this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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Computer scientists are campaigning against the global march toward age checks online.

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[–] DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Only age check I would accept is on device, if I am 100% the data is encrypted and stored on device.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago

ok, everyone, set your age to be 69. if everyone is 69 no one is 69.

[–] FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (6 children)

I wish parents would just step up and take responsibility for their own children instead of making the rest of society deal with it

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Why has it suddenly become a problem now, 35 years after the advent of the web, and 43 years after the advent of the modern internet? This isn't about kids.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 15 hours ago

It's never about kids.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Because it takes time to realize the effects of new technologies. Doubly so when money is preventing research into those effects. Its not a conspiracy.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

money is preventing research into those effects.

Its not a conspiracy.

Wait…

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 hours ago

Acting in ones own self interest isn't a conspiracy to me but if thats what you want to call it fine.

[–] brillotti@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not the parents, but governments using 'protecting the children' as an excuse to push internet surveillance laws.

[–] FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Yes, I know. I was being facetious lol

[–] osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org 5 points 1 day ago

Meanwhile, said parents are both taking second jobs to afford rent.

[–] lost_faith@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Sadly, not enough do, they prefer someone else be to blame, my gfs eldest daughter does do this with her son. Limited screen time, monitored PC in the family room with the screen visible. When she finally lets him run fully free online he will be mature enough to deal with the bs out there, we hope. If more parents did this the "Protect the Children" fallacy would be taken for what it is, surveillance, data mining, and control.

[–] zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't think parents, most of who have a job and don't keep their kids under surveillance 24/7, can hope to compete with dozens of corporations with whole teams dedicated to making their platform addictive. I view the parental responsibility in the same way I view carbon footprints: a way to shift blame from corporations to individuals. I think this view also leads to individual-focused solutions that surveil people (age checks, etc) rather than systemic ones that regulate corporations.

[–] FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Agreed. They need to direct their ire toward the corporations instead of my (and everyone else's) freedoms.

I said this somewhere else, but I was just being facetious. I think it's funny to turn the conservative mentality against conservative movements lol

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Shortening computer scientists to just scientists feels... Wrong

[–] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 2 points 1 day ago

Probably because a good chunk of "computer scientists" are actually engineers. I say this as a computer scientist in the engineering college of my school

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (4 children)

Most computer scientists have very limited expertise, none of which concerns human society. We might as well survey plumbers for their opinions.

Fun fact: did you know that the average CS major scores worse on reading and writing than a business major?

Imagine that level of cognitive decrepitude.

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Who hurt you lmao

In all seriousness, there should be a control for liberal arts education. Computer Science is a specialized and rigorous field. If it's taught as the sole subject of a person's education, of course they are going to miss a lot compared to a degree in the arts. Meanwhile, as a computer science student at a liberal arts college, I'd wager I can communicate just fine.

Further, this chart feels disingenuous here due to your use of it to seemingly attempt justifying a cause-effect relationship where only correlation exists. Of course Computer Science students perform poorly in reading and writing compared to Philosophy and English majors. People who like reading and writing gravitate towards those majors, so they naturally will have a higher population of good communicators. The real issue is the failure of primary education in its attempt to train the general populace to read and write with any reasonable level of proficiency.

Also, since when are reading and writing the test of a person's cognitive function? Some of the most genuinely intelligent people I know couldn't write a good analytical essay if their life depended on it. Everyone has different strengths; for Computer Scientists, those just happen to be mathematics and deterministic logic instead of interpersonal communication. I don't get where the hate is coming from.

P.S. I'd read the study but the image is too low-res to make out the URL

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I'd wager I can communicate just fine.

Again, for emphasis, computer scientists are on average the least literate, least well read college graduates by quite a margin.

This is an empirical fact.

Interestingly, your first instinct is to deny reality, an attitude that’s totally alien to me, but then again I’m not a conservative.

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

First off, congrats on only reading/responding to the first few sentences of my response, and cherry-picking the least important part to elaborate on.

Second, I will reiterate that this is a completely disingenuous comparison using a chart which has no discernibly legitimate or verifiable source. There are not only 12 majors in the world, so your assertion that "computer scientists are on average the least literate, least well read college graduates by quite a margin" is a misrepresentation of the data, as you should well know.

Third, the majors and specific comparisons made in this chart seem hand-picked to shed Computer Science in a bad light, as every single major it is compared against is necessarily communications-oriented, and the categories of comparison are not representative of the full range of reading and writing skills you claim them to be. Feel free to disprove this, by providing an actual source for your claims other than a grainy chart that doesn't actually back them. Otherwise, quit with the weird superiority complex, especially as someone who is supposedly responsible for educating these "idiots".

Edit: What on earth does political affiliation have to do with any of this? Conservative my ass, I'm a democratic socialist and leaning anarchist the longer I reflect on it.

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Second, I will reiterate that this is a completely disingenuous comparison using a chart which has no discernibly legitimate or verifiable source.

It’s extremely easy to check GRE performance by major. It’s not a secret.

By the way, the illiteracy of CS majors is such a well known problem in academia, did you know many universities don’t even require GRE verbal from CS majors anymore?

Again, denying reality doesn’t change anything. It’s a boring conservative exercise for which I just don’t have the energy.

[–] YoSoySnekBoi@kbin.earth 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Again, denying reality doesn’t change anything. It’s a boring conservative exercise for which I just don’t have the energy.

So be it. I don't know why I'm even debating this in the first place, I have better uses for my time. Have a nice day

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I still don’t even know what you were arguing.

[–] PokerChips@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What about cognitive understanding because those are very specific fields that logically wouldn't be the strong focal points for cs professionals compared to the other professionals in the chats?.

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 20 hours ago

Do you read what you write?

cognitive understanding

as opposed to noncognitive understanding? Wtf are you talking about?

[–] njordomir@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The same could be said of sociologists and plumbers. Sociologists know about people and society, plumbers know about plumbing, and computer scientists know about computers.

With a topic of computers and society, like this one, they each have insight on the situation. I would hope getting them in a room together would lead to solutions less harmful than what's been proposed thus far.

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Questions about how humans live in society are relevant to people who study this sort of thing.

Just because the internet is accessed via computers which are made of plastic which comes from oil doesn’t mean we should consult oil execs on their opinion. Same with computer scientists.

Also, as you can see by the empirical evidence I cited, CS majors are unambiguously some of the dumbest educated mofos walking around. Literally I’d rather ask the plumbers.

[–] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you have a source for

Most computer scientists have very limited expertise, none of which concerns human society

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 22 hours ago

Do I have a source for the fact that computer scientists have no specialized training on topics outside of computer science? (In addition to being apparently illiterate on average, which is what their performance on the GRE implies.)

Fascinating question. Have an upvote.