6 ms·

This would create an impossible moderation burden on any website with user-posted content.

chlodwig 4y ago
Any site that is used by children and has user-posted content should spend enough on moderation to keep that user-posted content safe, and they should charge whatever they need to charge to be able to afford the moderation. Children don't need access to unmoderated, advertising supported forums. If I really trusted my teenager to be able to handle unmoderated user-posted content, I, the parent, could remove the age restrictions on their accounts myself.
- ipnon 4y ago
  Every website is used by children. Law of large numbers, Murphy’s law means if any website is accessible online and children have internet access, eventually a child will visit it. I don’t think we should have books moderate their content for children. The library, parents, teachers and everyone else responsible for children should take the responsibility to restrict these children’s access to material deemed inappropriate. This is how things have worked for countless years, and worked reasonably well. I don’t think controversial shoehorn legislation is going to work any better, but it will come with some downsides.
  - r00fus 4y ago
    This seems relevant - very specific clauses that identify what is children content: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32667665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32667665
  - chlodwig 4y ago
    This is how things have worked for countless years, and worked reasonably well. Things have never worked that way for any other medium. Mass internet access has only been around 15 to 30 years, depending on how you count it and arguably it has had disastrous impact on the well-being and mental health of children. Yes, parents shouldn't be leaving their kids alone with the internet, but: 1. Many parents are going to a bad job at monitoring their kid's internet and if we can create rules that will leave their children less messed up, we should do so. We all pay a price when parents raise messed up kids. 2. Even for strict parents and well meaning children, it is so, so much easier to access poisonous things on the internet than on other mediums. It is hard to keep it out 24/7, it needs to be harder to access bad things. 3. As a strict parent, it sucks being stricter than all the other parents, sucks having to battle with kids about why their peers can do something they can't. Without common norms and common rules, their is an incentive for parents to defect by being the "cool" parent. And the reality of life is that no matter what parents do, teenagers are in large part "raised" by their peers. Teenagers view their peers as a source of authority because they have to live with their peers of the rest of their lives, peers represent the new generation. So what indulgent parents allow their children to do matters for my ability to parent my own child.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > Things have never worked that way for any other medium. they've been working that way for every other medium. Some movies are good for kids, some are full of sex and gore. Parents have the responsibility to keep their kids from watching movies with content they don't want their kids to see. It's the same with TV shows and video games and books and music and plays and puppet shows. All of those mediums exist, and some content will be good for kids and other content is not intended for them. It has always been the job of parents to make sure they aren't sitting in their kids in front of things they don't want them to see/hear. >Many parents are going to a bad job at monitoring their kid's internet... As a strict parent, it sucks being stricter than all the other parents, "Being a parent is hard and some people do it better than others" is not a valid reason to censor content for everyone regardless of their age, or for forcing everyone to hand over personal information and identify themselves to access uncensored content.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        All of your examples are situations where the law in many countries does require content providers to safeguard children from consuming adult content regardless of the intervention of their parents.
        autoexec 4y ago
        I can't speak to non-US countries, but there is no law in the US that requires a bookstore, a used video game store, or a cable TV provider to prevent children from seeing things their parents don't want them exposed to. Neither Comcast or HBO are going around checking IDs before airing Game of Thrones. I'm curious about which countries would require such a thing.
        kube-system 4y ago
        V-CHIP and ratings information in broadcasts are required by law. Comcast and HBO refuse to sell their services to minors, and their products all support parental controls. Brick and mortar stores open to children do not display pornography, and those that do, prohibit entry to children. Providing this material to them is a crime. Some places in the US did have laws regarding ESRB ratings on video games until SCOTUS recently overturned them. etc.
srvmshr 4y ago
Technologically, why should that be a big challenge? In the simplest model, the HTML would require a privacy tag/flag that would need to be matched against an incoming HTTPS request's attribute. If done right, it might actually be seamless, much unlike the GDPR pop-up which needs to be manually cleared.
pitched 4y ago
I would default to calling all content adult-only, to be safe legally. Then, the moderation burden is deciding which ones are child-safe, which is probably a lower hurdle. But still, to be on the safe side legally, I wouldn’t want to mark any user content child-safe. And so we’d end up with the same system we have today.
kube-system 4y ago
If a site cannot moderate their content to a level that is appropriate for children, it is not appropriate for children. Sites for children typically have strict moderation, or more often, do not have user-generated content.
wpietri 4y ago
Why would it be impossible? Twitter for years has allowed people to mark content, including their whole account, with a content warning. Current categories are: Nudity, Violence, Sensitive That puts most of the burden on the poster, and checking the occasional box is not much of a burden. And these days it also acts as a great tagging system for automated ML filters. Combine that with good tools for users to report violations, and the burden seems pretty manageable. And honestly, it might lower site burdens. If people only see what they want to see, it could reduce user friction and incoming reports.
- hgsgm 4y ago

