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I keep coming back to the actual solution being to keep kids off the internet period. If you are under 18, and online without some sort of adult supervision, we

I keep coming back to the actual solution being to keep kids off the internet period. If you are under 18, and online without some sort of adult supervision, we have failed you. Maybe that ship has sailed with so much coursework requiring online access, but I maintain that perhaps we should declare it lost at sea and try again. Because the practical reality here is, like, porn is the big scary word, but the actual danger to kids is *other people.* Other addictions still exist. Removing one vice without solving the underlying systemic problem merely shifts the goalposts, and everyone is up in arms about what a slippery slope that is for good reason. EDIT: Clarity here because I phrased that badly in a hurry: I'm in disfavor of internet access being a requirement for schoolwork, but I failed to set that context initially. If parents trust their kids enough with access, once they've reached a certain point of maturity, that's fine. I'm against technological age gates and I'm against removal of bad content from the net at large. Parents should decide when their kids are ready, and guide them appropriately. I will leave my original remarks unedited so the remaining discussion is sensible. (Sorry!)

sillysaurusx 1y ago
Couldn’t disagree more. I watched my first beheading video at 13, let alone porn. I still remember it, Nick Berg. I think I turned out ok. My online freedom was largely why I became who I am. As for other people being the danger, there’s some truth to that for women. I have a daughter, so this will be a concern. But you know, she won’t die. Everyone goes through trauma. The key here is to make sure she feels comfortable enough to talk to me and to my wife before doing anything (too) stupid. I snuck out of my parents’ house to go see a girl when I was 16. Took my dad’s station wagon. On the way, some car tried to pass me and ended up hitting a big truck on the side. Truck was fine, I was fine, that fella was not. He ended up on the side of the road. Me and trucker just kept going. I still think about that guy a lot, because obviously the correct thing to do would have been to call 911, but I was a dumb 16yo who was out past midnight to go see a girl. Point is, if things went a little differently, I could have been the one who crashed, or even dead. But that doesn’t mean that the girl I was going to go see was somehow a threat to me. It means I was doing something dangerous. Again, this is easy to say as a man. The threat model for women is different. But prohibiting minors from the internet without supervision is totally absurd, and I feel bad for any parent who helicopters their kids like that. Ultimately your kid will grow up and have their own life. Do you want to be remembered as the parent who had them under lock and key in the name of safety, or as a parent who monitored from a distance and occasionally let them do stupid things so that they could learn from it? For me, the latter is far more preferable.
- zeta0134 1y ago
  I'm kindof horrified that your immediate response is to defend a beheading video as something a 13 year old should watch. As a normal thing. What the actual hell. Like, the rest of your argument has some good points, but you led with something guaranteed to offend. I was not clear enough, so I will try again. If parents do not want their kids to access "bad content", whatever that means to them, then they need to supervise the access. If parents are okay with their kids accessing bad content, then that choice is theirs to make. The internet itself should not be the gatekeeper here, neither should the government, but the parents do need to actually parent. I do not believe technology should be doing the parenting. And BECAUSE I believe this is a choice the PARENT should make, I also do not believe unfettered access to the internet should be a requirement for students. As long as that is a requirement, the parents aren't in control, and we get draconian laws trying to "fix the internet." You have wildly misinterpreted my intent, and admittedly it is because my opening sentence was poorly phrased.
  - sillysaurusx 1y ago
    I largely agree with your second paragraph, but the solution isn’t necessarily to give parents control, but rather to stop draconian laws from passing. As far as the beheading video, why be offended? Yes, I think teenagers will be naturally curious, and that gore videos will be on their watch list along with porn. It was true for most of my friends, and admitting this truth rather than running from it is how you deal with it. It’s not "defending" when it happens as a matter of course. Again, you’re basically arguing for draconian powers not for the government but for the parents. To me, this is two sides of the same coin; whether the jailer is the government or the parent, when I was a teen both would have been the enemy. I personally don’t want my child to think of me as the enemy. Other parents can make different choices. And yes, I think it was fine for me to watch that video when I was 13.
    - sillysaurusx 1y ago
