Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Tim Chambers (tchambers@indieweb.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 10:37:00 JST Tim Chambers

   • IEEE Spectrum

   I wonder how this might apply to Fediverse development and design.... #IEEE cc: @ieeespectrum
   https://spectrum.ieee.org/online-safety-kids-ieee-standard

   • Embed this notice
     Tim Chambers (tchambers@indieweb.social)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 22:34:30 JST Tim Chambers

     in reply to

     • Jupiter Rowland

     @jupiter_rowland I'm not worried about the age laws. I'm just thinking there might be good ideas for a healthier fediverse around some of these standards, in an appropriate decentralized way folks could opt into.
     Servers could voluntarily adopt some IEEE standards as a differentiator. The fedi might embrace voluntary adoption of child safety standards more readily than centralized platforms who care only about metrics and growth.

   • Embed this notice
     Jupiter Rowland (jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Saturday, 26-Jul-2025 22:34:32 JST Jupiter Rowland

     in reply to

     • IEEE Spectrum
     @Tim Chambers There isn't much that we can do.
     
     These standards, just like the various laws that triggered their creation, suppose that all social networks and social media are
     

     • commercial and corporate with loads of money behind them
     • centralised silos
     • staffed with thousands upon thousands upon thousands of employees in office blocks all around the world

     
     For comparison, Hubzilla probably shows what's the best the Fediverse can do. It has an optional field for new registrations to confirm that they're over a certain age.
     
     However, almost all Hubzilla hubs have a "staff" of exactly one. A hobbyist. Unlike Mastodon servers, Hubzilla hubs don't even have moderators because Hubzilla is all about self-empowerment and self-moderation.
     
     Is that one admin honestly expected to verify the authenticity of the IDs and the birth certificates of newly-registrated users with the authorities in almost 200 different nations?
     
     There used to be a time when such regulations only applied to services from a certain size upward or from a certain revenue upward. But now something that can only be done by big corporations becomes mandatory for tiny hobbyist projects.
     
     Besides, how are these measures supposed to keep 13-year-olds from spinning up their own single-user Fediverse servers on machines at home? If this is supposed to be absolutely, 100% guaranteed to be absolutely, 100% water-tight, the two Hubzilla devs would have to check and verify the identity of everyone who wants set up their own hub before they allow the git-based installer to clone the repository from Framagit onto their servers.
     
     CC: @IEEE Spectrum
     
     #Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #AgeVerification