the same domains for porn as they do for child-focused
               | content.
               | 
               | The obvious thing to advocate for would be to require
               | commercial porn sites to send some kind of standardized
               | headers that would allow parental controls to work in the
               | first place, and/or to require any domains with content
               | targeted to children to not also host adult-only content
               | (e.g. reddit should put either their child-focused subs
               | or their porn on a separate subdomain).
               | 
               | Then require commercial browser vendors to implement
               | content blocking settings based on those headers.
               | 
               | Alternatively, it would be possible for governments to
               | provide an oauth style service that provides tokens that
               | assert the user is an adult without revealing any other
               | info about the user, and then require porn sites to check
               | for that token.
        
             | genocidicbunny wrote:
             | Just don't allow your children to access these porn
             | websites then. It really is that easy. ;)
        
             | some_random wrote:
             | Consider parenting your children instead of demanding the
             | government do it for you.
        
               | adra wrote:
               | Yeah, I mean why does the government get to tell me how I
               | raise my kids? I wanna put them to work, drive heavy
               | machinery, and marry them off to 90 year old "founders"
               | all I like so stay outta my business.
        
               | some_random wrote:
               | Oh I'm sorry you're totally right, we need to ban
               | working, driving heavy machinery, and marriage to protect
               | your children. Because that's what this is all actually
               | about right? Sock puppet guy has made that quite clear,
               | his goal is to ban all porn.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | The difference is that in the cases you mention, the
               | government is protecting kids from bad actions that
               | parents might take.
               | 
               | Requiring age verification won't stop a parent from
               | giving a kid access to porn. And, frankly, if a parent
               | wants to show a teen porn as a way to educate them about
               | what can be bad about it and what the dangers are, that's
               | a private matter between the parent and the teen.
        
             | simion314 wrote:
             | >Not wanting your children to be influenced by pornography
             | at a formative age is a very reasonable fear in this era.
             | 
             | I agree, so as a developer do you think it is easier to
             | block porn at OS level and your router or you think that is
             | safer that some regulation that only some websites will
             | follow is more effective ?
             | 
             | I read about some proposal for adult website to scan your
             | face before granting access and other idiotic schemes,
             | where the super obvious KISS solution is have Android, iOS,
             | Windows, Ubuntu etc have an idiot proof way for a parent to
             | setup a child account, this child account will set some
             | cookie or whatever flag you want so websites can refuse to
             | serve content to them. Also the big tech could use their
             | combined energy to have a blacklist of bad websites that do
             | not respect the rules like maybe advertisers.
             | 
             | TLDR as a parent do not wait for the goverment to protect
             | your child from porn, open Google and figure it out,
        
             | munk-a wrote:
             | There are a plethora of tools a concerned parent can deploy
             | currently to limit web exposure - the main difficulty in
             | doing so is more of a social pressure than a technical one
             | and the salves provided by this bill are trivial to
             | circumvent for a determined teen.
        
             | busterarm wrote:
             | Wanting the state to play the role of mother and father is
             | a very reasonable fear in this era.
        
             | squigz wrote:
             | That's fair. And as another commenter pointed out, this is
             | probably your responsibility as a parent. Of course, we
             | also let the government tell us we can't let our kids work,
             | so clearly there's a line we draw.
             | 
             | So I ask, why is it the government's responsibility in this
             | specific case?
        
             | gosub100 wrote:
             | Is there a documented syndrome that children or adults
             | contract from pornography? Do you have any evidence of harm
             | other than your feelings?
        
             | kelnos wrote:
             | Is it, though? I found and enjoyed a good amount of porn on
             | BBSes and the early internet when I was a teen, and I
             | turned out fine.
             | 
             | Porn absolutely has serious problems associated with it
             | (both on the production and consumption sides), but teens
             | getting exposed to porn is just not a big deal. It can
             | _turn_ into a big deal, but that 's what, y'know...
             | _parenting_... is for.
        
           | willcipriano wrote:
           | What side would you describe as the "fearless" side? They
           | both seem fearful to me just in regards to different things.
        
             | RobRivera wrote:
             | There are no sides - there are nuanced and diverse issues
             | and varying approaches which optimize for different values
             | and to use words like 'us','them','side' is detrimental to
             | the political process and enables those who yield narrative
             | control over media uncharacteristic influence in a
             | democracy.
        
             | suoduandao3 wrote:
             | centrists are probably generally less fearful as retreating
             | to one extreme of a polarized dynamic is a common fear
             | response. But I think the point is more, everyone is
             | partially motivated by fear, sometimes governments use that
             | fear as a lever.
        
             | HumblyTossed wrote:
             | Not about sides. Some people are just afraid of things.
             | Afraid everyone is out to steal their kids. Afraid of war.
             | Afraid of immigrants. Afraid of not enough immigrants. This
             | just appeals to those people.
        
           | chongli wrote:
           | Base? This was a senate private member's bill. Senators in
           | Canada are appointed, not elected, and they serve for life.
           | The senator who introduced the bill, Julie Miville-Duchene,
           | is a member of the independent senators group, a non-partisan
           | group of 39 senators.
           | 
           | It was voted against by the government. It's only getting
           | traction with support from opposition parties. It might pass
           | the house of commons without government support due to a
           | minority parliament. All this despite the fact that the
           | opposition spans the gamut from far left to far right.
        
