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> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that

> but forcing the age-verification onto websites is just moronic. Agree. > parents should be able to access a (password protected) setting in any browser that can exclude some types of websites (like porn). How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? Or if that's not the implementation, how would an arbitrary site signal to the browser what the age limit is? Once you move beyond a binary "require parent consent for $domain" flag, you're quickly approaching traditional parental control software. I know I'm not the only one one this site that made a bit of spare $ back in the day helping kids at school go _around_ overbearing parental controls.

generalizations 2y ago
This is the core fallacy I see in proponents of such rules: they think the rules can be enforced.
- convolvatron 2y ago
  I think the parent had an even more important fallacy - that the rules can't even be _stated_. there is an implicit presumption that everyone everywhere agrees on what material is appropriate for what people and at what age.
  - evil-olive 2y ago
    yes, and that presumption is even older than the internet. this is from a 1964 Supreme Court decision [0]: > I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
simion314 2y ago
>How would this work? Pornhub knows they do not want to have trouble so they will respect the browser setting and not serve minors. There could be an institution that can receive complains about websites not using this API and those wbsites can be blocked from the country and fined if possible until they implement the API. We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children, the church could also educated the people instead of just complaining. It is not perfect, soem clever kid can find a way to reset the BIOS/UEFI and install Ubuntu with a fake age on his PC , but most parents can feel safe and we would not have to show our ID card to Pornhub or even Steam because some game shows nipples and nipples are more dangerous in USA then nazi propaganda.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children How about don’t give your children devices until they’re old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact shouldn’t be a privilege.
  - simion314 2y ago
    >How about don’t give your children devices until they’re old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact shouldn’t be a privilege. I had access to a computer since 14, my bother since 10, we are both OK. My solution is to protect us the normal people from the extremists that want the government to protect their children, this solution is making the parent responsible if their children get access to bad websites or apps. But as I said is not 100% perfect. But I agree that you should not give your child a device and at teh same time demand the government to do your job for you.
michaelmior 2y ago
> How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? This isn't really an answer, but the same problem exists with current age verification laws. I think the main difference with traditional parental control software is that the burden would be on the site maintainer to accurately report the appropriateness of their content. If not, they would be legally liable. Of course this introduces the problem that foreign entities not subject to the law are effectively exempt from the requirement.
- stvltvs 2y ago
  Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content (allow this setting to be disabled and locked down in parental controls), then hold websites liable for willfully or negligently mislabeling. Exceptions for good faith efforts to label correctly. Maybe a special label for user generated content that holds companies a bit less liable for it.
  - michaelmior 2y ago
    > Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content This doesn't solve the case for entities not subject to this law. They can just label their content as totally safe and not have to worry about penalties.
  - evil-olive 2y ago
    > Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content "have" is a bit ambiguous here. I assume you actually mean "have the government require"? in other words, if I develop a browser, I could be fined or thrown in jail for not implementing your "default to blocking anything unlabeled" strategy? since implementing a browser is a vast undertaking, what about if I maintained a fork of Chromium or Firefox that simply disabled that check? we had this exact same debate 20ish years ago [0] except it was about the specter of TV piracy and file-sharing. the proposed solution was the same, though - require software that could be used for piracy to incorporate a specific check, and make it illegal to distribute software without that check. it was a terrible idea then, and remains a terrible idea now. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag
readthenotes1 2y ago
I'd say the real issue is that it's difficult to outsource parenting to government agencies without some collateral damage
notatoad 2y ago
i think it would be reasonable to legally require websites to classify themselves. if it's illegal to show porn to minors, all a website should have to do to comply with the law is to send a header saying "this is porn" and leave it up to the browser to decide whether or not the human using the browser can see it or not.
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  1) I disagree with "porn" as a tag. Much too broad. And it should distinguish between educational stuff and entertainment. 2) Look at my earlier post--you don't even need to compel it. Just make browsers in censored mode not able to access sites without classification. You have a kid site, you'll comply. Your subject matter is either not for kids or is something kids aren't going to be interested in, you can ignore it.
squigz 2y ago
> Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site I would think adblock lists are a pretty good example of similar efforts (that is, people classifying large amounts of random sites), so I don't think that would be impossible. Such things don't need to be perfect, either - just good enough. (I don't agree with age verification efforts or even parental control software; just pointing out it's not impossible)
- baby_souffle 2y ago
  > so I don't think that would be impossible. Ok, what bucket(s) does reddit fall into? > Such things don't need to be perfect, either - just good enough. I think we disagree about how "good" this effort will be given that it's a supremely subjective task. Your porn is my sexual education and wellness material... And if it's going to be down to individual parents to make the most appropriate choice for their kids, this whole thing is just regular parenting but with extra steps.
  - squigz 2y ago
    > Ok, what bucket(s) does reddit fall into? Well probably various. What is your point? > it's a supremely subjective task Yes, but this is beside my point. It can be good enough to meet people's subjective needs. All I meant was, solutions like this don't need to perfectly categorize every single site on the Internet to be good enough to be useful, for those who think such things are useful.
LorenPechtel 2y ago
Define a set of things that many will want to censor on. Put it in censor.txt. A browser in censored mode pulls the file for the domain, checks if it contains any tags that it's set to block. It's treated like anything else a web browser might load, cached if possible. In uncensored mode it doesn't matter if it exists, it's not downloaded. Make a standard set of tags and a yes/maybe/no response to them. (Maybe is for a website that has user content that permits such stuff.) I do agree it would be defeated in many cases, though. Tech-ignorant parents aren't going to be very good at stopping tech-savvy kids.

