7 ms·

I have friends with children in the age of 12-14, one of which excessively monitors his son's online behavior. He's shown me results of his monitoring and it p

by fleddr 4y ago

I have friends with children in the age of 12-14, one of which excessively monitors his son's online behavior. He's shown me results of his monitoring and it pretty much ended the debate. Weird old guys contacting his son, excessive cyberbullying, swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech, general addiction and obsession with games and in-game items, the list goes on. Doesn't mean one should intervene all the time, but you should know. I'm not a parent so I don't know at what age you should back off, but I'd say don't do it too early. Your trust is misplaced.

thih9 4y ago
> Your trust is misplaced. This way of approaching the topic feels unhealthy to me. I’d put less focus on “don’t trust your kids”, and more on “make sure your kids have a responsible adult they trust”.
- fleddr 4y ago
  I didn't mean it that way, but even if taken literally "don't trust your kids" is solid advise. Meaning, you cannot trust on them to navigate an online world full of harm and bad agents. It's not the kid being unhealthy, instead its environment.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  I interpreted it as meaning: don't place too muxh trust in the internet to be good.
sneak 4y ago
> Weird old guys contacting his son I'm almost 40 and weird old guys contact me on the internet all the time.
- Majestic121 4y ago
  The difference is that you're not a naive, inexperienced with life and prime target for predators 13 years old boy.
  - hiptobecubic 4y ago
    On the internet, no one knows you're a middle-aged man
    - jdmoreira 4y ago
      Or a dog for that matter ;)
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    If a 13 year old is that inexperienced and much of a target... it's probably time to have a conversation about sexuality and the perils of sharing sexual pictures of oneself with random people on the internet. I swear, most of the "But what if?!"isms boil down to "I don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation with my child to teach them about the world." (Said as the father of a 14 year old)
    - tsol 4y ago
      You should, but at the same time kids are naive and sometimes do things they know they shouldn't
    - Misdicorl 4y ago
      I think you underestimate the problem space. Think of it like security issues where the attackers/researchers are constantly evolving and generating novel ways to hack a system. Your solution is telling fresh out of school developers to be really careful about use after free bugs and spear phishing. Obviously a good start. But it's not enough in a lot of cases.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        The central problem here is trust: either your kid trusts you enough to discuss things with you, or they don't. If that doesn't exist, implementing a technical panopticon is a way to paper over its worst effects, but it's not a solution to the root problem.
rajin444 4y ago
> Your trust is misplaced. Could you provide some explicit examples to what you linked above? > Weird old guys contacting his son This one sounds a little weird, but the rest could just be the kid isn’t following modern western progressive values (and being obsessed with games depending on how much is just being a kid). > swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech I’d need specific examples here, but it sounds like the kid is just rebelling against the current cultural norms. Much like most of us rebelling against conservative norms growing up.
- enumjorge 4y ago
  It’s sad that being against hate speech is considered modern, western and progressive. It seemed like the norm not too long ago.
  - imron 4y ago
    The norm used to be that as bad as hate speech is, bad speech is the most important type of speech to protect because no one tries to ban speech that they like. This was recognized as important because invariably the powers that be change hands and then people with very different rules on what speech is bad get to use the same tools to suppress speech. That is why you had the ACLU defending the rights of nazis to hold rallies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_... which would likely not happen today
    - legacynl 4y ago
      Nowadays they come armed with bodyarmor and rifles so.. it's not completely the same thing.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    it greatly depends on how you define hate speech
  - nl 4y ago
tmaly 4y ago
What does your friend use for monitoring?
- fleddr 4y ago
  Pretty much for all online accounts his son has, he has access. So he regularly logs in and checks activity. He also has some special app to monitor Playstation chat/voice but I don't know what it's called.

by fleddr 4y ago

thih9 4y ago

> Your trust is misplaced. This way of approaching the topic feels unhealthy to me. I’d put less focus on “don’t trust your kids”, and more on “make sure your kids have a responsible adult they trust”.

fleddr 4y ago
I didn't mean it that way, but even if taken literally "don't trust your kids" is solid advise. Meaning, you cannot trust on them to navigate an online world full of harm and bad agents. It's not the kid being unhealthy, instead its environment.
brutusborn 4y ago
I interpreted it as meaning: don't place too muxh trust in the internet to be good.

sneak 4y ago

> Weird old guys contacting his son I'm almost 40 and weird old guys contact me on the internet all the time.

Majestic121 4y ago
The difference is that you're not a naive, inexperienced with life and prime target for predators 13 years old boy.
- hiptobecubic 4y ago
  On the internet, no one knows you're a middle-aged man
  - jdmoreira 4y ago
    Or a dog for that matter ;)
- ethbr0 4y ago
  If a 13 year old is that inexperienced and much of a target... it's probably time to have a conversation about sexuality and the perils of sharing sexual pictures of oneself with random people on the internet. I swear, most of the "But what if?!"isms boil down to "I don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation with my child to teach them about the world." (Said as the father of a 14 year old)
  - tsol 4y ago
    You should, but at the same time kids are naive and sometimes do things they know they shouldn't
  - Misdicorl 4y ago
    I think you underestimate the problem space. Think of it like security issues where the attackers/researchers are constantly evolving and generating novel ways to hack a system. Your solution is telling fresh out of school developers to be really careful about use after free bugs and spear phishing. Obviously a good start. But it's not enough in a lot of cases.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      The central problem here is trust: either your kid trusts you enough to discuss things with you, or they don't. If that doesn't exist, implementing a technical panopticon is a way to paper over its worst effects, but it's not a solution to the root problem.

rajin444 4y ago

> Your trust is misplaced. Could you provide some explicit examples to what you linked above? > Weird old guys contacting his son This one sounds a little weird, but the rest could just be the kid isn’t following modern western progressive values (and being obsessed with games depending on how much is just being a kid). > swearing (fine by me, but still), being drawn to the wrong kind of "friends", hate speech I’d need specific examples here, but it sounds like the kid is just rebelling against the current cultural norms. Much like most of us rebelling against conservative norms growing up.

enumjorge 4y ago
It’s sad that being against hate speech is considered modern, western and progressive. It seemed like the norm not too long ago.
- imron 4y ago
  The norm used to be that as bad as hate speech is, bad speech is the most important type of speech to protect because no one tries to ban speech that they like. This was recognized as important because invariably the powers that be change hands and then people with very different rules on what speech is bad get to use the same tools to suppress speech. That is why you had the ACLU defending the rights of nazis to hold rallies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_... which would likely not happen today
  - legacynl 4y ago
    Nowadays they come armed with bodyarmor and rifles so.. it's not completely the same thing.
- permo-w 4y ago
  it greatly depends on how you define hate speech
- nl 4y ago

tmaly 4y ago

What does your friend use for monitoring?

fleddr 4y ago
Pretty much for all online accounts his son has, he has access. So he regularly logs in and checks activity. He also has some special app to monitor Playstation chat/voice but I don't know what it's called.