         | gspencley wrote:
         | Yeah and let's also take a moment to consider that the current
         | government here in Canada is not conservative.
         | 
         | I say this in the most non-partisan way possible, just as a
         | freedom loving Canadian: "Fuck Trudeau"
        
           | loloquwowndueo wrote:
           | I mean, imagine how much worse it would be if Poilievre was
           | the PM ;)
        
             | canadiantim wrote:
             | Atleast Poilievre would be on a shorter leash than Trudeau
        
               | munk-a wrote:
               | Unfortunately if Poilievre actually did get into the PM
               | office it'd be on the back of a CPC majority - so he'd
               | have a lot more freedom to act than Trudeau's current
               | minority government.
        
               | canadiantim wrote:
               | We'll see. Could also be a Harper-like minority, getting
               | support from the bloc. Trudeau also has a very supportive
               | NDP right now, so Trudeau does have a lot of freedom
               | currently.
        
               | munk-a wrote:
               | I'll never say never but the current state of the CPC is
               | so departed from mainstream Canadian politics that it's
               | far more likely that BQ would side with LPC... and the
               | NDP and Greens would basically have to have a melt-down
               | to side with the CPC.
               | 
               | I think it's almost vanishingly unlikely that the CPC
               | form government _unless_ they actually achieve a majority
               | share of seats.
        
           | scj wrote:
           | > "The bill, which is the brainchild of Senator Julie
           | Miville-Duchene, is not a government bill. In fact,
           | government ministers voted against it. Instead, the bill is
           | backed by the Conservatives, Bloc and NDP with a smattering
           | of votes from backbench Liberal MPs."
           | 
           | Remember, the opposition and the Senate can get bills through
           | in a minority parliament.
        
             | gspencley wrote:
             | That's a good point but it's worth noting that the NDP is
             | backing it, as well as some Liberal MPs. For non-Canadians,
             | NDP is our "far left" party. I don't mean that in a
             | pejorative sense, just that our Liberal party tends to be
             | your "mainstream" moderates and we have a 3rd party for the
             | less moderate left-leaning voters. That's what the NDP is.
             | So if they're backing this then that can only mean that
             | there is bi-partisan support for this.
        
             | pupppet wrote:
             | So basically fuck everyone...except Trudeau? This is why I
             | can't take the fuck Trudeau crowd seriously. He's their go-
             | to bogeyman for everything.
        
           | adra wrote:
           | From the article, "In fact, government ministers voted
           | against it. Instead, the bill is backed by the Conservatives,
           | Bloc and NDP with a smattering of votes from backbench
           | Liberal MPs."
           | 
           | Your anger seems to be misplaced in this instance.
        
             | pesfandiar wrote:
             | You're right https://openparliament.ca/votes/44-1/609/
        
           | katbyte wrote:
           | The current Goverment voted against this and is not the ones
           | trying to pass it.
        
           | tapesonthefloor wrote:
           | Given how conclusively the article explains that this bill is
           | supported by effectively everybody _but_ Trudeau, I'd like to
           | take a moment to thank you for unburdening the rest of us so
           | effectively with any ongoing need to give precious time or
           | thought to anyone wielding that particular two word phrase,
           | or, for those of us who have already wasted our time in
           | dialogue with folks like you, reaffirming the conclusions
           | we'd already drawn. Appreciated.
        
         | vivekd wrote:
         | That's what I thought initially too, but reading the article,
         | it seems like it's just requiring age verification for
         | accessing adult material. If we are concerned about censorship
         | - I have to say that ship has long ago sailed. I don't have a
         | problem with blocking porn or steps preventing kids from
         | accessing porn
        
           | logicchains wrote:
           | >I don't have a problem with blocking porn or steps
           | preventing kids from accessing porn
           | 
           | It's just the first step; once they have the infrastructure
           | for real-ID verification in place, they'll roll it out to
           | more and more of the internet until adults have no more
           | anonymity online.
        
             | djaro wrote:
             | That seems like a slippery slope.
             | 
             | We also require age verification for online gambling, and
             | that hasn't had bad consequences either.
        
       | cebert wrote:
       | The good old it's for the children position.
        
         | captainkrtek wrote:
         | Pick one of:
         | 
         | - National Security
         | 
         | - Protect the kids
        
           | enasterosophes wrote:
           | Don't forget:
           | 
           | - Money launderers
           | 
           | - Contraband distributors
        
             | sgift wrote:
             | Evil people are out to get YOU or YOUR KIDS. Give us
             | access, we protect you!
             | 
             | There. I generalized it. :(
        
               | enasterosophes wrote:
               | Ah, when the powers of the Four Horsemen combine!
        
             | munk-a wrote:
             | You wouldn't steal a car!
        
           | pookha wrote:
           | STAY SAFE!
        
         | barbazoo wrote:
         | Except that in this instance I can actually see the merit but
         | obviously YMMV. I had access to porn since as far back as I can
         | remember. In hindsight I wish something like this had been in
         | place.
        
           | nmz wrote:
           | I also always had access to it but I never saw the harm in
           | it, always knew it was unrealistic, the same way an action
           | movie is.
           | 
           | FWIW Instead of protections that will be eventually
           | breakable, What I would like is more a mandatory disclaimer
           | saying that everything about it is unrealistic and that its
           | pure entertainment.
        
           | snarf21 wrote:
           | Don't forget that this was once considered pornography:
           | https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/woman-ticket-wearing-
           | bikini...
           | 
           | Who will watch the watchers?
        
             | barbazoo wrote:
             | The populace electing lawmakers.
        
             | jstarfish wrote:
             | > Who will watch the watchers?
             | 
             | The voyeurs.
        
