How I Feel About Internet "Child Protection" Laws
Most people understand that laws created to protect children from the internet (Like requiring IDs as proof of age) really aren't to protect children at all. And here's how I know.
A couple years ago, I encountered an adult on Instagram who was exclusively harassing children about art they posted. It was extremely homophobic but framed in a way that she knew best. She wanted to be a guide to these children. Show them how to act. It was obviously predatory.
Most people are afraid to say anything because of the risk of being banned from the site or attacked by the person doing the harassing.
I reported the predator's posts, but Instagram refused to remove them. I asked people to help me get rid of this obvious child predator on the internet by reporting the posts. One person even told me I should "drop it" because this predator was a known escalator.
Of course this wasn't the response I was expecting.
I am not what could be called a "proshipper." In fact, I don't ship at all. But given the amount of people I had seen actively going after proshippers to get their fic taken down, going after AO3 for hosting it, and creating insanely viral callout posts, I figured asking them to help me stop an actual child predator would be their dream come true.
Because this person was actively harming children in the fandom I was in, I had to do something. So I confronted her. I told her it was unacceptable to harass kids, that she was a full-grown adult (based on the information in her profile) and she needed to back the fuck off.
The next day, she doxxed me., posted the names and addresses of my parents and my deceased grandmother, and started a harassment campaign that spanned her thirteen instagram accounts, as well as her Facebook.
I immediately reported these posts. But Meta did not think they broke any rules, so my home address remained up on all these accounts. I found a phone number and attempted to call Meta, only to find that they don't take customer service calls.
I am very lucky to be in a position where I work for a large city, and thus know most of the detectives. I did not have the risk of being told to "get over it" or have my case shuffled to the sidelines. I was privileged to be able to call up my detective friend, file a police report, and have him take the reins on this case.
He also ran into roadblocks. His initial request to remove the posts and delete this person's accounts were ignored. It was only after he subpoenaed her information from Meta that the company took action.
By the by, she turned out to be a 50-something living with extremely elderly parents who had a history of domestic dispute calls. What a wonderful person.
In the end, I lost the ability to take people seriously when they say they want to protect children. They don't want to do the bare minimum to help them, and they certainly don't want to help other people. (Unless the person being harassed is in some way famous and helping them might get you a little clout.)
This wasn't the worst possible scenario, but it was a predator, and thankfully lost most (but unfortunately not all) of her accounts. I also unfortunately did not have the resources to press charges, and the posts harassing children technically hadn't YET caused harm. The most anyone could do was delete the posts. Which was still a fight.
What companies want (beyond your data, which is the main reason they lobby for these laws) is to not have the responsibility to moderate dangerous activity on their site. Moderation costs money, and paying someone to moderate removes profit from the bottom line. So laws like CIPA, KOPPA, KOSA, et cetera really do two awesome things for huge corporations--abdicate them from responsibility and funnel sweet, sweet data into their coffers.
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