The EU kids act and why it should end now.
What is the EU kids act about?
Well, their goal is to literally protect children, so therefore why not limiting the web for them right? Right. Just maybe not like this.
Countries all over the world started to introduce laws for children under a certain age, to limit their access to social media. E.g. for children under 13-15 (depending on the country), they wouldn’t be allowed for an account on social media.
Like, don’t get me wrong, I get the thought of protecting children, I get it, at the same time I’m not a fan of having them around online 24/7 as an adult either. So, that’s basically a win here. And I don’t disagree on the part where it’s primarily to protect minors from social media with all kind of content and whatever – or who – floats around that’s not appropriate for children in the first place.
But…
This does not only sound like they want to put up some rules for children, but also to regulate the internet and its freedom in creativity as a whole. Which does not make fully sense to me.
At this point, there’s no clearification about what exactly counts as an online video game. An MMORPG? Makes sense. A single-player game which an optional online mode? Fair enough. A game that simply gets updated through the internet? I’m not so sure about that. It’s just not clearified yet.
Age verification sounds good on paper but there’re literally failed attemps out there which got hacked successfully. I mean as well thought though the attempt might be, it’s still tech, and therefore will never be unhackable. It’s moreso about what the human does with the stored data.
For example, an app by the European Commission itself which got hacked in under 2 minutes. Awesome. And this is what they have to offer on this approach?
I’m not so sure, I’m willing to put my personal data into their hands.
Hence, yes the age verification, IF they manage a way to keep the data safe, and not have people to cut their way through it in whatever way.
What do have indies to do with this?
Is something I don’t get. Games like Stardew Valley is what they want to cut off? What about platforms like Roblox where adults and children are able to communicate freely. The creator planning on a dating system.. I mean, come on.
But, I highly disagree with them cutting indie games out entirely. Or making private game servers and linux distros illegal. That’s just the way that’s not helping anyone here. Or at least, so far I can’t see the point.
I’ve never played Roblox, but what I’ve heard of it, is enough. On the platform, adults and children can interact with each other freely, which might be a thing on most online games, for sure.
An idea I had earlier was like, how about different instances for each age group? It works for splitting e.g. Europeans from North Americans. Once of age, they could (or are forced to) switch, although this would need a verification process.
Another would be that based on the bank account, they could verify the age as well. Since it’s required to identify yourself when creating a bank account in the first place.
Parents would have to keep the control over the child’s account, of course. And said account would be younger than from an adult, plus the birthday can also be used.
However, it’d require parents to keep an eye out on when the child plays on their phone and isn’t able to randomly buy ingame currency, games or else.
I’m sure the gaming community would have some incredible ideas on this approach. They could even help on this, if they’d let us.
💬 Have you heard of this? What do you think of it?