           | kredd wrote:
           | Also grew up with unrestricted internet access, I recall
           | everyone in middle/high school sharing LiveLeak links through
           | MSN. Sure, it desensitized us, maybe "survivor bias", but if
           | I quickly think of everyone I know, we've all ended up as
           | semi-functioning adults.
           | 
           | What I'd rather see governments do -- figure out how to solve
           | decreasing attention span in kids. They'll eventually watch
           | porn anyways, but tolerating anything that lasts more than 5
           | minutes is more important.
        
           | ipaddr wrote:
           | If it did, the question is would you still be opposed? Is
           | hiding knowledge better than allowing it? I think without
           | knowledge you might have the opposite opinion
        
           | rglover wrote:
           | Kids will get access if the really want to. I remember
           | downloading "that scene" from American Pie over 1mbps using
           | KaZaa back in 2001.
           | 
           | The only real solution is as others have suggested here:
           | parents being more attentive to what their kids are browsing
           | and making an effort to put in safeguards.
           | 
           | Like the article states, this law is an avalanche for abuse
           | of power (that guaranteed will take place).
        
             | cpncrunch wrote:
             | These days it's even easier with VPN and secure DNS.
        
       | habibur wrote:
       | I had been following C-18 closely. Wanted it to fail.
       | Facebook/Meta bailed out of the market, deciding to not paying
       | anything. The other one was Google which finally settled for
       | paying $100m per year to a single institution which will divide
       | the money among others.
       | 
       | That's still far less than what Canada was asking. 2% of their
       | yearly revenue which was bumped up to 4% after Meta left. But
       | Google's $100m is more like 0.5% of their yearly gross revenue in
       | Canada.
        
         | vibrolax wrote:
         | Yes, and now the government will have another $100m per year to
         | bestow on its favored media companies.
        
       | mohsenari wrote:
       | Growing up in a country with internet censorship, I can tell it
       | is a huge slippery slope not to mention the dangers of having to
       | upload government ID to access adult websites. I hope politicians
       | come to their senses on this.
        
         | goda90 wrote:
         | If they really want to do this without any privacy invasion
         | ulterior motives, then someone needs to push an anonymous
         | credentials scheme. Have the government give people age
         | verification keys. A person uses their key to verify their age
         | on a website, but the website won't know who they are, and the
         | government won't know they accessed said website(outside any
         | other means of tracking internet traffic).
        
           | MzHN wrote:
           | In China they already took a step further. The kids were
           | using their parents' ID card to play games, so those games
           | had to implement face recognition in addition to the ID card.
           | 
           | https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/9/22567029/tencent-china-
           | fac...
        
             | ipaddr wrote:
             | I can see a unique dick registry now.
        
         | SenAnder wrote:
         | > adult websites
         | 
         | Don't buy their framing - _every_ website with user-uploaded
         | content is an  "adult website" in the eyes of this law. If one
         | of your users uploads a single jpeg of porn/hateful political
         | rant/description of self harm, you'll be liable for "not
         | implementing adequate measures to prevent minors from being
         | exposed to pornography/harmful material/incitement to
         | violence".
         | 
         | "Adequate measures" are, of course, a complete loss of
         | anonymity, adding your website to the surveillance state
         | apparatus.
        
         | 99_00 wrote:
         | The bill doesn't say anything about uploading government ID.
         | 
         | It says that it is illegal for a company to to give porn to
         | kids. The company can defend it's self against the charge if
         | they have a "prescribed age-verification method".
        
           | logicchains wrote:
           | >The company can defend it's self against the charge if they
           | have a "prescribed age-verification method".
           | 
           | And the prescribed age-verification method is going to be
           | government ID.
        
             | 99_00 wrote:
             | What do you base that on?
        
               | genocidicbunny wrote:
               | On the basis of what the hell else could you reasonably
               | use to establish someone's age? A copy of their birth
               | certificate?
        
               | retrac wrote:
               | What age verification system exists other than government
               | ID?
               | 
               | The only way we ever verify someone's age for legal
               | purposes, at least here in Canada, is by checking
               | government ID. Birth certificate, driver's permit, photo
               | ID card, health card. They all have your birth date on
               | it. A younger adult may need to show this ID if they look
               | particularly young and want to buy cigarettes or alcohol.
               | 
               | Though relevant to the topic, I would note that the same
               | young adult may need to show ID to buy pornography on DVD
               | or Bluray at a retail store. That's already established
               | and I would think few object to that. It's the security
               | and privacy issues that arise when we start sending this
               | data in a recorded and logged form over the Internet.
               | This remains true whether it's a government ID or a
               | privately issued ID.
        
               | 99_00 wrote:
               | >It's the security and privacy issues that arise when we
               | start sending this data in a recorded and logged form
               | over the Internet.
               | 
               | That's for consumers and distributors to figure out. The
               | lack of trust between consumers and distributors is no
               | reason to continue allowing online porn to be exempt from
               | long established and agreed upon controls.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | I think the security and privacy concerns absolutely are
               | a reason to continue allowing this sort of thing to skate
               | by. At least until the security and privacy concerns can
               | be addressed.
        
               | ipaddr wrote:
               | The crypto, gambling current implementation in place at
               | the moment.
        
             | djaro wrote:
             | How else would you verify age?
             | 
             | If I buy alcohol I also need a "government ID"
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | There are blind, privacy-preserving ways that this can be
               | done. A third party verifies a government ID and issues
               | an age-verification token. The token is passed to the
               | porn site, which has a way to verify the token without
               | talking to the entity that issued the token.
               | 
               | That way the porn site doesn't know who you are (it just
               | knows "this person is old enough to access this
               | content"), and the age verification entity doesn't know
               | what you used the token to access.
               | 
               | Of course, this scheme is more complicated than building
               | an age verification system that involves uploading a
               | government ID (or asking a third party directly to verify
               | someone's age), so ultimately no one gets any privacy or
               | anonymity.
        
