Yesterday I noted that I have a new study out entitled “Social Networking and Age Verification: Many Hard Questions; No Easy Solutions.” In yesterday’s post, I highlighted the general conclusions of my paper. Today I want to discuss how much of the push for age verification of social networking sites is being driven by unfounded fears and irrational myths about the nature of social networking and the severity of online child abuse.
Indeed, although I set out to write my entire paper about age verification, I ended up spending the first third of the paper just debunking myths about social networking websites and online predation. That’s because I found that this debate is being driven almost entirely by myths and irrational fears.
For a lawyer-in-training, watching the commenters on Slashdot, Digg, and similar techie forums debate fine points of law is a special treat–finally, a group that knows less about that law than I do. Faster than you can type “IANAL,” some dope has posted that the income tax is unconstitutional, that breaking into government computers cannot be lawfully prosecuted, or that one has a good case against Comcast when the cable installer came a day late.
Non-lawyers often treat the law as intuitive; does it seem like this is illegal or improper?, they ask. The answer, of course, frequently justifies their own behavior.
Although I think it make some good points, I think it gets a couple of things wrong. One is the point about “smart” networks. I’ve discussedthatindetailbefore, so I won’t belabor it here. The other thing that seemed off to me is this notion that we’ve got an “exaflood” on its way, and if we don’t have enough bandwidth, the Internet’s architecture won’t be able to “keep up” with the demand.
Don Marti fires back at our own Solveig Singleton and her post on “deconstructionism” and DRM:
“Fiddling with the language” won’t win the DRM debate, but getting the right terms into common use will help keep it from being harder than it has to be.
Framing does work. Archer Daniels Midland’s lobby groups help keep sugar quotas in force in the USA, even though they raise prices for sugar customers and hurt opportunities for mutually beneficial trade with sugar exporters. The winner? The corn syrup industry. Archer Daniels Midland can’t run its high-fructose corn syrup business at a profit unless the government puts heavy-handed restrictions on trade in sugar. And, no, this Decatur, Illinois company is not wasting its money on “deconstruction”.
Though many didn’t think it possible – and even more didn’t notice – the TechLiberationFront team outdid itself yet again at last night’s Alcohol Liberation Front event. The room was buzzing with excitement as the brightest tech policy lights on the . . . um . . . first floor of the Science Club gathered to imbibe and share their latest thinking on . . . um . . . stuff.
More than a few people were trying to place estimates on attendance. It was clear that the number of TLF fans – dare we call them “groupies”? – had at least doubled compared to prior events, possibly tripled, and maybe even quadrupled. Let’s just say TLF begoogled its prior showings. Because that doesn’t really mean anything, but it sounds awfully impressive and kind of techie too.
Joining in the fun – or at least aware of our presence (some of them) – was the D.C. Mobile Monday chapter. D.C. MM had hosted drinks on the second floor which almost made it worthwhile to hear a presentation from Working Assets on how they used text messaging in the last election cycle.
The event ended consistent with the old line, “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.” Some people’s wives were out of town. Others are just red-blooded Americans. You see, Science Club is not far from some finediningestablishments . . . .
Proponents of neutrality regulation have been touting a new study by three economists at the University of Florida on the effects of net neutrality. The study looks at two questions: who would be the winners and losers if broadband service providers offered premium service for content delivery for a fee?, and 2) would the use of such fees increase the incentive of broadband service providers to expand capacity?
The authors conclude first that broadband service providers would benefit, and content providers would be worse off, and second, that there would be no increased incentive for expanding networks. Regulation advocates have grasped this report as confirmation of their case for mandated net neutrality. “The Internet with Net Neutrality is unequivocally better for consumers,” exclaimed SaveTheInternet.com in a post on the report.
As more and more of our consumption comes in the form of bits, how to keep all that data safe becomes a big problem. Obviously, data security is a big issue. But the bigger one, I think, is keeping good backups.
It used to be that only geeks and businesses could keep good backups. To copy everything, you had to buy a second hard drive or a stack of CDs or DVDs (or floppies or cartridges) and spend too much time setting things up and flipping disks. The really hardcore bought tape drives, and those with deep pockets signed up for network-based solutions like Retrospect.
But all at once, the market for the rest of us is heating up. The home user now has some excellent options.
Don’t forget that tonight we’ll be holding the third installment of our wildly successful Alcohol Liberation Front events. We’ll be meeting from 5:30-7 PM at Science Club. We’ll also be recording our contributors pontificating for our new podcast, Tech Policy Weekly. So drop on by and have a drink with your favorite TLF bloggers.
Washington University School of Law professor Neil Richards and George Washington University Law School professor Daniel Solove have an important new law review article out. Privacy’s Other Path: Recovering the Law of Confidentiality is a useful reminder of a dimension of privacy apart from the privacy torts so famously inspired by Warren and Brandeis in their 1890 Harvard Law Review article.
Confidentiality is the idea that you can share information subject to restrictions on further disclosure and use. There are often implicit understandings about how shared or mutually created information should be treated. It’s an important point that’s been conveniently forgotten in government arguments for “data retention,” for example. Confidentiality in the financial services sphere has been eviscerated by the Bank Secrecy Act and the Supreme Court cases that followed it, as well as Smith v. Maryland in the telecommunications context.
Richards and Solove’s work has its awkward turns – they characterize continental Europe’s focus on dignity and America’s focus on liberty as highly individualistic, while suggesting that confidentiality is “based on the protection of relationships.” If these characterizations are relevant at all, confidentiality can be seen just as much as a protection of individuals, the difference being that confidentiality is rooted more deeply in contract. Small matter, though.
In my paper, I note that many state attorneys general (AGs) are threatening legal action against social networking sites unless those sites verify the age of all their users. Already, age verification proposals have been introduced in Connecticut, Georgia and North Carolina. More proposals are likely on the way. AGs and other policy makers argue that age verification is necessary to protect kids from cyber-predators and other online dangers.
This week I will be discussing various aspects of my report in a series of blog entries. Today I will just highlight the major conclusions of my study. Tomorrow I will discuss some of the major myths surrounding social networking and online child abuse. And later this week I will outline some of my reservations about leading age verification schemes.
The general conclusions of my paper are as follows:
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Don’t forget that tonight we’ll be holding the third installment of our 
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
