joshhansen.net

Category: society

  • Age verification: a moral panic

    Age verification: a moral panic

    Senator Frame, Representatives Berry and Reed,

    I’m writing to oppose the imposition of age verification requirements for online services in the State of Washington.

    The laws before the legislature on this topic and similar laws in other states are not privacy-preserving, but enable surveillance, risk identity theft, and suppress free expression on the internet, which has been the single greatest force for providing support to oppressed groups around the world.

    The present approach of services estimating a user’s age, and requiring them to upload extremely private documents such as driver licenses if they are suspected of being a minor, is a privacy nightmare. Already, the popular Discord chat service has seen driver licenses stolen in an inevitable data breach, putting users at risk of identity theft and other fraud.

    Data breaches are not a question of ‘if’, but rather of ‘when’. It is imperative to reduce the amount of private information required to participate online, because it will eventually be stolen by malicious actors.

    Technologies exist to minimize information exposure while proving facts such as being born after a certain date or being of a minimum age. Known as zero-knowledge proofs, these would use a cryptographic ID issued by the state (a form of driver’s license perhaps) to mathematically prove that the user is 18 or older (for example) without disclosing any additional information.

    This technology exists now and could minimize the information revealed in an age verification procedure. I would much prefer such a privacy-maximizing strategy over what is being proposed currently.

    However, even such a system which discloses only a single bit of information (whether the user is of age or not) imposes serious burdens on the free speech and free association rights guaranteed in both the federal and state constitutions. These essential rights properly apply to all “persons”, not only to adults. Not all residents of the state have identity documents, or likely ever will, shutting them out of essential components of 21st century life. Free expression and assembly rights are too important to be burdened by an ID requirement.

    The place to address the harms of social media and pornography use is in the home; culture, rather than law, is the correct paradigm. Savvy parents are already limiting their kids’ social media use, for example.

    But the state imposing a single approach for all Washingtonians guarantees harm. What’s right for one family will be wrong for another. For example, age verification could limit a gay kid learning about his sexuality.

    We are in a time of moral panic about children’s welfare. Conspiracy theories abound. Age verification laws are part and parcel of this broader freakout. Instead of adding to the madness, let’s sit this one out.

    I’d appreciate hearing about your approach to this important issue.

    Thank you,

    Josh Hansen

    See also:

    Credit: cover image by Basile Morin, titled “Relief of a devil’s head with a large open mouth, golden horns and sharp teeth, at the bottom of a facade of a building facing the sidewalk in Rue du Grand Hospice, Brussels center, Belgium.”

  • The Constitution Is Cool

    The Constitution Is Cool

    Like a neglectful car owner who postpones the next oil change, we don’t talk about the U.S. Constitution enough, don’t listen to its hum and sputters enough, and aren’t doing enough to set in order the problems impairing the long-term functioning of a free government.

    One of the few institutions where people are talking seriously about what’s up with the inner workings of the country’s constitutional engine is the National Constitution Center. Jeffrey Rosen is a national treasure, a gifted diagnostician of our constitutional malaise. I encourage you to listen as he discusses his new book, “The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America”, and then make a million TikToks about it, while simultaneously quitting social media 🙃

    The Pursuit of Liberty: A Conversation with Jeffrey Rosen and Jeffrey Goldberg
    Podcast for The Pursuit of Liberty: A Conversation with Jeffrey Rosen and Jeffrey Goldberg from the National Constitution Center

  • ‘they’ is not a drop-in replacement for ‘he’ and ‘she’, but we could use one

    Singular usage of ‘they’ is well-established in English, going back centuries. Depending on your exposure to it, you may yourself use it regularly, as I happily do. It’s great having a single word that can refer to individuals whose gender is unclear or unspecified.

    However, gender-neutral ‘they’ and its friends ‘them’, ‘their’, and ‘theirs’, do not and likely cannot have the same function as he/him/his/his and she/her/her/hers without major reworking of the language.

    That’s because ‘they’ is also, prominently, the third person plural pronoun. That function is arguably more important syntactically than its usage as a gender-neutral or gender-ambiguous singular pronoun.

    The collision of the desire for ‘they’ to be singular, and the possibility for it to be plural, leads to ambiguities that don’t exist for ‘he’, ‘she’, et al.

    To illustrate the problem, I asked ChatGPT to tell a story about trans woman Sylvia and daughter, Olivia, going on a walk to the grocery store. My prompt indicated use of ‘she/her/etc’ pronouns for Sylvia. I then replaced all uses of ‘she’ that referred to Sylvia with ‘they’, all uses of ‘her’ that referred to Sylvia with ‘them’, etc. See what you think:

    Sylvia and Olivia stepped out of their house on a bright, sunny day. Sylvia had a small list of groceries that they needed to get from the store, and they thought it would be nice to take Olivia along for some fresh air and exercise.

    As they walked towards the store, Olivia chattered away about her day at school and the latest books she had been reading. Sylvia listened attentively, enjoying the sound of their daughter’s voice and the warmth of the sun on their face.

    When they arrived at the store, Sylvia gave Olivia the list and asked her to help them find the items they needed. Olivia eagerly took the list and led her mother through the aisles, pointing out items as they went along.

    As they walked back home, Sylvia felt a sense of contentment wash over them. It was moments like these, they thought, that made all the hard work of being a mother worth it. They felt grateful for the time spent with their daughter and for the simple pleasure of going on a walk together.

    Simply substituting ‘they’/’them’ is not enough; the possibility of plural ‘they’ alone means ambiguities arise from straightforward replacements.

    For example, the first ‘she’ that I replaced with ‘they’ (“groceries that they needed”) could now refer either gender-neutrally to Sylvia, or plurally to Sylvia and Olivia.

    This ambiguity wouldn’t arise if, alternately, we replaced ‘she’ with ‘he’, though of course if there were a son present, for example, a need to disambiguate the male referents would come along with it.

    But the plural sense of ‘they’ in particular strongly constrains singular usage of the pronoun. For ‘he’ and ‘she’, there is no such ambiguity and so they are much more flexible.

    Languages are evolved systems much more than they are products of engineering. It’s easy to think you’ve considered every possible effect of a change when really you haven’t. I would prefer usage of alternative third-person singular pronouns such as ‘zie’ for those whose experience of their own gender doesn’t align with the prevailing categories. Those who adopt ‘they’/’them’ should be aware of the pronoun’s limitations for singular usage. If it’s still adopted, it should be used with care to avoid confusing hearers and readers in contexts where a plural meaning is live in the sentence.

    Of course, real people don’t just replace ‘she’ with ‘they’ without adjusting; additional wording would likely come with the change to clarify who’s meant by it. At least, one would hope, though I’ve seen a few examples of glib replacement with no seeming awareness of how confusing the language was becoming.

    To the degree that it takes added wording and circumlocutions to convey the same meaning as ‘he’ and ‘she’, ‘they’ is a lesser pronoun for singular usage. It simply hasn’t benefited from centuries of language change yet. For that reason, we should adopt a new non-gendered third person singular pronoun instead, working with the language we have, instead of fighting it.