           | standardUser wrote:
           | > It says that it is illegal for a company to to give porn to
           | kids.
           | 
           | No it doesn't. It says "makes available sexually explicit
           | material", which means any website or app that allows user-
           | generated content.
        
       | hackan wrote:
       | This is freakin' nuts!! It should not pass, nor it should have
       | reached such state, it is insane!
        
         | twisteriffic wrote:
         | Call your nearest Conservative party MP and complain. They're
         | the ones pushing this.
        
       | xemoka wrote:
       | How the second reading vote went, so you know who to call and
       | email, https://openparliament.ca/votes/44-1/609/
       | 
       | And everything said about it and the status in the house:
       | https://openparliament.ca/bills/44-1/S-210/
        
         | charles_f wrote:
         | What if my MP already voted no? Do you pick random MPs and
         | email them?
        
           | chimeracoder wrote:
           | > What if my MP already voted no? Do you pick random MPs and
           | email them?
           | 
           | Call and tell them you support that decision (and, just as
           | importantly, _why_ ).
           | 
           | They'll be receiving pressure from both sides, and it's
           | important to demonstrate that people continue to care about
           | their opposition.
        
         | charles_f wrote:
         | > If someone is using a VPN, they can go in any country, so it
         | is going to be bypassing some of that
         | 
         | I love how the initial stated goal of the bill is to prevent
         | involuntary access to pornography by children, but they're
         | looking at how to prevent circumvention using VPNs.
        
       | redm wrote:
       | Protrcting privacy worked out so well with these cookie banners,
       | I cant imagine what could go wrong with this...
        
         | 99_00 wrote:
         | If you feel that the company you are getting porn from isn't
         | respecting your privacy and your privacy is important, don't
         | get porn from them.
         | 
         | The bill restricts distribution of porn to kids. It's up to the
         | distributor to figure out how to do that.
        
           | mulmen wrote:
           | No, it isn't. It's about power. There's nothing a Canadian
           | ISP can do to prevent kids from finding porn online. If the
           | Canadian government actually cared about this they wouldn't
           | use (hopelessly ineffective!) ISP level blocking. They would
           | be funding an information campaign on device-level content
           | blockers and be funding a browser add-on and block/allow
           | list.
        
             | 99_00 wrote:
             | Let me make sure I understand your position.
             | 
             | Are you saying that if this bill becomes law, consumption
             | of porn among minors will not decrease?
        
               | starburst wrote:
               | Isn't it obvious it won't? Unless they go full-on China
               | firewall style there will always be website readily
               | available that won't enforce that crap and kids will find
               | them easily.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | Not meaningfully. If a kid wants to find porn, they'll
               | find porn. These sorts of measures are ultimately
               | ineffective at blocking everything, and if there's even
               | one thing that slips through, even if only for a little
               | while, that's enough.
        
               | mulmen wrote:
               | Correct. The Streisand effect suggests it might even
               | increase interest.
        
             | twisteriffic wrote:
             | > If the Canadian government
             | 
             | This bill wasn't introduced by and isn't supported by the
             | current Canadian government. It's supported by the
             | Conservatives, who are the opposition.
        
               | mulmen wrote:
               | Sorry, Americanism, "government" means "the currently
               | elected lawmakers".
        
       | TriangleEdge wrote:
       | I worked at a go kart racing track when I was a teen and the
       | company installed something called "governors" that would limit
       | the speed at which the go karts could go. The governors had a
       | remote control which allowed an operator to selectively limit the
       | speed of each individual go kart. As a 14 year old, if someone
       | did a slight playful bump into another racer, I would govern
       | them. It's the first instance of "power" I had over others.
       | And.., I abused it for the "good".
       | 
       | This being said, I have a belief that if you give someone a
       | button to ruin someones life, some people will push the button
       | with thoughtless abandon.
       | 
       | Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not seeing a democratic pushback
       | mechanism in this bill, and I think this is a disaster. This is
       | also being said in the context that the most voted petition in
       | Canadian history is e-4701, which is a vote of no confidence.
        
         | 99_00 wrote:
         | >This being said, I have a belief that if you give someone a
         | button to ruin someones life, some people will push the button
         | with thoughtless abandon.
         | 
         | What's the button in case of this legislation?
        
           | TriangleEdge wrote:
           | The button is censorship.
        
             | civicduty wrote:
             | It's not censorship, it's age verification. You can still
             | access this stuff if you can prove you're an adult. Same as
             | how children aren't allowed to buy the same material in
             | stores. It's still being published, there's no censorship.
        
               | bccdee wrote:
               | Read the article ( `-` )
               | 
               | > The website blocking provisions are focused on limiting
               | user access and can therefore be applied to websites
               | anywhere in the world with Canadian ISPs required to
               | ensure that the sites are rendered inaccessible. And what
               | about the risk of overblocking? The bill not only
               | envisions the possibility of blocking lawful content or
               | limiting access to those over 18, it expressly permits
               | it. Section 9(5) states that if the court determines that
               | an order is needed, it may have the effect of preventing
               | access to "material other than sexually explicit material
               | made available by the organization" or limiting access to
               | anyone, not just young people. This raises the prospect
               | of full censorship of lawful content under court order
               | based on notices from a government agency.
        
               | 99_00 wrote:
               | Explain how this is censorship.
        
               | rstat1 wrote:
               | You want an explanation about how a law intended to block
               | access to something is censorship?
               | 
               | Really?
        