      I wanted to leave a bit more context. The reason I think it was fine to watch the video at 13 is because it was major news at the time. The Iraq war was just starting up, and I believe Nick Berg was one of the first troops taken prisoner and executed. I wanted to see for myself what other countries were doing to our soldiers. As I got older, I realized it wasn’t so clear cut as good vs evil, and that we were often the evil ones. (Regardless of the reason, blowing up someone’s home with some of their family inside is evil, and there were civilian casualties in the Iraq war.) But at the time, it was a major formative life experience for me. It galvanized me into wanting to join the marines, which of course would have been a huge mistake. So you could argue that me watching the video was harmful in that sense, since it influenced me pretty heavily. I take a different perspective. Freedom is about freedom to view something and decide for yourself how you feel about it. It’s easy to forget how mature you felt at 13. If at the time you tried to stop me from watching that video, I would have been furious, and said that you’re preventing me from seeing what’s really going on in the world. Now, I personally think that that freedom also extrapolates to the rest of the evils viewable on the internet. I watched a lot of cartel videos, some war footage, and so on. You can argue that 13 is way too young, and maybe I’ll even agree once my daughter reaches that age. But if a kid is genuinely curious to see what reality is actually like, I personally find it a little repulsive that we as a society think it’s so awful, and that we say children should be babied for their own protection. If you tried that with me at 13, I’d have given you the finger and figured out a way around whatever security measures you put into place. In my opinion, the correct thing to do is for a kid to have a close connection with their parents, to tell them that they’re curious, and for the parents to explain the reasons why the kid might not want to see it. (This also forces you to explain why it’s so horrible. Surgical procedure videos are equally graphic, but we don’t call them horrible.) And if at the end of that process, your kid wants to watch those videos, be it porn or gore, you should seriously consider their request. Your options are to be supportive or for them to do it in secret. Thinking you’ll stop them is wishful at best. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t personally know what I’ll do when Kess comes to me or her mom asking about that. But "forbid it in all circumstances" is in my opinion an extreme overreaction given what’s at stake. At worst, it will cause them some emotional trauma. It arguably did for me. It’s good to protect children from trauma. But if they genuinely want to go through it, who are we to stop them and say we know better? Let them figure it out. We’re their parents. It’s easy to believe we do know better. And in most cases we probably do. But at the end of the day, by forbidding this content, you’re waging war on your child’s curiosity. I personally find that as horrifying as it probably felt hearing me say that there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s fine to disagree. If this comes up the future, I’ll point back to this comment as my canonical response on the topic. If after reading it people still want to be offended, then okay. But I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your kid. I’m saying, you’re fighting a losing battle if you think you can stop them.
Hizonner 1y ago
> I keep coming back to the actual solution being to keep kids off the internet period. W T F ? ? ? > Because the practical reality here is, like, porn is the big scary word, but the actual danger to kids is other people. Bad news, Champ. Other people also exist off of the Internet. They always have. The world is not entirely safe. And that does not mean children shouldn't get to be part of the world. The main problem here is panicky idiocy.
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
While there are absolutely issues with kids coming across things they shouldn’t, I’d argue an equally large issue is parents buying into the delusion that they can keep their children contained within a bubble of perfect innocence until adulthood. That idea has never really been realistic short of keeping them isolated from society until 16-18 (which most would consider abuse), but it’s not even slightly possible today with how readily available information has become. It’s an inevitability that they will learn about the topics you’ve been avoiding and take on external influences you may not approve of. Now to be clear, I’m not advocating for letting kids run wild on the internet with no guardrails, especially earlier on. Guardrails are important, but it’s even more important in my opinion to try to stay ahead of what they may encounter by talking with them about those things so when they eventually run across it, they’re not flying blind and might even seek your guidance about the incident since they know you’re not going to get angry about it. That’s much more likely to bring positive outcomes than if they ran into these things without parental support.
- zeta0134 1y ago
  Yeah, I'm nodding in agreement here for the most part. I didn't mean to suggest crazy helicopter parenting surveillance nonsense, just ... the idea that giving young minds the whole dang net and letting them loose without any guidance or oversight is kinda dangerous. Growing up we always had an adult in the computer lab, or the library, where most computer coursework was being taught. I had "the real internet" right there, but if I actually got into trouble, someone was bound to notice, and I could always ask for help. The point I was actually trying to make is just this: if the parent's goal is to block content, then the simplest thing to do is to be there when the child is surfing the net. That shouldn't take crazy technological measures. At some point, most parents realize their kids are mature enough to handle things and back off, but the parent should be making that call for their own kid. I don't think the government should be doing it on their behalf. If the government believes the internet is dangerous for young minds, then it should focus on the thing it can control: educational curriculum, primarily. Trying to "fix the internet" is a fool's errand.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  You know what helps? Proper sex ed around the age of 12-14. That's what we do in Holland. And why we had one of the lowest teenage pregnancy ratings. Unfortunately the conservatives are complaining about this more and more (the Lentekriebels program) because they mention that men can also love men. This porn filter is also from their corner.
bigbacaloa 1y ago
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sillysaurusx 1y ago

