Re: IAB Statement on Age-Based Restrictions and Online Safety

Hiya,

On 25/08/2026 10:53, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> If I may, I do not think that any online discussion or community
> service could ever survive with zero moderation, and this was the
> case already in the entirely volunteer age of Usenet and BBSs. It is
> just part of running this kind of services. 

I agree that moderation is still required for smaller services
and didn't intend to imply it wasn't. What I would assert though
(without much evidence of course;-) is that moderation is a
tractable problem for smaller services, but is effectively
intractable for mega-services, no matter how much they spend,
and regardless of whether or not they really want to do a good
job. (Is there any research on limits to effective moderation
based on population size?)

> But I agree with you that
> decentralization would do a lot to reduce pressure, especially in
> term of the effects of potential over-moderation.

Indeed. Sets of smaller services can also decide whether to
accept or refuse inputs/connections on a per-service basis,
e.g. based on service reputation. That level of filtering
could perhaps also reduce pressure for things like widespread
per-user age verification.

Cheers,
S.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

wnsEABYIACMWIQQwbnhHy1kPJkWsM6fk2On5l6gz3QUCao149QUDAAAAAAAKCRDk2On5l6gz3SIh
AQCWzO4VgOxUNgF+G1KIi8GHeyy57dtdNAF9xVBXYdVIvAEA/98WQG5z3C7N3i93+Ui78rtLce6p
nEKyrYP41CqaEgA=
=8j2e
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----