               | protocolture wrote:
               | Explain how it isnt lmao.
               | 
               | It uses a one drop rule to test websites. Once theres a
               | teensy bit of adult content, and as has been pointed out
               | this covers things like googles unsafe search modes, then
               | the requirement is to block first and ask questions
               | later.
               | 
               | Requiring people to be licensed or verified to access
               | content is as much censorship as blocking it entirely.
               | There are valid reasons to not want to be on a
               | conservative governments list of porn users. You need to
               | expose yourself to risk to access content? Censorship.
        
               | natoliniak wrote:
               | > any site or service that makes sexually explicit
               | materials available
               | 
               | so basically, the internet.
               | 
               | > Canadian ISPs required to ensure that the sites are
               | rendered inaccessible
               | 
               | At best, this is regulatory capture for the current tech
               | giants, at worst, basically ability to hand pick who gets
               | to see what sites. So yes, censorship under the cloak of
               | "age verification" and "protecting kids". We have heard
               | it all before. I'm surprised they didn't somehow stuff
               | the "terrorism" angle in there as well.
        
               | 99_00 wrote:
               | >At best, this is regulatory capture for the current tech
               | giants, at worst, basically ability to hand pick who gets
               | to see what sites.
               | 
               | It hasn't happened with any other censorship bill Canada
               | has passed.
               | 
               | This includes laws on pronoun use:
               | 
               | Canada's gender identity rights Bill C-16 explained
               | 
               | >through a process that would start with a complaint and
               | progress to a proceeding before a human rights tribunal.
               | If the tribunal rules that harassment or discrimination
               | took place, there would typically be an order for
               | monetary and non-monetary remedies. A non-monetary remedy
               | may include sensitivity training, issuing an apology, or
               | even a publication ban, he says.
               | 
               | https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/canadas-gender-
               | identi...
        
               | happyopossum wrote:
               | Requiring an onerous age verification scheme provided by
               | government approved vendors is a lot closer to censorship
               | than it isn't.
               | 
               | Say you post stuff to your own blog, and sometimes use
               | colorful language. A parent decides to report you to the
               | regulatory agency, and now you have 20 days to do
               | _whatever they demand you do_ to remediate, or else your
               | site will be blocked at the ISP level.
        
               | AnthonyMouse wrote:
               | That's not even the half of it.
               | 
               | In order to have age verification, you need identity
               | verification, i.e. tying your identity to your activity.
               | Classic chilling effects. If you're in the closet because
               | you come from a religious family or have a religious
               | boss, can you risk some random site or government
               | bureaucracy getting hacked and outing you? Strong
               | anonymity is essential for free expression.
               | 
               | Then the requirement to identify yourself is friction, so
               | sites will want to avoid it, which can only be
               | accomplished through censorship. Ordinary sites not
               | solely focused on X-rated content will be "moderated"
               | down to the level of children, even when they have adult
               | audiences, because they don't want to be locked behind
               | the porn filter.
               | 
               | Instead of having diverse communities tailored to all
               | different kinds of people and ideas, you bifurcate the
               | world into nerfed risk-averse corporate censorship and
               | explicit smut. The only place you're allowed to have an
               | adult conversation is Pornhub, which is not exactly known
               | for quality intellectual discourse.
        
               | tzs wrote:
               | > In order to have age verification, you need identity
               | verification, i.e. tying your identity to your activity
               | 
               | I don't see any reason age verification _has_ to tie your
               | identity to your activity. It should be possible with
               | modern cryptographic techniques to make a system whereby
               | the service that checks your age doesn 't find out what
               | site the check is for, and that site doesn't find out who
               | you are.
        
               | AnthonyMouse wrote:
               | There are two possibilities.
               | 
               | One is you get a _unique_ token which can be tied back to
               | your identity by someone who compromises the issuing
               | service.
               | 
               | The other is you get a _generic_ token or one that
               | otherwise can 't be tied back to a specific identity, in
               | which case the token leaks and there is no way to trace
               | back who is leaking it, creating a generic bypass of the
               | whole system.
        
           | bonestamp2 wrote:
           | The button is: loss of privacy and anonymity for everyone,
           | even those who the law is not suppose to be targeting.
        
         | citrusybread wrote:
         | does that really shock you though?
         | 
         | e-4701 has less to do with the actual popularity of the parties
         | or the system than it does with the fact that we're 8 years in
         | with a fairly progressive leader. c.f. the annual anti-Trudeau
         | demonstrations that are astroturfed (yellow vests, "freedom
         | convoy 2022", united we roll, etc). This system didn't exist
         | when Harper was PM or anyone before it; and we're hardly at
         | Mulroney level of discontent.
         | 
         | edit: also... the bill in question is opposed by the Liberal
         | party at large (the ones who this petition oppose). it's mainly
         | being pushed by the Conservatives and the Bloc (which makes for
         | an odd union already) as well as the NDP (which pushes it
         | completely into nutty territory of voting patterns). and it was
         | introduced in the Senate - where most Senators do not have
         | party affiliation.
        
         | winter_blue wrote:
         | > the most voted petition in Canadian history is e-4701, which
         | is a vote of no confidence
         | 
         | Most Liberal Party members voted against this bill (S-210 [1]).
         | Support for this bill comes from the remaining parties, ie: (1)
         | the Conservative Party, (2) the NDP (ie Canada's semi-socialist
         | progressive party), and (3) Bloc Quebocois (Quebec's
         | nationalist party).
         | 
         | e-4701 [2] is a petition introduced by a conservative.
         | Conservatives in Canada have a vested interest in pushing out
         | Justin Trudeau, so there are no surprises there.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/votes/44/1/609
         | 
         | [2]
         | https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Peti...
        
