Meta Wants Apple and Google to Verify the Age of App Downloaders (msn.com) 27
Meta wants to force Apple and Google to verify the ages of people downloading apps from their app stores, reports the Washington Post — and now Meta's campaign "is picking up momentum" with legislators in the U.S. Congress.
Federal and state lawmakers have recently proposed a raft of measures requiring that platforms such as Meta's Facebook and Instagram block users under a certain age from using their sites. The push has triggered fierce debate over the best way to ascertain how old users are online. Last year Meta threw its support behind legislation that would push those obligations onto app stores rather than individual app providers, like itself, as your regular host and Naomi Nix reported. While some states have considered the plan, it has not gained much traction in Washington.
That could be shifting. Two congressional Republicans are preparing a new age verification bill that places the burden on app stores, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans... The bill would be the first of its kind on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have called for expanding guardrails for children amid concerns about the risks of social media but where political divisions have bogged down talks. The measure would give parents the right to sue an app store if their child was exposed to certain content, such as lewd or sexual material, according to a copy obtained by the Tech Brief. App stores could be protected against legal claims, however, if they took steps to protect children against harms, such as verifying their ages and giving parents the ability to block app downloads.
The article points out that U.S. lawmakers "have the power to set national standards that could override state efforts if they so choose..."
Federal and state lawmakers have recently proposed a raft of measures requiring that platforms such as Meta's Facebook and Instagram block users under a certain age from using their sites. The push has triggered fierce debate over the best way to ascertain how old users are online. Last year Meta threw its support behind legislation that would push those obligations onto app stores rather than individual app providers, like itself, as your regular host and Naomi Nix reported. While some states have considered the plan, it has not gained much traction in Washington.
That could be shifting. Two congressional Republicans are preparing a new age verification bill that places the burden on app stores, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans... The bill would be the first of its kind on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have called for expanding guardrails for children amid concerns about the risks of social media but where political divisions have bogged down talks. The measure would give parents the right to sue an app store if their child was exposed to certain content, such as lewd or sexual material, according to a copy obtained by the Tech Brief. App stores could be protected against legal claims, however, if they took steps to protect children against harms, such as verifying their ages and giving parents the ability to block app downloads.
The article points out that U.S. lawmakers "have the power to set national standards that could override state efforts if they so choose..."
Meta (Score:2)
Can't Meta do this when you are creating an account? Why do Apple or Google need to do this?
Re: (Score:3)
Because fuckerbook wants to push liability on to app stores so it can spy more freely without having to worry about silly ol' things like lawsuits.
It's really stupid, but think of the children, or some shit.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Meta (Score:2)
Sounds redundant (Score:3)
Meta need to do this when being accessed from a browser.
They require an account to view all but basic information.
Meta has to do this verification anyway.
App stores already have age based content restrictions.
Doubly redundant (Score:2)
When the web was first created, the nerd world was asked how to protect kids from the whole internet .
So we did what TV builders did, and provided parental controls. The app store can ask the parental controls if this is a kid.
If it has to be done with no code changes to the controls, a first app could try to open an age-restricted site, to see if the controls kick in. If so, no age-restricted apps. If not, download the asked-for app.
Ditto for sites with both adult and kid content.
Slippery slope (Score:3)
If we push this responsibility for gatekeeping to the app stores, we must consequently restrict the available app stores in order to insure their control of access to the dangerous applications, otherwise children will just install from the alternative app stores.
Re: (Score:3)
And force all operating systems to restrict software to app stores.
with rules that can work like (Score:2)
And force all operating systems to restrict software to app stores.
with rules that can work like
limited fees
limited % for payment systems
must allow apps to have out side payment systems
No Censorship or VERY limited content Censorship
emulators must be allowed that can load roms / images from files with NO trade mark or IP take down allowed.
No 1st party only APIs allowed
No only one app store you must be allowed to install stuff like steam and gog + they must work in full.
Re: (Score:2)
And given Meta platforms can be accessed without an app, it isn't really helping age limit access to Facebook et al.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh it gets better.
States that have passed think of the children porn laws now have to contend with fairly vanilla porn being paywalled essentially (VPN), but the wild west of the darkweb freely accessible to any child who can manage some mild research. Certainly nipped that in the bud.
Action/Reaction. And yet another database to hack, exposing those parents.
It's dumb piled on dumb.
A problem for small/free app stores (Score:1)
If small app stores that aren't in it for the money are burdened with this, it could put them out of business. F-Driod [f-droid.org], I'm looking at you.
Ditto "workaround" stores like Aurora Store [f-droid.org], which "works around" having to have a Google account to get things from Google's Android app store.
half baked (Score:2)
'The article points out that U.S. lawmakers "have the power to set national standards that could override state efforts if they so choose..."'
What about state's rights!?!
What if services are accessed through a web page? A service like Facebook cannot avoid its obligations by pushing them on Apple and Google. Since they can't, why bother? Would work great for PornHub, right? Publish an app, let age verification work there and nowhere else.
And I thought App stores were evil and we needed to get rid of them
Re: (Score:2)
'The article points out that U.S. lawmakers "have the power to set national standards that could override state efforts if they so choose..."'
What about state's rights!?!
While you misplaced the apostrophe, it depends. I think this easily falls within the commerce clause. When it doesn't, occasionally the federal government holds some kind of tangentially related funding hostage. Like for example, for the government to enforce the national minimum age for legal drinking, they withheld 10% of federal highway funding to any state that didn't comply.
Either way, nobody gives a shit about states' rights unless it favors legislation they support. For example, if you're a democrat
Re: (Score:2)
Two congressional Republicans ... (Score:2)
Apart from the fact that Meta et al are web accessible.
So...kill the Apps , or kill the web interface ( on the web you can have ad blocking and tracker blocking).
How would this work in practice? (Score:1)
PG (Score:1)
Lawsuit Protection (Score:2)
This is portrayed as making the app stores "responsible". But it is really about making the app creator immune to legal responsibility. They create a list of requirements that are acceptable to the companies. If they do those things, no one can sue them. And the states can't add additional regulations.
The app stores may go along, but only if they get a similar list of things that will protect them.
You claim you are protecting the "children" or the "public" but you are really protecting the business. Oppo
KYC overload (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Non-Starter (Score:2)
Before Apple and Google will take on the responsibilities of playing the role of age enforcement for
someone else's platform, they'll simply pull the App from their respective app stores and be done with it.
Facebook / Meta has far more to lose here than Apple or Google do. They'll back off of this demand in
a hurry.
GOP abandons principles (Score:2)
It's "personal responsibility" and "state's rights" until a rich person doesn't like it. This is one rich 'person' dumping the problem (of possible legal liability) onto a different rich 'person'. Since governments are demanding Google isn't a monopolistic service, isn't the only answer, demanding Google fix the problem, isn't, well, an answer to the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it's the "won't somebody think of the children" version of demanding that ISPs and tech companies be the content police. Republicans want this, where democrats want this:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]