Another day, another tech company with shoddy security asking for a photo of my driver’s license.
Online chat network Discord joined the growing group of platforms—including Youtube and Roblox—that, in their attempt to make children safer, have ruined their technology.
The conduct of these titans would be incredible if not for the fact they still don’t keep children safe.
YouTube takes a more subtle approach toward age checks, having an AI determine whether an account is a minor based on the viewing habits of the user rather than a guilty until proven over 18 approach.
Users have, of course, tried to trick the AI by making playlists and watching videos filled with tax advice, philosophy, mild profanity and travel guides. This is to counterbalance any viewing of childish content such as animated TV shows, non-shooter video games, bright colors or fun.
YouTube can at any time deem you as below the age of majority, which disables the ability to watch certain videos and prevents seeing or posting any comments on videos. And of course, the only solution once deemed a child is to give YouTube a photo of your driver’s license.
Roblox approaches the issue with the same skill and precision they’ve had at protecting children in the past—little to none.
You can either submit an image of your ID or a biometric scan of your face, which easily can be fudged. The AI detection system used to detect whether a player is an adult has few safeguards to prevent scanning photos. Some Robloxians have even used realistic video games like “Death Stranding 2,” “Ghosts of Yotei” or “Garry’s Mod” to fake the biometric scans that are supposedly keeping them safe and have posted their successes on social media.
Roblox has taken minimal additional action to combat the issues that led to a lawsuit last August by the Louisiana attorney general’s office over their platform being a hotbed for groomers and predators.
But still, you should totally give Roblox your driver’s license so you can chat while playing “Dress to Impress.” Don’t worry about it.
And despite claims that they won’t store your information, this information has been leaked before.
A breach of Discord’s partner 5CA led to over 70,000 users’ IDs being leaked in October, according to a memo by Discord.
But still, your information is definitely safe from hackers and bad actors.
This age-verification swing of recent years is in part caused by a perception that tech companies are not “protecting the kids.” This push for “child safety” has made it so far as being enacted on a national level in multiple U.S. states, and even internationally, such as in the UK and Australia.
The Online Safety Act in the UK has led to some of the most hilarious and disastrous results, with websites ranging from Pinterest to Xbox to Spotify all facing limits.
If you want to listen to the new Bad Bunny album, you better fork over your driving license. If you want to make a cottagecore aesthetic moodboard, you better flash them your government issue. If you want to use the chat function in Minecraft, you better give them your ID.
All of the methods for policing the online traffic of children and teens fail to address the reason they are on these platforms: nowhere else is left.
Children can’t go to the library or park because they’re a 10-minute drive across two freeways. Children can’t go to skating rinks, arcades or bowling alleys because they also aren’t close and they aren’t free. Children can’t even hang out outside of businesses because then they’re “loitering and need to leave.”
Children can’t go anywhere to have fun with people their age, so they move to online spaces. The iPad-baby epidemic isn’t just caused by apathetic parenting, but also a systemic failure by urban designers to accommodate for the need for developing children to socialize.
And after urban designers failed, private companies haven’t picked up the slack either. It’s difficult to provide a service aimed at children and make money.
Services made for children run into the issue of children not having money to spend. It’s difficult to sustainably make profit when you’re providing a free service to people who only get money from their grandparents every December or from mommy’s purse when she isn’t looking.
Children have run out of places to congregate safely, so they go online and get on less safe platforms like Discord or Roblox to find a community instead. The solution is not to arbitrarily restrict usage of a platform to those born after 2008, but to work with platforms to make places where children can be safe and have fun.
It was broken before, but this isn’t the way to fix it.