4 ms·

Parents should surveil their kids 24/7?

lillecarl 4y ago
Depends on age. Either way it's the parents job to keep their kids safe until they're $legal_age. Sometimes this might mean teaching common sense, sometimes it might mean not exposing your kids to TikTok. It feels like common sense is a dying thing, could it be because we specialize further and further? I "can't cook" for example.
- aaplok 4y ago
  > Either way it's the parents job to keep their kids safe until they're $legal_age. If someone sells alcohol to a minor they can be sued and will likely be in trouble if the child is harmed. It is the seller's responsibility to make sure they don't and it wouldn't enough to have a sign saying "please don't buy if you are a minor". They must actively check. Same thing with firearms. Even the (adult) entertainment industry works like that. Here too tiktok "sold" a product to some kids, and these kids were harmed. Consequently they have some responsibility over that. Why should the IT industry get away with practice that would not be accepted in any other industry? The role of parents is not to keep their kids safe at all costs. If it were then just keeping children locked up until their majority would be optimal parenting. Instead we as a society should thrive to make the world safe for those kids rather than just pretend it's the exclusive responsibility of their parents.
  - popcube 4y ago
    how can they do? everyone give their kid cellphone or iPad now, even they try to control this in early stages, if kids are different to other kids in school, they will bad and try to change themselves. finally, if someone upload videos that design to murder kids, it just will happen.
  - fjfifidorvrf 4y ago
  - yunohn 4y ago
    How do you propose they check? Active Facial recognition? Parents login to devices and give them to their kids, the vast majority do not setup child profiles or enable restrictions.
- viraptor 4y ago
  This is school age. You have to assume that at that point someone they talk to will have access to anything on the internet or will pass any information they want. All the common sense and supervision will not save you from kids interacting, unless you plan to never let them out of the house.
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  Parents are not the ones exposing their children to Tiktok. Most kids go to public school. Hopefully further elaboration is not needed for HackerNews readership. "Teaching common sense" sounds very effective for young children with developing minds notorious for making terrible decisions. If only those parents had thought of it sooner.
  - lillecarl 4y ago
    I don't see any argument here, kids go to public Schools and get shown TikTok. But it's not like TikTok hasn't made headlines for some time now. An engaged parent might talk to their kids about not doing the stupid things they find on TikTok. I'm not saying TikTok is right in promoting harmful things, it's like the town square lunatic on steroids, but at the end of the day kids are going to be exposed to stupid shit through all their life (as you say) so if it's not TikTok it's something else, teach your kids not to choke themselves to death intentionally.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Calling TikTok the town square lunatic is not an apt analogy. The town square lunatic is isolated, can’t reach a lot of people and doesn’t have peoples attention for very long. There are legions of crazies online that have banded together to really push terrible propaganda that very few adults, let alone kids would be able to resist.
jmprspret 4y ago
Watching over your kids is 'surveillance' now? Look, I get not invading the privacy of your 14 year old, but monitoring or restricting what children can see online at 8-9 sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Children shouldn't have unrestricted internet access until at least 13 years old.
- galleywest200 4y ago
  13 seems like an arbitrary number. Why not 16? Or 12? 18, 21?
  - matt-attack 4y ago
    Because it’s entirely common to use articulate cutoffs. It’s considered a felony to have sex with a 17 year old boy on his eve preceding his birthday but it’s A-ok the next morning. Same goes for getting drafted, owning guns, aborting fetuses, and driving cars. A think is wrong one night and because fine the next morning. It’s kind of like the Ship of Theseus.
- matt-attack 4y ago
  Wow unrestricted internet access at 13? I guess I’m an overprotective parent now because I would try to avoid it long after that. Not that I use the MPAA as any sort of authority on parenting but rated R movies are typically prohibited by unaccompanied kids under 18. The internet is way worse than any rated r movie. It’s rated XXX to use the MPAA’s metric.
  - jmprspret 4y ago
    No I agree it should be older than 13. I mean at an absolute floor minimum.

