Show HN: I built an active community of trans people online

You can use cryptography to perform parts of verification. Specifically, you can use anonymous credentials to prove to a specific website that you have a credential. But that credential must then be issued by some authority that actually examines your physical "proof of age" (driver's license etc.) and issues it to your device.

The problem is that, at least at the moment, simply obtaining a credential like this has a huge chilling effect. You need to mail stuff into some crummy company chosen by the government, which then processes it and takes time. That company might be breached, which identifies you as "a person who is specifically interested in accessing adult content." Many of these problems can theoretically be fixed, but fixing them would have to be the goal of the authorities -- and I suspect it is not.

> Perhaps there's a way to do age verification while minimizing privacy risks? For example, verify their age, give them their credentials, then delete the PII?

I wonder why trusted third parties haven't sprung up around this very concept to the degree of OIDC (it's almost everywhere), you could have companies that allow uniquely identifying people, without having to manage or even get their PII directly.

Service wants to check age or whether user is banned --> they are redirected to some-identity-platform.com where they can deal with any ID documents and other PII --> some-identity-platform.com gives back a token and a UUID, so all the service really needs is a JSON object with the UUID and whether user is of age (if that was in scope).

That service can also let the user granularly choose what information to return: just the UUID, whether they're of age, or specific data like where they're located, actual PII if needed (e.g. auth with govt. site) etc., the UUIDs could also be service specific, so they cannot be cross referenced across different sites in case of leaks.

Things a bit like that exist, for example here's a few random ones:

  https://www.jumio.com/
  https://aws.amazon.com/rekognition/identity-verification/
  https://www.veriff.com/
  https://www.yoti.com/
  https://ondato.com/

I am not an expert either, but I have read that it requires at least 33% of content being "adult". Not sure how much content this page have, and OP should get in contact with an expert (maybe a trans lawyer or sth would be more willing to help such a project?) but i assume that the most important would be to ensure that NSFW content is below 1/3, like twitter (twitter has a huge lot of porn but even more non-porn content)

If you don't do age verification then your need to comply with COPPA etc as you have to assume underage users.

My previous employer used twohat to monitor for content dangerous to underage users, but I don't know if they were any good as it's not my area. It looks like they got bought by Microsoft as twohat.com redirects to a Microsoft product page now

Age verification could be possible without giving out PII e.g. via Zero Knowledge proofs. This would of course need a central authority that is trusted to give out per person digital IDs. Usually that would be the government.

All the porn companies have handled this by simply blocking the sites in the states in question, just forcing people to use VPNs. If you ask for ID verification to see NSFW content they know hardly anyone would provide it, and at the same time it opens you up to a lot of liability in handling extremely sensitive PII.

The whole thing is just moralistic BS anyway. I'm sure most kids can figure out how to use a VPN better than adults.

I will add a tagging system and hide nsfw posts from non-logged-in non-opted-in users this weekend.

Serious question: Is my browser blocking image content or something?

Or is there general consensus that plain body-font sized text is also an NSFW concern?

All you need to sidestep those laws is a little prompt that asks you if you're 18, you don't need to require a login. Unless you're talking about recent US laws.

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Not everyone share that view, and that’s OK.

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I disagree -- this is a good idea, because trans people need a community especially in times like this.

It just needs some attention paid to security.

How is it a bad idea? A community for trans people that's actively used by them because it works for their needs should be considered a bad idea because certain assholes can attack it? The bad there is in the assholes and effort is due in stopping them, not the existence for a specific type of useful community itself.

Parent didn't say anything about complete protection? An LLC does offer some level of protection, albeit mostly liability protection (as implied by the name, Limited Liability Company), and in this case I would be more worried about the need to defend against overzealous law enforcement requests. I'm not sure an LLC really helps much in that context. It's more about being able to afford a good legal team.

If you have time for a web interface, that would probably give some folks a better sense of security.

I just love this, thanks. A good reminder.

Nothing wrong with NSFW content per se, but you cannot justify potentially exposing children to pornographic content as a "coping mechanism", it wouldn't be accepted by any court for sure.

Idt it's defensive, at least not for my trans friends. I'm a gay dude and I think it's just that the queer community is a lot more open about that stuff in general, which contrasts greatly with straight people, especially Americans.

There’s a fine line between ‘open’ and ‘perverted’.

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I'm glad that you're making it a toggle and not banning it outright. This is my biggest gripe with BlueSky at the moment.

well... some cis men do. certainly not all.

> Even (cis) men have "locker room talk," things you wouldn't say when around most women.

Dunno, if you can't say it around women, at all ever, then it probably doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I'd say you share raunchy stuff with people you know to not have a problem with it, and depending on what it is that might be your guy friends more often, sure. But I know men who are way more stuck up than some women I know, not even a contest. If I was in a big group of guys and there was the expressed or implied statement of "okay, since we're amongst heterosexual men only now, we can say certain things we normally can't say" I would just get out.

That's not a statement on the site OP posted, I just disagree that cis men say stuff amongst themselves they wouldn't around women, while homosexual or bisexual men would never do that. There's bigots and people who can actually own what they say anywhere, no group is purely saint or evil.

I think many people in “out groups” identify with that aspect. Like I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about me being human - but if I was abducted by aliens into their society I probably would identify as human a lot more.

About as weird as identifying yourself by which variant of sport you watch, I guess.

This is exactly why it's important to find each other, so we can keep each other safe. There is strength in numbers. If you put up your posters on community notice board and use a non-personal email (I just made a new Gmail account for it) then nobody can be identified, the worst case is someone pulls the poster down.