4 ms·

I disagree. The internet was intended for children. It was intended for everyone. Getting access to information, learning material, how to's, class work, doing

I disagree. The internet was intended for children. It was intended for everyone. Getting access to information, learning material, how to's, class work, doing class work, research, etc are just as much a part of the internet as surfing Pornhub or gambling. I do agree with everything else though. The onus is on the parents to do their job as a parent. If the goal is to protect children then improve the tools available to parents. They already have tons but the work is never done.

cowboylowrez 1y ago
"the internet was intended for children" is pretty much like saying "little boy was intended for hiroshima" haha
TimorousBestie 1y ago
> The internet was intended for children. It was intended for everyone. ARPANET and the related early nets were intended for sharing research and sharing scarce computing resources for research purposes. Everything else was an accident of the telecoms wanting to get their respective beaks wet.
- stego-tech 1y ago
  This^ Requiring age verification online would be like requiring my ID every time I wanted to drink a beer I already bought. I already had to give my ID when buying internet service, and again when I got the credit card I use to pay for it, and again for the bank account I use to pay the credit card, and the job that puts money into my bank account, and to buy the car that gets me to and from these places. If you’ve allowed a minor online without so much as a web filter in place, you’ve already lost the battle. Punishing strangers for your failure to police your own network devices and children is a complete abdication of your responsibilities as a parent.
  - toast0 1y ago
    > I already had to give my ID when buying internet service, and again when I got the credit card I use to pay for it, and again for the bank account I use to pay the credit card, and the job that puts money into my bank account, and to buy the car that gets me to and from these places. I'm not accustomed to providing ID to get internet service. Some providers run a credit check, but many don't. And if they don't check credit, they don't need your ID. At least in the US, there's an army of prepaid cell providers that don't offer credit and don't check ids. Prepaid credit cards are a thing. Bring some cash to a grocery store, and for a small fee, you can get an internet capable payment method. Or my local credit union offers debit cards for 'teen checking' accounts, but there's no age restriction; they check ID, and I'm pretty sure they require an adult sponsor.
stego-tech 1y ago
The internet was never intended for children. It was intended for everything you said above, but with the intention for adults to access that content and self-moderate. For kids, we had services like Prodigy and Compuserve that distilled the internet into approved content suitable for minors. We can - and probably should - go back to that, rather than throwing youth onto the regular internet and letting them fend for themselves online.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
  > The internet was never intended for children. There are no records indicating the relevant early engineers said this or felt this way. I imagine someone did down the road but then we're into "Some guy had an opinion about the internet" territory.
Guthur 1y ago
The goal has nothing to do with children, this is control. The UK has a long long history of over reach with all of theses initiatives. The UK governments is desperate to keep a increasingly fragile society from boiling over and their natural inclination is to censor, it's what they have always done.
- jajuuka 1y ago
  Unfortunately this isn't just a UK only issue. EU has passed similar rules and many US states have as well. Google is going to run it's age verification program in the US this month as well for everyone on Youtube. If the AI thinks you're 13 or younger then it will prevent many features until you send them government ID. So a lot of people are dealing with this dystopic idea of handing over personal information to third parties to use the internet. I will say the UK has a history of really stupid laws like this though so it's not exactly surprising that it would happen. But it's more surprising how it's spread and succeeding in so many places.
antonymoose 1y ago
I disagree with your agree. While the “buck stops (t)here” with a parent, we also live in a society with rules and expectations around what a youth can access and what there is expectation on all of us to play by those rules. My child cannot walk into a gas station and buy beer or cigarettes, cannot buy liquor, cannot buy a machine gun, cannot walk into an adult book store or a strip club, cannot operate a motor vehicle. If you, an adult, aid and abbet my child in any of these activities you’re likely going straight to jail. You do not magically get a pass because “the internet.” We live in the real world, with laws, with rules, with social expectations. It’s time for the free pass to end.
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
  Your argument is a slippery slope bc there is alot of complexity to adress, you are effectively trying to black-list, so putting the burden on the parents will always be a better a solution bc they are simply closer to the root of the problem, so better positioned to white-list. Not to speak of the risks of a fully deanonymized web, once naiive black-listing doesnt cut it anymore... And btw, your kid could possibly buy all items you named online today, black markets are a consequence of unmet demand. So what now? Talk about parental oversight or AV for amazon and TOR?
- atmavatar 1y ago
  A child also can't obtain a credit card and pay to hook up an internet connection on their own. If you want a true apples-to-apples comparison using your list - you've already purchased beer, cigarettes, liquor, a machine gun, adult books, and a motor vehicle and brought them all home. At that point, it is your responsibility as a parent to ensure your children do not use any of them. Why should internet access be any different? What you're really asking for is an adult other than you to be present in your house to ensure your children don't use things that you don't want them to. That's called a nanny. Unfortunately, the way in which you want this to work is for every house hooked up to the internet to be required to have a nanny. No thank you.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    Internet access should be different because it's fundamentally broader and harder to limit than those things. If most people got their drinks from a machine with a monthly subscription, I would definitely say that the machine should check your ID before dispensing beer. Perhaps it has "parental controls" that let you set a beer password, but this is an incomplete solution; it's not practical for me to audit every drink dispenser my kid might spend time around, and it does nothing to protect children of irresponsible parents who can't be bothered to set it up.
metalman 1y ago
your both wrong ;) the internet was almost unintentional, anybody but geeks useing it is just an accident......moving forward... it seems that everyone must be given a phone number, an email.address, a web site that functions as a personal repository, and store/business portal, blog, work space, etc,etc and that priviliges acrue, naturaly through time and effort. Kids could be automaticaly tied to and supervised by parents, and be flat out unable to get into the adult web.....and adults would be flat out prevented from partisipating in the kido-verse cept perhaps parents through,(sigh) moderated forums where they could deal with, the, inevitable.....