Depends on age. Either way it's the parents job to keep their kids safe until they're $legal_age. Sometimes this might mean teaching common sense, sometimes it might mean not exposing your kids to TikTok. It feels like common sense is a dying thing, could it be because we specialize further and further? I "can't cook" for example.

aaplok 4y ago
> Either way it's the parents job to keep their kids safe until they're $legal_age. If someone sells alcohol to a minor they can be sued and will likely be in trouble if the child is harmed. It is the seller's responsibility to make sure they don't and it wouldn't enough to have a sign saying "please don't buy if you are a minor". They must actively check. Same thing with firearms. Even the (adult) entertainment industry works like that. Here too tiktok "sold" a product to some kids, and these kids were harmed. Consequently they have some responsibility over that. Why should the IT industry get away with practice that would not be accepted in any other industry? The role of parents is not to keep their kids safe at all costs. If it were then just keeping children locked up until their majority would be optimal parenting. Instead we as a society should thrive to make the world safe for those kids rather than just pretend it's the exclusive responsibility of their parents.
- popcube 4y ago
  how can they do? everyone give their kid cellphone or iPad now, even they try to control this in early stages, if kids are different to other kids in school, they will bad and try to change themselves. finally, if someone upload videos that design to murder kids, it just will happen.
- fjfifidorvrf 4y ago
- yunohn 4y ago
  How do you propose they check? Active Facial recognition? Parents login to devices and give them to their kids, the vast majority do not setup child profiles or enable restrictions.
viraptor 4y ago
This is school age. You have to assume that at that point someone they talk to will have access to anything on the internet or will pass any information they want. All the common sense and supervision will not save you from kids interacting, unless you plan to never let them out of the house.
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
Parents are not the ones exposing their children to Tiktok. Most kids go to public school. Hopefully further elaboration is not needed for HackerNews readership. "Teaching common sense" sounds very effective for young children with developing minds notorious for making terrible decisions. If only those parents had thought of it sooner.
- lillecarl 4y ago
  I don't see any argument here, kids go to public Schools and get shown TikTok. But it's not like TikTok hasn't made headlines for some time now. An engaged parent might talk to their kids about not doing the stupid things they find on TikTok. I'm not saying TikTok is right in promoting harmful things, it's like the town square lunatic on steroids, but at the end of the day kids are going to be exposed to stupid shit through all their life (as you say) so if it's not TikTok it's something else, teach your kids not to choke themselves to death intentionally.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Calling TikTok the town square lunatic is not an apt analogy. The town square lunatic is isolated, can’t reach a lot of people and doesn’t have peoples attention for very long. There are legions of crazies online that have banded together to really push terrible propaganda that very few adults, let alone kids would be able to resist.

jmprspret 4y ago

Watching over your kids is 'surveillance' now? Look, I get not invading the privacy of your 14 year old, but monitoring or restricting what children can see online at 8-9 sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Children shouldn't have unrestricted internet access until at least 13 years old.

galleywest200 4y ago
13 seems like an arbitrary number. Why not 16? Or 12? 18, 21?
- matt-attack 4y ago
  Because it’s entirely common to use articulate cutoffs. It’s considered a felony to have sex with a 17 year old boy on his eve preceding his birthday but it’s A-ok the next morning. Same goes for getting drafted, owning guns, aborting fetuses, and driving cars. A think is wrong one night and because fine the next morning. It’s kind of like the Ship of Theseus.
matt-attack 4y ago
Wow unrestricted internet access at 13? I guess I’m an overprotective parent now because I would try to avoid it long after that. Not that I use the MPAA as any sort of authority on parenting but rated R movies are typically prohibited by unaccompanied kids under 18. The internet is way worse than any rated r movie. It’s rated XXX to use the MPAA’s metric.
- jmprspret 4y ago
  No I agree it should be older than 13. I mean at an absolute floor minimum.