         | tzs wrote:
         | > This being said, I have a belief that if you give someone a
         | button to ruin someones life, some people will push the button
         | with thoughtless abandon.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Z...
        
           | halfcat wrote:
           | Also
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
        
             | some_random wrote:
             | SPE was bullshit, Zimbardo directed participants to get the
             | outcome he wanted.
        
       | _whiteCaps_ wrote:
       | My local MP voted Nay - I should send him an email to thank him
       | for that.
       | 
       | https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/votes/44/1/609?view=pro...
        
       | grammers wrote:
       | When will they ever stop? The moment we (=the people) have fought
       | one surveillance law, they (=politicians) simply come up with
       | another. Until we are too tired to fight anymore...
        
         | imchillyb wrote:
         | That's their _politicians_ strategy. It's a time worn political
         | stratagem. Keep pushing the same bill through with a different
         | name, different sponsors, and at a time few are paying
         | attention.
        
           | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
           | You have to win every time, they only need to win once.
        
         | Nasrudith wrote:
         | There has to be some sort of punishment for them to stop.
         | Otherwise they'll just repeat it. If they find themselves
         | consistently primaried or voted out for supporting bills
         | they'll get the message.
        
           | goosedragons wrote:
           | There's no voting this wacko out. The lady who keeps shoving
           | these bills out (or onto other bills) is an unelected senator
           | that is there til she's 75 or does some gross misconduct or
           | something.
        
       | barbazoo wrote:
       | That person obviously knows what they're talking about and are
       | much smarter than me but I still think this here is a weasel
       | thing to say.
       | 
       | > I think the best way to deal with the issue includes education,
       | digital skills, and parental oversight of Internet use including
       | the use of personal filters or blocking tools if desired.
       | 
       | That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous,
       | parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are
       | actually helpful suggestions that would help address the symptom.
       | 
       | Imagine if we suggested that for other problems. "I think the
       | best way to deal with gun violence includes education, gun
       | skills, and parental oversight of gun use including the use of
       | safety mechanisms and gun safes if desired."
       | 
       | I appreciate people spending their time fighting for our rights.
       | But these arguments here weren't very practical in my opinion.
        
         | genocidicbunny wrote:
         | > That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous,
         | parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are
         | actually helpful suggestions that would help address the
         | symptom.
         | 
         | I think that works both for and against your point though. For
         | the very same reason, it's not likely there will ever be a way
         | to reliably solve this technologically. So while we may need
         | some technological measures, we also need to educate parents
         | and kids about this at the same time. Anyone trying to sell a
         | technological 'this will solve the porn problem' solution
         | should be viewed with a very critical eye.
        
           | barbazoo wrote:
           | > For the very same reason, it's not likely there will ever
           | be a way to reliably solve this technologically.
           | 
           | How did you arrive at this? Because I'm optimistic and think
           | that if the government sets the ground rules, porn
           | distributors will find a way to implement it reliably (using
           | technology) and continue delivering porn to their consumers.
           | 
           | We get age checked here in Canada all the time when we buy
           | booze for instance. Why not enforce it here with something
           | like an age verification?
        
             | genocidicbunny wrote:
             | Because the internet does not end at the Canadian border,
             | and porn companies operating from other countries have no
             | reason to implement such systems. And you can't block
             | access to them -- VPNs are trivial to access these days.
             | 
             | > We get age checked here in Canada all the time when we
             | buy booze for instance. Why not enforce it here with
             | something like an age verification?
             | 
             | Because to buy alcohol you have to physically show up at a
             | store with a physical ID that needs to pass as real, and
             | you need to present yourself passably as an adult. Even
             | then, it's not terribly difficult to get around even that
             | -- plenty of high-schoolers are able to reliably get
             | alcohol with cheap fake ID's because they look old enough
             | and the ID is good enough. Online delivery services are
             | also not terribly hard to spoof for a dedicated enough
             | teenager.
        
               | cherioo wrote:
               | Then the next step is to ban VPN. It also doesn't matter
               | that the ban is not 100% effective, as long as it deters
               | majority of the uses.
               | 
               | Arguing whether or not it CAN be blocked feels pointless.
               | The question needs to start from whether it SHOULD be
               | blocked or not.
        
               | mulmen wrote:
               | You said the quiet part out loud. The next step is
               | banning VPNs. For the children of course.
        
             | happyopossum wrote:
             | >Why not enforce it here with something like an age
             | verification?
             | 
             | While I'd love this technical utopia, the Internet is a
             | global construct. All it takes is someone in another
             | country to decide they'd like to prey on kids by selling
             | them porn, and your age verification goes out the window.
             | 
             | To use your analogy, if the government can't even stop
             | _licensed stores_ in fixed physical locations from selling
             | alcohol to kids (because it does happen), then how is one
             | country going to enforce this in a globally distributed,
             | virtual space?
        
             | kelnos wrote:
             | We get carded in the US all the time when we buy booze too,
             | but that system is still flawed: fake IDs often work, store
             | clerks sometimes don't care as much as they should,
             | underage people can sometimes get a random adult passing
             | through to buy booze for them in exchange for 20 bucks,
             | etc.
             | 
             | And it's a lot easier to enforce rules when an interaction
             | is in-person. How can you believe that porn blocking on the
             | internet would ever actually work? (If blocking online
             | TV/movie/music copyright infringement hasn't worked, why
             | would you expect something like this to be successful?) All
             | it takes is for one site to ignore the rules (porn sites
             | based outside of Canada will not care to implement any kind
             | of age verification), and for teens to use a VPN or some
             | other trick to bypass ISP-level blocking.
             | 
             | Then you have to ban or heavily regulate VPNs. At one point
             | do you start realizing that you live in a Chinese-style
             | internet censorship state?
        
