On 2026-03-11 at 17:16, Jeffrey Walton wrote: > On Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 2:48 PM Stefan Monnier <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > Your comment, as well as the comments of others, is orthogonal to the >> > question: should children be exposed to anything and everything >> > on the Internet? This has no relation to religious beliefs, of >> > which I have none, coming from a secular background. >> >> The problem I see with age verification is the way it shifts the >> discussion. The real problem is in what it takes to be exposed to >> harmful content. By focusing on age-control, we stop discussing the >> responsibility of algorithmic propaganda sites (so-called "social >> media"), even though it's also very harmful to grown ups (actually, to >> society as a whole). > > In the US it is difficult to reign in social media. That is why Europe and > Asia need to take the lead, and why Trump is pushing back so hard on > guardrails from Europe and Asia. > > In the United States, the companies providing social media have first > amendment protections. And then there's that awful 47 U.S.C. § 230 > (a/k/a/ Communications Decency Act of 1996), < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#Debate_on_protections_for_social_media_(2016%E2%80%93present) >>. > > You may have heard of the "26 words that created the internet." Here they > are, straight from Section 230: > > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated > as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another > information content provider. > > That lets companies like Meta and Google off the hook for what their users > say and do.
It also lets Debian host this mailing list, without having to worry about being held liable in court if someone posts something here that is held to be defamatory or infringing or otherwise illegal. Some of the consequences of Section 230 (which, I'll note, is from what I understand the sole remaining piece of the Communications Decency Act which has not been overturned as unconstitutional) can be problematic, I'll agree. But others are foundational and necessary, and many of the relatively few good things remaining about the Internet nowadays would not be practical/viable without it. I dislike seeing Section 230 presented purely as a negative, without acknowledgment of its important or positive aspects/consequences; that reads to me as little if any different from propaganda. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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