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One thing I’ve realised over the past few weeks is that some parents must be delighted to have the government control the web for them. When the parent does th

One thing I’ve realised over the past few weeks is that some parents must be delighted to have the government control the web for them. When the parent does the enforcement themselves then they can be put under direct pressure by their children to drop the ban. When the government does it then the parent can say, honestly, sorry, there’s nothing they can do about it: It’s out of their hands. The child only has access to tier 1 support [parent] and the support agent’s only response is “sorry, corporate policy [law] requires AV for certain sites, there’s nothing I can do. Is there anything else I can help you with today?…” I don’t say this to make the laws easier to swallow but the social economics of it make it more understandable why this law might be so popular with anyone already overloaded with angry teenagers. Next up: the Bedtime Is At Nine PM Act 2026, Tuck Your Shirt In Act 2027, and No We Have One At Home Already Act 2028.

vidarh 1y ago
And then the child talks to their friends, some of whom already have free VPNs, and works around it and said parent goes around oblivious to the fact that their child has access to whatever they want. My son figured out free VPNs when he was 8-9. This is only stopping adults.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Exactly what I was going to say, though I don't think this will stop adults either. If somebody wants porn without asking Big Brother for permission, they're going to search for the answer for how to do that, and find it immediately. In the era of LLMs this is even more true. Every single chatbot I tried (DeepSeek, Grok, Claude, ChatGPT) except ChatGPT immediately gave numerous and detailed instructions on how to easily bypass the bans. I'm sure one could trivially push ChatGPT outside its love for big brother as well, if they cared to do so. It's not clear to me who exactly such bans are effective against, and to what end. Obviously the government gains an immense amount of power so they're going to love it, regardless of its efficacy.
  - vidarh 1y ago
    LLMs is a good point. I think a lot of older people would struggle to figure it out themselves or even know what to search for, but given you can now so easily just ask plain questions about how to circumvent it, perhaps the tech illiterate will also easily bypass them.
iLoveOncall 1y ago
The most shameful thing is that the only websites actually harmful to children, aka social media, aren't banned or behind an ID check.
- dabeeeenster 1y ago
  I agree to an extent, but extreme porn is a huge problem for kids, in the UK at least.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    Is it? I think the non pornographic misogynist content is actually a more serious issue. I've heard plenty of teachers complaining about Andrew Tate. (so-called ""extreme porn"" was banned entirely by UK law a year or two ago)
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    What is the problem with it? When I was a kid I did look at porn, turned out fine. How is it a huge problem for kids in the UK exactly? Or what do you mean by "extreme" here? I did not look at "extreme porn" if I think I know what you mean.
  - tjpnz 1y ago
    And Meta et el will happily serve it to you also.
  - Hizonner 1y ago
    A huge number of lemmings screaming "Think of the Children!" does not actually mean there's a huge problem.
- pjc50 1y ago
  This is not correct: the law primarily regulates what it calls "user-to-user" services, i.e. social media. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50 "All providers of regulated user-to-user services that are likely to be accessed by children must comply with the following duties in relation to each such service which they provide— (a)the duties about children’s risk assessments set out in section 11, and (b)the duties to protect children’s online safety set out in section 12(2) to (13)."
culebron21 1y ago
Reminded me of the Youtube Kids. It's supposed to filter out inappropriate and irrelevant content. So, there you can't see things like trains or steam locomotives, or harvesters at work (inappropriate!), but there are infinite cheap-ass 3D cartoons with "toy world", without any words, nor plot.
- YakBizzarro 1y ago
  God, I hate so much these videos. My son son used to ask for these when he was younger, they were so bad...
teamonkey 1y ago
> I don’t say this to make the laws easier to swallow but the social economics of it make it more understandable why this law might be so popular with anyone already overloaded with angry teenagers. The “think of the children” angle is certainly there to make the bill more morally appealing, but is it actually popular with parents? Or anyone, other than politicians? The kids in question are those of millennial and Gen-Z(!) parents. They’re not a generation that doesn’t understand the internet. That’s not to say that some restriction wouldn’t be welcomed, but did the OSA really come from these parents?
tene80i 1y ago
> Next up: the Bedtime Is At Nine PM Act 2026 This is funny but actually has sort of existed for decades, in the sense of the TV watershed – no adult content before 9pm, after which point it's assumed children are in bed and not watching TV. And yes, you are absolutely right that parents do often like these laws. Being a parent is hard, whatever the age of the kids, and parents will be in favour of things that make it easier. Whether that's making TV default-safe in the daytime, or making adult websites harder to access.
computerthings 1y ago
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vidarh 1y ago