cowboylowrez 1y ago

"the internet was intended for children" is pretty much like saying "little boy was intended for hiroshima" haha

TimorousBestie 1y ago

> The internet was intended for children. It was intended for everyone. ARPANET and the related early nets were intended for sharing research and sharing scarce computing resources for research purposes. Everything else was an accident of the telecoms wanting to get their respective beaks wet.

stego-tech 1y ago
This^ Requiring age verification online would be like requiring my ID every time I wanted to drink a beer I already bought. I already had to give my ID when buying internet service, and again when I got the credit card I use to pay for it, and again for the bank account I use to pay the credit card, and the job that puts money into my bank account, and to buy the car that gets me to and from these places. If you’ve allowed a minor online without so much as a web filter in place, you’ve already lost the battle. Punishing strangers for your failure to police your own network devices and children is a complete abdication of your responsibilities as a parent.
- toast0 1y ago
  > I already had to give my ID when buying internet service, and again when I got the credit card I use to pay for it, and again for the bank account I use to pay the credit card, and the job that puts money into my bank account, and to buy the car that gets me to and from these places. I'm not accustomed to providing ID to get internet service. Some providers run a credit check, but many don't. And if they don't check credit, they don't need your ID. At least in the US, there's an army of prepaid cell providers that don't offer credit and don't check ids. Prepaid credit cards are a thing. Bring some cash to a grocery store, and for a small fee, you can get an internet capable payment method. Or my local credit union offers debit cards for 'teen checking' accounts, but there's no age restriction; they check ID, and I'm pretty sure they require an adult sponsor.

stego-tech 1y ago

The internet was never intended for children. It was intended for everything you said above, but with the intention for adults to access that content and self-moderate. For kids, we had services like Prodigy and Compuserve that distilled the internet into approved content suitable for minors. We can - and probably should - go back to that, rather than throwing youth onto the regular internet and letting them fend for themselves online.

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
> The internet was never intended for children. There are no records indicating the relevant early engineers said this or felt this way. I imagine someone did down the road but then we're into "Some guy had an opinion about the internet" territory.

Guthur 1y ago

The goal has nothing to do with children, this is control. The UK has a long long history of over reach with all of theses initiatives. The UK governments is desperate to keep a increasingly fragile society from boiling over and their natural inclination is to censor, it's what they have always done.

jajuuka 1y ago
Unfortunately this isn't just a UK only issue. EU has passed similar rules and many US states have as well. Google is going to run it's age verification program in the US this month as well for everyone on Youtube. If the AI thinks you're 13 or younger then it will prevent many features until you send them government ID. So a lot of people are dealing with this dystopic idea of handing over personal information to third parties to use the internet. I will say the UK has a history of really stupid laws like this though so it's not exactly surprising that it would happen. But it's more surprising how it's spread and succeeding in so many places.

antonymoose 1y ago

I disagree with your agree. While the “buck stops (t)here” with a parent, we also live in a society with rules and expectations around what a youth can access and what there is expectation on all of us to play by those rules. My child cannot walk into a gas station and buy beer or cigarettes, cannot buy liquor, cannot buy a machine gun, cannot walk into an adult book store or a strip club, cannot operate a motor vehicle. If you, an adult, aid and abbet my child in any of these activities you’re likely going straight to jail. You do not magically get a pass because “the internet.” We live in the real world, with laws, with rules, with social expectations. It’s time for the free pass to end.

throwawayqqq11 1y ago
Your argument is a slippery slope bc there is alot of complexity to adress, you are effectively trying to black-list, so putting the burden on the parents will always be a better a solution bc they are simply closer to the root of the problem, so better positioned to white-list. Not to speak of the risks of a fully deanonymized web, once naiive black-listing doesnt cut it anymore... And btw, your kid could possibly buy all items you named online today, black markets are a consequence of unmet demand. So what now? Talk about parental oversight or AV for amazon and TOR?
atmavatar 1y ago
A child also can't obtain a credit card and pay to hook up an internet connection on their own. If you want a true apples-to-apples comparison using your list - you've already purchased beer, cigarettes, liquor, a machine gun, adult books, and a motor vehicle and brought them all home. At that point, it is your responsibility as a parent to ensure your children do not use any of them. Why should internet access be any different? What you're really asking for is an adult other than you to be present in your house to ensure your children don't use things that you don't want them to. That's called a nanny. Unfortunately, the way in which you want this to work is for every house hooked up to the internet to be required to have a nanny. No thank you.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  Internet access should be different because it's fundamentally broader and harder to limit than those things. If most people got their drinks from a machine with a monthly subscription, I would definitely say that the machine should check your ID before dispensing beer. Perhaps it has "parental controls" that let you set a beer password, but this is an incomplete solution; it's not practical for me to audit every drink dispenser my kid might spend time around, and it does nothing to protect children of irresponsible parents who can't be bothered to set it up.

metalman 1y ago

your both wrong ;) the internet was almost unintentional, anybody but geeks useing it is just an accident......moving forward... it seems that everyone must be given a phone number, an email.address, a web site that functions as a personal repository, and store/business portal, blog, work space, etc,etc and that priviliges acrue, naturaly through time and effort. Kids could be automaticaly tied to and supervised by parents, and be flat out unable to get into the adult web.....and adults would be flat out prevented from partisipating in the kido-verse cept perhaps parents through,(sigh) moderated forums where they could deal with, the, inevitable.....