Couldn’t disagree more. I watched my first beheading video at 13, let alone porn. I still remember it, Nick Berg. I think I turned out ok. My online freedom was largely why I became who I am. As for other people being the danger, there’s some truth to that for women. I have a daughter, so this will be a concern. But you know, she won’t die. Everyone goes through trauma. The key here is to make sure she feels comfortable enough to talk to me and to my wife before doing anything (too) stupid. I snuck out of my parents’ house to go see a girl when I was 16. Took my dad’s station wagon. On the way, some car tried to pass me and ended up hitting a big truck on the side. Truck was fine, I was fine, that fella was not. He ended up on the side of the road. Me and trucker just kept going. I still think about that guy a lot, because obviously the correct thing to do would have been to call 911, but I was a dumb 16yo who was out past midnight to go see a girl. Point is, if things went a little differently, I could have been the one who crashed, or even dead. But that doesn’t mean that the girl I was going to go see was somehow a threat to me. It means I was doing something dangerous. Again, this is easy to say as a man. The threat model for women is different. But prohibiting minors from the internet without supervision is totally absurd, and I feel bad for any parent who helicopters their kids like that. Ultimately your kid will grow up and have their own life. Do you want to be remembered as the parent who had them under lock and key in the name of safety, or as a parent who monitored from a distance and occasionally let them do stupid things so that they could learn from it? For me, the latter is far more preferable.

zeta0134 1y ago
I'm kindof horrified that your immediate response is to defend a beheading video as something a 13 year old should watch. As a normal thing. What the actual hell. Like, the rest of your argument has some good points, but you led with something guaranteed to offend. I was not clear enough, so I will try again. If parents do not want their kids to access "bad content", whatever that means to them, then they need to supervise the access. If parents are okay with their kids accessing bad content, then that choice is theirs to make. The internet itself should not be the gatekeeper here, neither should the government, but the parents do need to actually parent. I do not believe technology should be doing the parenting. And BECAUSE I believe this is a choice the PARENT should make, I also do not believe unfettered access to the internet should be a requirement for students. As long as that is a requirement, the parents aren't in control, and we get draconian laws trying to "fix the internet." You have wildly misinterpreted my intent, and admittedly it is because my opening sentence was poorly phrased.
- sillysaurusx 1y ago
  I largely agree with your second paragraph, but the solution isn’t necessarily to give parents control, but rather to stop draconian laws from passing. As far as the beheading video, why be offended? Yes, I think teenagers will be naturally curious, and that gore videos will be on their watch list along with porn. It was true for most of my friends, and admitting this truth rather than running from it is how you deal with it. It’s not "defending" when it happens as a matter of course. Again, you’re basically arguing for draconian powers not for the government but for the parents. To me, this is two sides of the same coin; whether the jailer is the government or the parent, when I was a teen both would have been the enemy. I personally don’t want my child to think of me as the enemy. Other parents can make different choices. And yes, I think it was fine for me to watch that video when I was 13.
  - sillysaurusx 1y ago
    I wanted to leave a bit more context. The reason I think it was fine to watch the video at 13 is because it was major news at the time. The Iraq war was just starting up, and I believe Nick Berg was one of the first troops taken prisoner and executed. I wanted to see for myself what other countries were doing to our soldiers. As I got older, I realized it wasn’t so clear cut as good vs evil, and that we were often the evil ones. (Regardless of the reason, blowing up someone’s home with some of their family inside is evil, and there were civilian casualties in the Iraq war.) But at the time, it was a major formative life experience for me. It galvanized me into wanting to join the marines, which of course would have been a huge mistake. So you could argue that me watching the video was harmful in that sense, since it influenced me pretty heavily. I take a different perspective. Freedom is about freedom to view something and decide for yourself how you feel about it. It’s easy to forget how mature you felt at 13. If at the time you tried to stop me from watching that video, I would have been furious, and said that you’re preventing me from seeing what’s really going on in the world. Now, I personally think that that freedom also extrapolates to the rest of the evils viewable on the internet. I watched a lot of cartel videos, some war footage, and so on. You can argue that 13 is way too young, and maybe I’ll even agree once my daughter reaches that age. But if a kid is genuinely curious to see what reality is actually like, I personally find it a little repulsive that we as a society think it’s so awful, and that we say children should be babied for their own protection. If you tried that with me at 13, I’d have given you the finger and figured out a way around whatever security measures you put into place. In my opinion, the correct thing to do is for a kid to have a close connection with their parents, to tell them that they’re curious, and for the parents to explain the reasons why the kid might not want to see it. (This also forces you to explain why it’s so horrible. Surgical procedure videos are equally graphic, but we don’t call them horrible.) And if at the end of that process, your kid wants to watch those videos, be it porn or gore, you should seriously consider their request. Your options are to be supportive or for them to do it in secret. Thinking you’ll stop them is wishful at best. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t personally know what I’ll do when Kess comes to me or her mom asking about that. But "forbid it in all circumstances" is in my opinion an extreme overreaction given what’s at stake. At worst, it will cause them some emotional trauma. It arguably did for me. It’s good to protect children from trauma. But if they genuinely want to go through it, who are we to stop them and say we know better? Let them figure it out. We’re their parents. It’s easy to believe we do know better. And in most cases we probably do. But at the end of the day, by forbidding this content, you’re waging war on your child’s curiosity. I personally find that as horrifying as it probably felt hearing me say that there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s fine to disagree. If this comes up the future, I’ll point back to this comment as my canonical response on the topic. If after reading it people still want to be offended, then okay. But I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your kid. I’m saying, you’re fighting a losing battle if you think you can stop them.