             | dotnet00 wrote:
             | This is also missing the glaring fact that dedicated porn
             | distributors are not the only sources of pornographic
             | material. There are plenty of users on social media who
             | post nsfw content or borderline nsfw content.
             | 
             | So next you end up having everyone dox themselves to the
             | site just to 'protect the children'. But then you have
             | things like the fediverse and torrents, where obviously
             | Canada can't really force much. At that point what are you
             | going to do? Cut off global internet access? Start banning
             | everything? Start heavily regulating software development
             | past even what GDPR does?
        
         | wharvle wrote:
         | > That made me actually laugh. Internet access is ubiquitous,
         | parental digital literacy is often low, none of those are
         | actually helpful suggestions that would help address the
         | symptom.
         | 
         | And tools for enforcing any kind of rules on your own are hot
         | garbage. Especially any that a normal person could possibly
         | hope to figure out.
         | 
         | You either have to cut off the 'net entirely (which is less
         | practical with each passing year) or commit to a second job of
         | managing this crap.
         | 
         | I'm not a fan of bills like this, but also something's gonna
         | have to change, or we'll get... bills like this.
         | 
         | My guess is nothing will change, and this sort of thing is
         | what'll happen instead.
        
           | barbazoo wrote:
           | > And tools for enforcing any kind of rules on your own are
           | hot garbage. Especially any that a normal person could
           | possibly hope to figure out.
           | 
           | Online ID check?
        
         | iimblack wrote:
         | I don't think equating kids watching porn with gun violence
         | makes sense. One has a much greater and more permanent effect
         | so the reaction should be stronger. The other isn't, in my
         | opinion, a big deal and the way the government is trying to
         | deal with it has much farther reaching effects than the issue
         | warrants.
        
         | kelnos wrote:
         | I think in the end we should just stop caring so much about
         | this stuff. Yes, educate children, with a frank discussion,
         | about porn and why it can be a problem.
         | 
         | But if a teenager really wants to find porn, they're going to
         | find porn, and... so what? I downloaded low-quality porn JPEGs
         | from BBSes as a teen in the early/mid-90s, and then found so
         | much more porn on the internet in the mid/late-90s, and I
         | turned out ok. Sure, some people end up addicted and/or with
         | unhealthy views on sex and intimacy because of porn, but
         | Draconian blocking schemes (that ultimately don't work) aren't
         | the answer.
         | 
         | Maybe parents should actually _parent_ their children. Install
         | parental controls where possible (which I know are far from
         | perfect), but otherwise, maybe give your kids some measure of
         | trust. This particular thing isn 't like worrying about a child
         | predator luring your kid out to meet in person after finding
         | them online; there's very little harm in a kid seeing some porn
         | and then a parent finding out about it and disciplining the
         | kid, if that's what they want to do. When I broke the rules as
         | a kid, I got TV or Nintendo privileges taken away for a time;
         | parents can take away a teen's internet-connected devices as
         | punishment.
        
       | bawolff wrote:
       | I was originally going to say - wouldn't this be pointless when
       | stuff is hosted elsewhere in the world.
       | 
       | Then i remembered that pornhub is a canadian company. So maybe
       | not as pointless.
        
       | tamimio wrote:
       | "Terrorism" and "protect the kids!" are the most used boogeyman
       | by governments in the last two decades or so to further violate
       | private citizens privacy rights, freedom rights, and further
       | monitoring and censoring communications, and the accusation is
       | ready if you dare to stand against it.
        
         | dmix wrote:
         | John Jonik comic from years ago (2010?)
         | 
         | https://i.imgur.com/BDqwk99.jpg
        
         | matheusmoreira wrote:
         | Yes.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
         | 
         | Making these arguments is evidence of bad faith.
        
         | boh wrote:
         | In the words of Winston Churchill: "Never let a good crisis go
         | to waste".
        
       | rixthefox wrote:
       | The one question I want to ask these government officials is
       | "Where are the parents?"
       | 
       | If underage children are accessing explicit content, it is the
       | parents, not the websites that are at fault. Why are you handing
       | children devices that are not parental locked to only permit
       | applications that have been approved by the parent?
       | 
       | If the parent fails to properly vet the apps they allow their
       | children to use then it is the parent that needs to be
       | questioned. Pushing this requirement onto websites and services
       | is moving the goal posts. If the parents are too technically
       | inept or unwilling to police their children's devices then they
       | should not be handing them to their children.
        
         | Eumenes wrote:
         | Attributing blame to parents for anything in 2023, especially
         | their internet or device usage, is incredibly faux pas.
        
           | rixthefox wrote:
           | I expect people in 2023 to understand parental controls.
        
             | jstarfish wrote:
             | We can't even successfully curtail adverse behavior in the
             | enterprise, with budgetary spends for DLP and
             | communications monitoring measured in the millions.
             | 
             | Parents don't stand a chance. You could be running a
             | fucking kiosk with only Minecraft on it. If it still has an
             | internet connection, kids will be harassed, bullied and
             | solicited.
             | 
             | It's the kids who taught me about the existence and purpose
             | of Finstagram accounts.
             | 
             | The only effective parental control is unplugging them from
             | the internet. But you can't do that, because our lives are
             | inextricable from it now.
        