Any site that is used by children and has user-posted content should spend enough on moderation to keep that user-posted content safe, and they should charge whatever they need to charge to be able to afford the moderation. Children don't need access to unmoderated, advertising supported forums. If I really trusted my teenager to be able to handle unmoderated user-posted content, I, the parent, could remove the age restrictions on their accounts myself.

ipnon 4y ago
Every website is used by children. Law of large numbers, Murphy’s law means if any website is accessible online and children have internet access, eventually a child will visit it. I don’t think we should have books moderate their content for children. The library, parents, teachers and everyone else responsible for children should take the responsibility to restrict these children’s access to material deemed inappropriate. This is how things have worked for countless years, and worked reasonably well. I don’t think controversial shoehorn legislation is going to work any better, but it will come with some downsides.
- r00fus 4y ago
  This seems relevant - very specific clauses that identify what is children content: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32667665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32667665
- chlodwig 4y ago
  This is how things have worked for countless years, and worked reasonably well. Things have never worked that way for any other medium. Mass internet access has only been around 15 to 30 years, depending on how you count it and arguably it has had disastrous impact on the well-being and mental health of children. Yes, parents shouldn't be leaving their kids alone with the internet, but: 1. Many parents are going to a bad job at monitoring their kid's internet and if we can create rules that will leave their children less messed up, we should do so. We all pay a price when parents raise messed up kids. 2. Even for strict parents and well meaning children, it is so, so much easier to access poisonous things on the internet than on other mediums. It is hard to keep it out 24/7, it needs to be harder to access bad things. 3. As a strict parent, it sucks being stricter than all the other parents, sucks having to battle with kids about why their peers can do something they can't. Without common norms and common rules, their is an incentive for parents to defect by being the "cool" parent. And the reality of life is that no matter what parents do, teenagers are in large part "raised" by their peers. Teenagers view their peers as a source of authority because they have to live with their peers of the rest of their lives, peers represent the new generation. So what indulgent parents allow their children to do matters for my ability to parent my own child.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Things have never worked that way for any other medium. they've been working that way for every other medium. Some movies are good for kids, some are full of sex and gore. Parents have the responsibility to keep their kids from watching movies with content they don't want their kids to see. It's the same with TV shows and video games and books and music and plays and puppet shows. All of those mediums exist, and some content will be good for kids and other content is not intended for them. It has always been the job of parents to make sure they aren't sitting in their kids in front of things they don't want them to see/hear. >Many parents are going to a bad job at monitoring their kid's internet... As a strict parent, it sucks being stricter than all the other parents, "Being a parent is hard and some people do it better than others" is not a valid reason to censor content for everyone regardless of their age, or for forcing everyone to hand over personal information and identify themselves to access uncensored content.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      All of your examples are situations where the law in many countries does require content providers to safeguard children from consuming adult content regardless of the intervention of their parents.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        I can't speak to non-US countries, but there is no law in the US that requires a bookstore, a used video game store, or a cable TV provider to prevent children from seeing things their parents don't want them exposed to. Neither Comcast or HBO are going around checking IDs before airing Game of Thrones. I'm curious about which countries would require such a thing.
        kube-system 4y ago
        V-CHIP and ratings information in broadcasts are required by law. Comcast and HBO refuse to sell their services to minors, and their products all support parental controls. Brick and mortar stores open to children do not display pornography, and those that do, prohibit entry to children. Providing this material to them is a crime. Some places in the US did have laws regarding ESRB ratings on video games until SCOTUS recently overturned them. etc.

srvmshr 4y ago

Technologically, why should that be a big challenge? In the simplest model, the HTML would require a privacy tag/flag that would need to be matched against an incoming HTTPS request's attribute. If done right, it might actually be seamless, much unlike the GDPR pop-up which needs to be manually cleared.

pitched 4y ago

I would default to calling all content adult-only, to be safe legally. Then, the moderation burden is deciding which ones are child-safe, which is probably a lower hurdle. But still, to be on the safe side legally, I wouldn’t want to mark any user content child-safe. And so we’d end up with the same system we have today.

kube-system 4y ago

If a site cannot moderate their content to a level that is appropriate for children, it is not appropriate for children. Sites for children typically have strict moderation, or more often, do not have user-generated content.

wpietri 4y ago

Why would it be impossible? Twitter for years has allowed people to mark content, including their whole account, with a content warning. Current categories are: Nudity, Violence, Sensitive That puts most of the burden on the poster, and checking the occasional box is not much of a burden. And these days it also acts as a great tagging system for automated ML filters. Combine that with good tools for users to report violations, and the burden seems pretty manageable. And honestly, it might lower site burdens. If people only see what they want to see, it could reduce user friction and incoming reports.

hgsgm 4y ago