And then the child talks to their friends, some of whom already have free VPNs, and works around it and said parent goes around oblivious to the fact that their child has access to whatever they want. My son figured out free VPNs when he was 8-9. This is only stopping adults.

somenameforme 1y ago
Exactly what I was going to say, though I don't think this will stop adults either. If somebody wants porn without asking Big Brother for permission, they're going to search for the answer for how to do that, and find it immediately. In the era of LLMs this is even more true. Every single chatbot I tried (DeepSeek, Grok, Claude, ChatGPT) except ChatGPT immediately gave numerous and detailed instructions on how to easily bypass the bans. I'm sure one could trivially push ChatGPT outside its love for big brother as well, if they cared to do so. It's not clear to me who exactly such bans are effective against, and to what end. Obviously the government gains an immense amount of power so they're going to love it, regardless of its efficacy.
- vidarh 1y ago
  LLMs is a good point. I think a lot of older people would struggle to figure it out themselves or even know what to search for, but given you can now so easily just ask plain questions about how to circumvent it, perhaps the tech illiterate will also easily bypass them.

iLoveOncall 1y ago

The most shameful thing is that the only websites actually harmful to children, aka social media, aren't banned or behind an ID check.

dabeeeenster 1y ago
I agree to an extent, but extreme porn is a huge problem for kids, in the UK at least.
- pjc50 1y ago
  Is it? I think the non pornographic misogynist content is actually a more serious issue. I've heard plenty of teachers complaining about Andrew Tate. (so-called ""extreme porn"" was banned entirely by UK law a year or two ago)
- johnisgood 1y ago
  What is the problem with it? When I was a kid I did look at porn, turned out fine. How is it a huge problem for kids in the UK exactly? Or what do you mean by "extreme" here? I did not look at "extreme porn" if I think I know what you mean.
- tjpnz 1y ago
  And Meta et el will happily serve it to you also.
- Hizonner 1y ago
  A huge number of lemmings screaming "Think of the Children!" does not actually mean there's a huge problem.
pjc50 1y ago
This is not correct: the law primarily regulates what it calls "user-to-user" services, i.e. social media. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50 "All providers of regulated user-to-user services that are likely to be accessed by children must comply with the following duties in relation to each such service which they provide— (a)the duties about children’s risk assessments set out in section 11, and (b)the duties to protect children’s online safety set out in section 12(2) to (13)."

culebron21 1y ago

Reminded me of the Youtube Kids. It's supposed to filter out inappropriate and irrelevant content. So, there you can't see things like trains or steam locomotives, or harvesters at work (inappropriate!), but there are infinite cheap-ass 3D cartoons with "toy world", without any words, nor plot.

YakBizzarro 1y ago
God, I hate so much these videos. My son son used to ask for these when he was younger, they were so bad...

teamonkey 1y ago

> I don’t say this to make the laws easier to swallow but the social economics of it make it more understandable why this law might be so popular with anyone already overloaded with angry teenagers. The “think of the children” angle is certainly there to make the bill more morally appealing, but is it actually popular with parents? Or anyone, other than politicians? The kids in question are those of millennial and Gen-Z(!) parents. They’re not a generation that doesn’t understand the internet. That’s not to say that some restriction wouldn’t be welcomed, but did the OSA really come from these parents?

tene80i 1y ago

> Next up: the Bedtime Is At Nine PM Act 2026 This is funny but actually has sort of existed for decades, in the sense of the TV watershed – no adult content before 9pm, after which point it's assumed children are in bed and not watching TV. And yes, you are absolutely right that parents do often like these laws. Being a parent is hard, whatever the age of the kids, and parents will be in favour of things that make it easier. Whether that's making TV default-safe in the daytime, or making adult websites harder to access.

computerthings 1y ago

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