Today’s links Podcasting “How To Make a Child-Safe TikTok”: My Medium column on a surveillance-free internet. Serializing the first chapter of Red Team Blues: Meet Marty Hench and his “foolish and ungainly and luxurious tour bus.” Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Podcasting “How To Make a Child-Safe TikTok” (permalink) This week on my podcast, I read my recent Medium column, “How To Make a Child-Safe TikTok: Have you tried not spying on kids?” The column was inspired by one of the most bizarre exchanges during the Congressional grilling of TokTok CEO Shou Chew: https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-make-a-child-safe-tiktok-be08fbf94b0d If you heard anything about that hearing, it was likely this. Rep Buddy Carter, Republican of Georgia, demanded to know whether Tiktok used “the phone’s camera to determine whether the content that elicits a pupil dilation should be amplified by the algorithm?” https://www.c-span.org/video/?526609-1/tiktok-ceo-testifies-house-energy-commerce-committee-hearing Chew replied, “We do not collect body, face or voice data to identify our users. We do not.” Carter pressed him, asking “How do you determine what age they are then?” Chew said, “We rely on age-gating as our key age assurance.” Carter assumed tuckercarlsonian expression of perplexity and asked for more information. Chew explained: “It’s when you ask the user what age they are.” Carter was clearly baffled by this. Chew added, “this is a real challenge for our industry because privacy versus age assurance is a really big problem.” Carter interrupted…Pluralistic: Podcasting "How To Make a Child-Safe TikTok"; Serializing the first chapter of Red Team Blues (17 Apr 2023)