7 ms·

The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. If laws need to be made about something it should be to punish those pa

The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. If laws need to be made about something it should be to punish those parents who neglect to safeguard their children using the tools already available to them. If the parental controls currently provided aren’t sufficient then they should be modified to be so - in addition to filtering, they should probably send a header to websites and a flag to apps giving an age/rating.

stubish 8mo ago
Australian laws decided to explicitly not blame the parents and place the responsibility on the platform. Turns out not all parents are responsible adults with a diploma in dark pattern navigation, and some kids don't even have parents. So if the goal is to help the kids, rather than have someone to blame when they get abused, you can't just pass the buck.
manuelmoreale 8mo ago
Curious: are you ok with the other laws that are in place in the world to prevent underage people to engage with all sorts of activities? Like, for example, having to show an ID to being able to purchase alcohol?
- HeckFeck 8mo ago
  They aren't comparable. Showing an ID to a staff member isn't stripping my anonymity. I know the retailer won't have that on file forever, tied to me on subsequent visits. Also they stop ID'ing you after a certain age ;) There isn't any way to achieve the same digitally.
  - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
    I know they're not compatible. I'm asking if you're also ok with those. There are also plenty of situations where you are asked to provide an ID, digitally, when above a certain age. For example booking hotels and other accommodations. Personally I'm still trying to figure out where my position is when it comes to this whole debate because both camps have obvious pros and cons.
    - ongy 8mo ago
      Which hotel asks for id online..? I've only ever had to provide it once on-site and checking in. And when then, only when I'm in foreign countries.
      - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
        Happens quite often with Airbnb for example. You often don't meet the host in person so there's no way to show them a physical ID.
        ongy 8mo ago
        Ahh. The not-quite-a-hotel. I don't think I ever used them.
  - Cthulhu_ 8mo ago
    Actually there is, various age verification systems exist where the party asking for it does not need to process their ID, like the Dutch iDIN (https://www.idin.nl/en/ https://www.idin.nl/en/) that works not unlike a digital payment - the bank knows your identity and age, just like they know your account balance, and can sign off on that kind of thing just like a payment. I hope this becomes more widespread / standardized; the precursor for iDIN is iDEAL which is for payments, that's being expanded and rebranded as Wero across Europe at the moment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)), in part to reduce dependency on American payment processors.
    - gzread 8mo ago
      [dead]
    - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
      We have a similar system in Italy so the age verification process itself doesn't personally concerns me that much since the verification process is done by the government itself and they obviously already have my information. I'm personally more interested in the intuition people have when it comes to squaring rejecting age verification online while also accepting it in a multitude of other situations (both online and offline)
      - ongy 8mo ago
        My main issue is trust. In real world scenarios, I can observe them while they handle my ID. And systematic abuse(e.g. some video that gets stored and shows it clearly) would be a violation taken serious With online providers it's barely news worthy if they abuse the data they get. I'm not against age verification (at least not strongly), but I'd want it in a 2 party 0 trust way. I.e. one party signs a jwt like thing only containing one bit, the other validates it without ever contacting the issuer about the specific token. So one knows the identity, one knows the usage But they are never related
        manuelmoreale 8mo ago
- miki123211 8mo ago
  I'm a lot more okay with that because alcohol purchasing doesn't have free speech implications. It's weird how radicalized people get about banning books compared to banning the internet.
  - gzread 8mo ago
    [dead]
  - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
    > It's weird how radicalized people get about banning books compared to banning the internet. I don't think asking for age verification is the same as banning something. Which connection do you see between requiring age and free speech?
    - snackbroken 8mo ago
      First, children also have a right to free speech. It is perhaps even more important than for adults, as children are not empowered to do anything but speak. Second, it's turn-key authoritarianism. E.g. "show me the IDs of everyone who has talked about being gay" or "show me a list of the 10,000 people who are part of <community> that's embarrassing me politically" or "which of my enemies like to watch embarrassing pornography?". Even if you honestly do delete the data you collect today, it's trivial to flip a switch tomorrow and start keeping everything forever. Training people to accept "papers, please" with this excuse is just boiling the frog. Further, even if you never actually do keep these records long term, the simple fact that you are collecting them has a chilling effect because people understand that the risk is there and they know they are being watched.
      - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
        > First, children also have a right to free speech. Maybe I'm wrong (not reading all the regulations that are coming up) but the scope of these regulations is not to ban speech but rather to prevent people under a certain age to access a narrow subset of the websites that exist on the web. That to me looks like a significant difference. As for your other two points, I can't really argue against those because they are obviously valid but also very hypothetical and so in that context sure, everything is possible I suppose. That said something has to be done at some point because it's obvious that these platforms are having profound impact on society as a whole. And I don't care about the kids, I'm talking in general.
- bregma 8mo ago
  The difference is the internet is forever. A one-time unrecorded transaction like showing your ID at the bar is not. It is a false equivalence. Not only is the internet forever, but what is on it grows like a cancer and gets aggregated, sold, bundled, cross-linked with red yarn, multiplied, and multiplexed. Why would you ever want cancer?
  - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
    > It is a false equivalence It's a false equivalence only if you decide to equate the two. My question wasn't worded that way. I'm curious to know if someone who oppose this type of laws is also for or against other laws that are dealing with similar issues in other contexts. Also, as I said in another post, there are plenty of places, online, where you have to identify yourself. So this is already happening. But again, I'm personally interested in people's intuitions when it comes to this because I find it fascinating as a subject.
    - leetbulb 8mo ago
      Personally, I am pro-both. Even if it helps a single child not fall in to a bad situation, it's worth the many other cons that come with it. <tinfoilhat>I believe that the original concept had good intent, then flowed through a monetization process before delivery.</tinfoilhat>. If our weird reality eventually balances out, at least we'll have this on our side. People > Money.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
joe_mamba 8mo ago
>The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. Yeah but many parents are stupid and want the government to force everyone to wear oven mitts to protect their kids from their poor/lack of parenting. What do you do then? Remember how since a lot of men died in WW2 so kids were growing up in fatherless homes which led to a rise in juvenile delinquency, and the government and parents instead of admitting fatherless homes are the issue, the "researchers" then blamed it on the violent comic books being the issue, so the government with support from parents introduced the Comics Code Authority regulations. People and governments are more than happy to offload the blame for societal issues messing up their kids onto external factors: be it comic books, rock music, MTV, shooter videogames, now the internet platforms, etc.
Cthulhu_ 8mo ago
> The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. This is a stopgap at best, and to be blunt, it's naive. They can go on their friends' phones, or go to a shop and buy a cheap smartphone to circumvent the parental controls. If the internet is locked down, they'll use one of many "free" VPN services, or just go to school / library / a friend's place for unrestricted network access. Parents can only do so much, realistically. The other parties that need to be involved are the social media companies, ISPs, and most importantly the children themselves. You can't stop them, but they need to be educated. And even if they're educated and know all about the dangers of the internet, they may still seek it out because it's exciting / arousing / etc. I wish I knew less about this.
- well_ackshually 8mo ago
  In what universe do you live where children have enough disposable income to buy a smartphone ?
  - boelboel 8mo ago
    You can get smartphones for 80 dollars (like the moto E15)
  - ninalanyon 8mo ago
    You can get a usable smartphone for well under 100 USD on AliExpress or a reasonable secondhand one from a reputable brand for about the same price here in Norway on online trading sites. Don't teenagers get pocket money or do weekend jobs any more? My sons were grown up by the time smartphones were affordable but No. 2 son bought his own Siemens C65 with saved up pocket money when he was in his early teens.
  - bsharper 8mo ago
    You only need $25-30. It'll be locked to a carrier, but that doesn't matter and is perhaps preferable (no monthly fee for a subsidized device) if you are able to use wifi. There's an ETA prime video which explores using a 2025 Moto 5G as handheld game console: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ad5BrcfHkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ad5BrcfHkY tl;dw it's quite capable for the money and would could easily get on social media apps/sites.
flakeoil 8mo ago
I think firstly the kids need to get education about this subject in school. The dangers online, the tools to use to protect oneself etc. Secondly the parents need some similar education, either face-to-face education or information material sent home. It will not prevent everything, but at least we cannot expect kids and parents to know about parental control features, ublock origin type tools or what dangers are out there. We have to trust parents and kids to protect themselves, but to do that they need knowledge. Of course some parents and kids don't care or do not understand or want to bypass any filters and protections, but at leaast a more informed society is for the better and a first step.

