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Letting a child wander around the Internet without adult supervision is something akin to child neglect. Way too much clickbait, way too much malevolent content

Letting a child wander around the Internet without adult supervision is something akin to child neglect. Way too much clickbait, way too much malevolent content.

koolba 8y ago
Title aside that’s a fair point. One wrong click can lead to months of nightmares for a young child.
anonymfus 8y ago
Is not an age when adult supervision is harmful as a violation of child's rights for privacy lower than age when such content is harmful?
- echotango 8y ago
  Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
  - JackFr 8y ago
    Good one.
PretzelFisch 8y ago
I think there is a level of undo trust to apps called youtube for kids. It sure gives the impression that its filtered and curated.
laumars 8y ago
Its easy to blame the parents but the problem is some of these shock videos are designed to look like innocent kids videos (eg a Peppa Pig clip) and it's not until the "shock" part has already happened that even the adult is aware of the true nature of the content. Sure, there are some which are easily identified by the title or an obviously unofficial animation style, but if all of them were like that then I suspect YouTube would have had an easier job training their AI to detect and remove such content.
- tyfon 8y ago
  Watching Peppa Pig on youtube is pirating anyway so it should not be that hard to remove. And it's very easy to blame the parents, since it is their responsibility. I don't let my kids watch youtube at all.
  - laumars 8y ago
    3 year olds don't understand copyright law and frankly I'm not about to try and explain it to them when I'm sat in a restaurant or queuing to get his hair cut. If watching something on YouTube (on my phone with the sound muted) pacifies my kids which make everyone's experience more tolerable then I wouldn't class that as bad parenting. But I guess the problem with appeasing judgemental individuals is you're damned whatever you do. However for what it's worth, almost everything we watch on YouTube with the kids we do also have on DVD.
    - lopmotr 8y ago
      I think he means the parent should recognize that it's pirated. But regardless, there's a simple feedback loop that surely works to solve this problem. If you personally find your kids watching something you don't want them to, then you're going to stop letting them watch it. If you don't mind, then you might carry on. In either case, they watch what you approve and there's no problem.
      - laumars 8y ago
        You're just reiterating the original point that started this fork. While i agree with you that any responsible parent would do as you described, some of these shock videos aren't obviously shock videos until after the shock event has already happened. This in fact happened to a good friend of mine who is a very responsible parent however right at the end of a cartoon there was a loud scream with a guy wearing a zombie mask. I'm sure it was done as a laugh but it took my friends kid a couple of years to get over it. Before that event happened neither he nor I had ever heard of these kinds of pranks on YouTube before. Just as most other parents wouldn't have. Sure you could blame the parents complacency or whatever but where do you draw the line? What happens if someone causes a scene that scares my kid when we are at a restaurant? Or walking him to school? You can't predicte the actions of every arsehole in communal spaces so blaming this stuff on the parents is more than a little unfair then society owes a little responsibility for its own actions as well. But as I also said before, if these shock videos were just bad knock offs etc that a quick watch when the kids aren't around highlights their content, then I suspect YouTube would have found it easier to train their AI. The problem is some of those videos even get past parent moderation as well (such as the one I described above) and thus don't become apparent as a shock video until the damage has already been done.
rvanmil 8y ago
Agreed. Except it is extremely common for parents to let their kids watch YouTube unsupervised (and when I mention the problems they don’t want to hear it; “nah it’s fine, they won’t click weird stuff...”), so this does beg the question whether YouTube should be responsible too (I think they should). That said, YouTube is banned in our house because of this and Netflix is way superior anyway.
jimmaswell 8y ago
This is odd to hear since that "free roam" idea of letting them wander for miles unsupervised is all the rage on here. I'd say that's much more reckless than letting them use the internet. Unsupervised computer use at a young age was nothing but a positive for me, yet being left unsupervised with an irresponsible neighbor's dumb kids left me with a crushed wrist and internal bruising from a bicycle accident and the beginning of lifelong weight problems from the subsequent aversion to such activity.
- maxsilver 8y ago
  > This is odd to hear since that "free roam" idea of letting them wander for miles unsupervised is all the rage on here. I'd say that's much more reckless than letting them use the internet. I wouldn't. The real world has laws and rules, and people to enforce them. The internet (in all practical situations) is lawless and completly unpoliced. That's not inherently a bad thing (I like having an open internet). But it's not something I'd ever expose a child to. I'd easily let my own child wander the neighborhood unsupervised, long before I'll let my child wander the open internet unsupervised.
- bonniemuffin 8y ago
  I don't know how old you are, but the internet (and before that, BBSs) used to be a much more friendly place than it is today. When I was in high school circa 1996-8, my parents would drop me off to meet random people I had met online, and it was totally no big deal. Nowadays I can't imagine anyone doing that -- the dark corners of the internet have gotten a lot darker over the years.
  - lopmotr 8y ago
    I had similar experiences. Though I did find out later that one of the people I met on BBSs had some history of child porn or sex abuse and met lots of teenage boys that way. He later went to prison for molesting another one. It might be more that parents were more tolerant of risks than that things were safer. Cars didn't have airbags either.
    - 8y ago
DoreenMichele 8y ago
At the risk of being wildly misunderstood: My kids got help to find kid-friendly things but were essentially free to do pretty much as they pleased online. They were given two tongue-in-cheek guidelines: No porn and no learning how to make bombs. I think the key is to assume they are good kids who need some help finding what interests them, not bad kids who need a parent jail keeper preventing them from doing bad things. Having said that, I was fortunate to be stationed in Germany when they were really little with access to only one American TV channel. I had lots of videos for them, not to control content but to give them entertainment. Still, content control was largely baked into the situation. So I am somewhat self conscious that what worked back in the day may not work now and other disclaimers. Edit: I will also add that when they were little, we had one computer in a public space. Individual computers in private spaces came much later.

