The FTC's statement specifically says the issue is that it was on by default. Not that it could possibly be turned on by a child.

> The FTC’s $275 million proposed settlement with Epic Games, owner of Fortnite, alleges the company violated the law by collecting personal information from kids under 13 without parental consent and by enabling voice and text chat by default

The law is that <13 can not be voice recorded without parental consent, the way Fortnite broke this was by having it on by default. This does not mean the only way to break this is by having it on by default it's just what Fortnite was doing.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2017/10/...

Right but could it possibly be the case that FTC knows there's no reasonable way to validate ages, and they'd not go after companies for "affirm you're not <13 years of age" so long as they make a reasonable effort to prevent it, or at least not set the default to be in clear violation of the law?

You know, alcohol, weed, and porn companies have managed just fine with user affirmations.

“I am 18+” is a well known joke as well and you can’t get purchased alcohol/weed without ID before it shows up (well, legally).

That the FTC would know there is no reasonable way would be a strong indicator it is indeed not a reasonable law. The default is definitely why Fortnite got fined, and is a reasonable reason to be fined, but it doesn’t make the law somehow effective it just makes Fortnite wrong for intentionally violating the law. I.e. they should have be fined but not because the law protects children effectively rather it’s not up to them to decide if it does on their own.

I don't even know what point you're trying to make now.

Changing the default will certainly reduce the number of kids who are subject to toxic game chat. FTC knows it, I know it, you know it, and Epic knows it.

I hate this word but it's about consent. If an 8 year old enables voice chat they're consenting to the shit that comes out of it. They may not fully understand what they're getting into, but that's a different issue.

perfect is the enemy of good here, the other poster is arguing that because it's not perfect and is easily circumvented that it will have no effect, and, as you said, we all know this isn't true.