Meta's has been listening to some concerns after all especially now after some pressure.
These changes very well could help parents moderate their teens. Meta's head of product says these changes address particular 3 concerns in an Npr interview.
Will this be the end of the complaints and concerns geared towards Instagram, probably not.
I'm personally on the fence about this type of stuff. On one hand, yes I 100% agree about actually keeping kids safer online (not like the politicians "Think of the kids!" type of "safety"). On the other I don't want anyone to have to give up privacy by having to confirm their age by sending some form of verification, whether that picture/video of ID with birth date on it or having an AI that will inevitably get so many false positives judge you, just to access a service online.
I'm 100% in the second camp. Facebook having my ID is a much bigger issue than having my kids' profile be public. I as a parent can ensure my kids' profiles are acceptable, or mark them as private myself. I can't ensure Facebook deletes my ID after verifying my identity.
Yes, kids should be safer online, and that starts at home. Educate parents and kids about how to stay safe, that's as far as it should go.
Choice becomes much, much harder once you listen to accounts about CSAM. Darknet Diaries has a few episodes on this. Some accounts are stomach churning. You can see reasoning of people pushing for the laws
And I agree. Education would go a long way. Much further than some ID verification.
But, see, education makes people smarter. What if people see through the lies of politicians?!
Both politicians and agencies are drooling at the thought of such laws. Because no one answers one simple aspect the people want answered. Who watches the watchers? Who are they accountable to?
Exactly.
People like easy solutions to complex problems. If you don't see the problems, it's easy to assume they don't exist, but what actually happens is that by banning things, you just push them underground, where they fester. Alcohol prohibition created the mafia, which caused so many more problems than alcohol ever did, and it's still around today. Banning drugs seems to have created, or at least strengthened, the drug cartels. I wouldn't be surprised if strict controls around CSAM actually ends up harming more kids as people who would be casual observers end up getting caught up in the worst of it and end up actually harming children. I'm not saying CSAM should be legal or anything like that, I'm just saying the strict censorship of anything close to it is more likely to push someone who is casually interested to go and find it. The more strictly something is controlled, the more valuable it is for the person who controls it.
In other words, it's the Streisand Effect, but for crime.
No, what we need is better education and better (not more) policing.