generalizations 2y ago

This is the core fallacy I see in proponents of such rules: they think the rules can be enforced.

convolvatron 2y ago
I think the parent had an even more important fallacy - that the rules can't even be _stated_. there is an implicit presumption that everyone everywhere agrees on what material is appropriate for what people and at what age.
- evil-olive 2y ago
  yes, and that presumption is even older than the internet. this is from a 1964 Supreme Court decision [0]: > I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

simion314 2y ago

>How would this work? Pornhub knows they do not want to have trouble so they will respect the browser setting and not serve minors. There could be an institution that can receive complains about websites not using this API and those wbsites can be blocked from the country and fined if possible until they implement the API. We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children, the church could also educated the people instead of just complaining. It is not perfect, soem clever kid can find a way to reset the BIOS/UEFI and install Ubuntu with a fake age on his PC , but most parents can feel safe and we would not have to show our ID card to Pornhub or even Steam because some game shows nipples and nipples are more dangerous in USA then nazi propaganda.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> We need all mobile and desktop OSes to make it easy for parents to setup accounts for their children How about don’t give your children devices until they’re old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact shouldn’t be a privilege.
- simion314 2y ago
  >How about don’t give your children devices until they’re old enough for them. The kids of the rich are already mostly device free. Attention spans and eye contact shouldn’t be a privilege. I had access to a computer since 14, my bother since 10, we are both OK. My solution is to protect us the normal people from the extremists that want the government to protect their children, this solution is making the parent responsible if their children get access to bad websites or apps. But as I said is not 100% perfect. But I agree that you should not give your child a device and at teh same time demand the government to do your job for you.

michaelmior 2y ago

> How would this work? Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site on the internet just so a guardian can say "yes to drugs, no to porn, no to news, no to weapons..."? This isn't really an answer, but the same problem exists with current age verification laws. I think the main difference with traditional parental control software is that the burden would be on the site maintainer to accurately report the appropriateness of their content. If not, they would be legally liable. Of course this introduces the problem that foreign entities not subject to the law are effectively exempt from the requirement.

stvltvs 2y ago
Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content (allow this setting to be disabled and locked down in parental controls), then hold websites liable for willfully or negligently mislabeling. Exceptions for good faith efforts to label correctly. Maybe a special label for user generated content that holds companies a bit less liable for it.
- michaelmior 2y ago
  > Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content This doesn't solve the case for entities not subject to this law. They can just label their content as totally safe and not have to worry about penalties.
- evil-olive 2y ago
  > Have browsers default block anything that doesn't label their content "have" is a bit ambiguous here. I assume you actually mean "have the government require"? in other words, if I develop a browser, I could be fined or thrown in jail for not implementing your "default to blocking anything unlabeled" strategy? since implementing a browser is a vast undertaking, what about if I maintained a fork of Chromium or Firefox that simply disabled that check? we had this exact same debate 20ish years ago [0] except it was about the specter of TV piracy and file-sharing. the proposed solution was the same, though - require software that could be used for piracy to incorporate a specific check, and make it illegal to distribute software without that check. it was a terrible idea then, and remains a terrible idea now. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag

readthenotes1 2y ago

I'd say the real issue is that it's difficult to outsource parenting to government agencies without some collateral damage

notatoad 2y ago

i think it would be reasonable to legally require websites to classify themselves. if it's illegal to show porn to minors, all a website should have to do to comply with the law is to send a header saying "this is porn" and leave it up to the browser to decide whether or not the human using the browser can see it or not.

LorenPechtel 2y ago
1) I disagree with "porn" as a tag. Much too broad. And it should distinguish between educational stuff and entertainment. 2) Look at my earlier post--you don't even need to compel it. Just make browsers in censored mode not able to access sites without classification. You have a kid site, you'll comply. Your subject matter is either not for kids or is something kids aren't going to be interested in, you can ignore it.

squigz 2y ago

> Who's going to set up the taxonomy / classification tree for every domain/site I would think adblock lists are a pretty good example of similar efforts (that is, people classifying large amounts of random sites), so I don't think that would be impossible. Such things don't need to be perfect, either - just good enough. (I don't agree with age verification efforts or even parental control software; just pointing out it's not impossible)

baby_souffle 2y ago
> so I don't think that would be impossible. Ok, what bucket(s) does reddit fall into? > Such things don't need to be perfect, either - just good enough. I think we disagree about how "good" this effort will be given that it's a supremely subjective task. Your porn is my sexual education and wellness material... And if it's going to be down to individual parents to make the most appropriate choice for their kids, this whole thing is just regular parenting but with extra steps.
- squigz 2y ago
  > Ok, what bucket(s) does reddit fall into? Well probably various. What is your point? > it's a supremely subjective task Yes, but this is beside my point. It can be good enough to meet people's subjective needs. All I meant was, solutions like this don't need to perfectly categorize every single site on the Internet to be good enough to be useful, for those who think such things are useful.

LorenPechtel 2y ago

Define a set of things that many will want to censor on. Put it in censor.txt. A browser in censored mode pulls the file for the domain, checks if it contains any tags that it's set to block. It's treated like anything else a web browser might load, cached if possible. In uncensored mode it doesn't matter if it exists, it's not downloaded. Make a standard set of tags and a yes/maybe/no response to them. (Maybe is for a website that has user content that permits such stuff.) I do agree it would be defeated in many cases, though. Tech-ignorant parents aren't going to be very good at stopping tech-savvy kids.