             | ndriscoll wrote:
             | Which parental controls would, say, allow a kid to visit
             | /r/roblox but not /r/nsfw? Best I can tell, Firefox
             | literally does not have any parental controls built in, and
             | they have a note that extensions to provide it are easily
             | bypassed.
             | 
             | It seems reasonable to me to at least start requiring sites
             | and commercial software vendors to build a system that
             | makes parental controls possible. And if a commercial site
             | like reddit is going to have child focused content like a
             | Roblox forum, then it should be easily separated from porn
             | without requiring parents to set up a MITM proxy with
             | complicated filtering rules.
             | 
             | There are simple privacy and (adult) autonomy preserving
             | ways filtering or access control could be done, but after
             | 30 years it still seems to be an impossible task. Chuck-E-
             | Cheese doesn't have a porn theatre in the back where an
             | employee just asks if you're 18 and accepts any 7 year old
             | saying yes.
        
               | Eumenes wrote:
               | reddit is a big no no for children. its full of porn,
               | politically charged topics, and predators. you can also
               | use wildcards in a dns sinkhole to target keywords
               | perhaps.
        
               | ndriscoll wrote:
               | I don't disagree, but also I don't think it's
               | unreasonable that a site like that which also hosts
               | children's forums is going to have parents wanting
               | regulation.
               | 
               | Pornhub doesn't have a part of the website for minor
               | teenagers or Minecraft. Neopets doesn't have a porn or
               | gore section. Even _4chan_ separates their SFW and NSFW
               | boards onto different sites (though obviously even their
               | SFW boards are not child friendly and don 't pretend to
               | be).
               | 
               | You can't do anything at the DNS level for reddit (short
               | of blocking it all) because it's all one site. And it
               | uses TLS, so you'd need to MITM to do partial filtering,
               | which is beyond the capability of most people. I assume
               | Instagram and tiktok are similar/even harder to filter.
               | 
               | Porn sites at least used to ask for credit cards. Now
               | they just ask yes/no are you 18, and they have children's
               | sections. They should really be working to clean up their
               | act in a privacy/autonomy friendly way (e.g. through
               | labeling and partnering with browsers) before they're
               | forced into these kinds of laws. Or stop targeting
               | children as a market and ban anyone that hints that they
               | are under 18.
        
         | mulmen wrote:
         | Don't get distracted by the red herring. This isn't about
         | protecting kids. It's about power and control.
        
           | apantel wrote:
           | It's _always_ about power and control.
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | _> "Where are the parents?"_
         | 
         | Blaming the government for whatever their child does. It seems
         | most parents, they have outsourced the primary education of
         | their kids to the government and tiktok.
         | 
         | I told one such parent that the government is only in charge of
         | educating your child to get a job, not teaching him basic
         | behavior, values and life lessons, and that parent said "no, I
         | pay taxes, I expect the government to teach him everything".
         | Nuff said.
        
           | dingnuts wrote:
           | Why is this surprising? It's a society where the government
           | is expected to step in and take care of you at every turn,
           | from birth to death. That's what welfare is for, and free
           | health care, and food stamps, government housing, government
           | education, subsidized early child care, all the way to
           | assisted death.
           | 
           | If the goal is to design a society where the government is
           | responsible for everything, why does the population need to
           | be responsible?
        
         | mensetmanusman wrote:
         | Family structure is devolving away from two stable parents, so
         | the state is required to step in.
        
         | amtamt wrote:
         | Where are "proper parental control" implemented?
        
         | nvy wrote:
         | >The one question I want to ask these government officials is
         | "Where are the parents?"
         | 
         | To be clear, this bill originated outside the government. The
         | Canadian Conservative Party do not currently form the
         | government. They are ideologically-driven religious
         | fundamentalists who don't care "where the parents are". For
         | them it's "porn == bad" and "government oversight == bad except
         | if it's on an issue that my ideology happens to align with".
        
         | tzs wrote:
         | Internet is getting pretty easy to find access to. We may be
         | past the point where parents can limit their kids to only
         | accessing the internet through devices that the parents
         | control.
        
       | spacemanspiff01 wrote:
       | What not just have site that are serve explicit things advertise
       | that. Have a large scale Blocklist, and if you serve explicit
       | content, then you need to be on there.
       | 
       | Then have a option when people sign up for internet to block all
       | the IPs associated with explicit stuff.
       | 
       | Adults and parents can choose "yes or no" when they pay for
       | internet and then be done with it.
       | 
       | If children are still getting access, then their either
       | technically savvy, which nothing will stop. Or an adult in their
       | life is allowing unblocked internet.
       | 
       | Just make ip filtering easy and default so that parents can set
       | it up without having to understand anything. It should be a
       | required thing when you request internet access "do you want to
       | filter out explicit content"
       | 
       | Some sites that have dual content may have to have separate IP
       | addresses for non-explicit and explicit/non explicit. But that is
       | relatively easy. And if they do not care, then they will by
       | default end up on explicit list.
        
       | speak_plainly wrote:
       | It was only a matter of time before a certain class of people
       | figured out how to use the internet and subsequently ruin it. I'm
       | more surprised it lasted this long.
        
       | jerlendds wrote:
       | Why are so many media organizations and news outlets quiet on
       | this? I've been searching around for any hits of S-210 and it
       | seems there's remarkably few! If you're Canadian let's spread the
       | word!
        
         | dade_ wrote:
         | Trudeau is subsidizing most of Canadian media. Who knows what
         | Pierre will do, but I'll take a bet that it could be a cost
         | saving measure to stop handouts to 'fake news' MSM.
         | 
         | Justin seems to be aiming for a supernova exit...
         | https://338canada.com/
        
         | adamomada wrote:
         | They get paid 60 million bucks a year (for a decade at least)
         | to stfu about government business
        
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