Hizonner 1y ago

> I keep coming back to the actual solution being to keep kids off the internet period. W T F ? ? ? > Because the practical reality here is, like, porn is the big scary word, but the actual danger to kids is other people. Bad news, Champ. Other people also exist off of the Internet. They always have. The world is not entirely safe. And that does not mean children shouldn't get to be part of the world. The main problem here is panicky idiocy.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago

While there are absolutely issues with kids coming across things they shouldn’t, I’d argue an equally large issue is parents buying into the delusion that they can keep their children contained within a bubble of perfect innocence until adulthood. That idea has never really been realistic short of keeping them isolated from society until 16-18 (which most would consider abuse), but it’s not even slightly possible today with how readily available information has become. It’s an inevitability that they will learn about the topics you’ve been avoiding and take on external influences you may not approve of. Now to be clear, I’m not advocating for letting kids run wild on the internet with no guardrails, especially earlier on. Guardrails are important, but it’s even more important in my opinion to try to stay ahead of what they may encounter by talking with them about those things so when they eventually run across it, they’re not flying blind and might even seek your guidance about the incident since they know you’re not going to get angry about it. That’s much more likely to bring positive outcomes than if they ran into these things without parental support.

zeta0134 1y ago
Yeah, I'm nodding in agreement here for the most part. I didn't mean to suggest crazy helicopter parenting surveillance nonsense, just ... the idea that giving young minds the whole dang net and letting them loose without any guidance or oversight is kinda dangerous. Growing up we always had an adult in the computer lab, or the library, where most computer coursework was being taught. I had "the real internet" right there, but if I actually got into trouble, someone was bound to notice, and I could always ask for help. The point I was actually trying to make is just this: if the parent's goal is to block content, then the simplest thing to do is to be there when the child is surfing the net. That shouldn't take crazy technological measures. At some point, most parents realize their kids are mature enough to handle things and back off, but the parent should be making that call for their own kid. I don't think the government should be doing it on their behalf. If the government believes the internet is dangerous for young minds, then it should focus on the thing it can control: educational curriculum, primarily. Trying to "fix the internet" is a fool's errand.
wkat4242 1y ago
You know what helps? Proper sex ed around the age of 12-14. That's what we do in Holland. And why we had one of the lowest teenage pregnancy ratings. Unfortunately the conservatives are complaining about this more and more (the Lentekriebels program) because they mention that men can also love men. This porn filter is also from their corner.

bigbacaloa 1y ago

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