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

Hi Vittorio,
On 25-Aug-26 21:53, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> 
> 
>> Il 24/08/2026 20:49 CEST Stephen Farrell <[email protected]> ha scritto:
>>   
>> Hi IAB,
>>
>> In the mostly reasonable statement below, I think you (the
>> IAB) have made an implicit assumption that services should
>> be enabled/encouraged to grow to sizes beyond which they
>> can actually do things like moderation, as is largely the
>> case today with pretty much all the mega-commercial services
>> and other too-big entities.

It really doesn't matter what any of us assume. Such services have already grown far beyond the size at which moderation by humans is an option. Moderation by AI is another matter, and raises its own issues.

> 
> 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. But I agree with you that decentralization would do a lot to reduce pressure, especially in term of the effects of potential over-moderation.
> 
>> Do you know of a place where a discussion on this topic might
>> be had? (cc'ing [email protected] in case someone does)
> 
> DINRG?
> 
> By the way, if I have to find a puzzling sentence in this statement, it is this one:
> 
>>> Mandating the creation of unproven new
>>> infrastructure (e.g., third-party age-assurance services)
> 
> Coming from a country - one of several, and one which is not known for cutting-edge Internet technology - that has been having for a decade a public, distributed identity system serving two thirds of the population (~40 million accounts), I would hardly call this "unproven new infrastructure".

Yes. I just checked, and even in NZ (a common law country where registration of the popuation is not a popular idea) about 30% of the population is registered with RealMe [1]. You can bet that if it was a requirement for using social media, this would quickly reach 95%. Whether that would be acceptable is of course a socio-political question, not a technical one.

As it is, of course, the existing age requirement in Australia is widely known to be largely ineffective.

[1] https://www.realme.govt.nz

    Brian

> 
> 
> Ciao,
> --
> Vittorio Bertola | Head of Policy & Innovation, Open-Xchange
> [email protected]
> Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy
>