Letting a child wander around the Internet without adult supervision is something akin to child neglect. Way too much clickbait, way too much malevolent content.

koolba 8y ago

Title aside that’s a fair point. One wrong click can lead to months of nightmares for a young child.

anonymfus 8y ago

Is not an age when adult supervision is harmful as a violation of child's rights for privacy lower than age when such content is harmful?

echotango 8y ago
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
- JackFr 8y ago
  Good one.

PretzelFisch 8y ago

I think there is a level of undo trust to apps called youtube for kids. It sure gives the impression that its filtered and curated.

laumars 8y ago

Its easy to blame the parents but the problem is some of these shock videos are designed to look like innocent kids videos (eg a Peppa Pig clip) and it's not until the "shock" part has already happened that even the adult is aware of the true nature of the content. Sure, there are some which are easily identified by the title or an obviously unofficial animation style, but if all of them were like that then I suspect YouTube would have had an easier job training their AI to detect and remove such content.

tyfon 8y ago
Watching Peppa Pig on youtube is pirating anyway so it should not be that hard to remove. And it's very easy to blame the parents, since it is their responsibility. I don't let my kids watch youtube at all.
- laumars 8y ago
  3 year olds don't understand copyright law and frankly I'm not about to try and explain it to them when I'm sat in a restaurant or queuing to get his hair cut. If watching something on YouTube (on my phone with the sound muted) pacifies my kids which make everyone's experience more tolerable then I wouldn't class that as bad parenting. But I guess the problem with appeasing judgemental individuals is you're damned whatever you do. However for what it's worth, almost everything we watch on YouTube with the kids we do also have on DVD.
  - lopmotr 8y ago
    I think he means the parent should recognize that it's pirated. But regardless, there's a simple feedback loop that surely works to solve this problem. If you personally find your kids watching something you don't want them to, then you're going to stop letting them watch it. If you don't mind, then you might carry on. In either case, they watch what you approve and there's no problem.
    - laumars 8y ago
      You're just reiterating the original point that started this fork. While i agree with you that any responsible parent would do as you described, some of these shock videos aren't obviously shock videos until after the shock event has already happened. This in fact happened to a good friend of mine who is a very responsible parent however right at the end of a cartoon there was a loud scream with a guy wearing a zombie mask. I'm sure it was done as a laugh but it took my friends kid a couple of years to get over it. Before that event happened neither he nor I had ever heard of these kinds of pranks on YouTube before. Just as most other parents wouldn't have. Sure you could blame the parents complacency or whatever but where do you draw the line? What happens if someone causes a scene that scares my kid when we are at a restaurant? Or walking him to school? You can't predicte the actions of every arsehole in communal spaces so blaming this stuff on the parents is more than a little unfair then society owes a little responsibility for its own actions as well. But as I also said before, if these shock videos were just bad knock offs etc that a quick watch when the kids aren't around highlights their content, then I suspect YouTube would have found it easier to train their AI. The problem is some of those videos even get past parent moderation as well (such as the one I described above) and thus don't become apparent as a shock video until the damage has already been done.

rvanmil 8y ago

Agreed. Except it is extremely common for parents to let their kids watch YouTube unsupervised (and when I mention the problems they don’t want to hear it; “nah it’s fine, they won’t click weird stuff...”), so this does beg the question whether YouTube should be responsible too (I think they should). That said, YouTube is banned in our house because of this and Netflix is way superior anyway.

jimmaswell 8y ago

This is odd to hear since that "free roam" idea of letting them wander for miles unsupervised is all the rage on here. I'd say that's much more reckless than letting them use the internet. Unsupervised computer use at a young age was nothing but a positive for me, yet being left unsupervised with an irresponsible neighbor's dumb kids left me with a crushed wrist and internal bruising from a bicycle accident and the beginning of lifelong weight problems from the subsequent aversion to such activity.

maxsilver 8y ago
> This is odd to hear since that "free roam" idea of letting them wander for miles unsupervised is all the rage on here. I'd say that's much more reckless than letting them use the internet. I wouldn't. The real world has laws and rules, and people to enforce them. The internet (in all practical situations) is lawless and completly unpoliced. That's not inherently a bad thing (I like having an open internet). But it's not something I'd ever expose a child to. I'd easily let my own child wander the neighborhood unsupervised, long before I'll let my child wander the open internet unsupervised.
bonniemuffin 8y ago
I don't know how old you are, but the internet (and before that, BBSs) used to be a much more friendly place than it is today. When I was in high school circa 1996-8, my parents would drop me off to meet random people I had met online, and it was totally no big deal. Nowadays I can't imagine anyone doing that -- the dark corners of the internet have gotten a lot darker over the years.
- lopmotr 8y ago
  I had similar experiences. Though I did find out later that one of the people I met on BBSs had some history of child porn or sex abuse and met lots of teenage boys that way. He later went to prison for molesting another one. It might be more that parents were more tolerant of risks than that things were safer. Cars didn't have airbags either.
  - 8y ago

DoreenMichele 8y ago

At the risk of being wildly misunderstood: My kids got help to find kid-friendly things but were essentially free to do pretty much as they pleased online. They were given two tongue-in-cheek guidelines: No porn and no learning how to make bombs. I think the key is to assume they are good kids who need some help finding what interests them, not bad kids who need a parent jail keeper preventing them from doing bad things. Having said that, I was fortunate to be stationed in Germany when they were really little with access to only one American TV channel. I had lots of videos for them, not to control content but to give them entertainment. Still, content control was largely baked into the situation. So I am somewhat self conscious that what worked back in the day may not work now and other disclaimers. Edit: I will also add that when they were little, we had one computer in a public space. Individual computers in private spaces came much later.