stubish 8mo ago

Australian laws decided to explicitly not blame the parents and place the responsibility on the platform. Turns out not all parents are responsible adults with a diploma in dark pattern navigation, and some kids don't even have parents. So if the goal is to help the kids, rather than have someone to blame when they get abused, you can't just pass the buck.

manuelmoreale 8mo ago

Curious: are you ok with the other laws that are in place in the world to prevent underage people to engage with all sorts of activities? Like, for example, having to show an ID to being able to purchase alcohol?

HeckFeck 8mo ago
They aren't comparable. Showing an ID to a staff member isn't stripping my anonymity. I know the retailer won't have that on file forever, tied to me on subsequent visits. Also they stop ID'ing you after a certain age ;) There isn't any way to achieve the same digitally.
- manuelmoreale 8mo ago
  I know they're not compatible. I'm asking if you're also ok with those. There are also plenty of situations where you are asked to provide an ID, digitally, when above a certain age. For example booking hotels and other accommodations. Personally I'm still trying to figure out where my position is when it comes to this whole debate because both camps have obvious pros and cons.
  - ongy 8mo ago
    Which hotel asks for id online..? I've only ever had to provide it once on-site and checking in. And when then, only when I'm in foreign countries.
    - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
      Happens quite often with Airbnb for example. You often don't meet the host in person so there's no way to show them a physical ID.
      - ongy 8mo ago
        Ahh. The not-quite-a-hotel. I don't think I ever used them.
- Cthulhu_ 8mo ago
  Actually there is, various age verification systems exist where the party asking for it does not need to process their ID, like the Dutch iDIN (https://www.idin.nl/en/ https://www.idin.nl/en/) that works not unlike a digital payment - the bank knows your identity and age, just like they know your account balance, and can sign off on that kind of thing just like a payment. I hope this becomes more widespread / standardized; the precursor for iDIN is iDEAL which is for payments, that's being expanded and rebranded as Wero across Europe at the moment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)), in part to reduce dependency on American payment processors.
  - gzread 8mo ago
    [dead]
  - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
    We have a similar system in Italy so the age verification process itself doesn't personally concerns me that much since the verification process is done by the government itself and they obviously already have my information. I'm personally more interested in the intuition people have when it comes to squaring rejecting age verification online while also accepting it in a multitude of other situations (both online and offline)
    - ongy 8mo ago
      My main issue is trust. In real world scenarios, I can observe them while they handle my ID. And systematic abuse(e.g. some video that gets stored and shows it clearly) would be a violation taken serious With online providers it's barely news worthy if they abuse the data they get. I'm not against age verification (at least not strongly), but I'd want it in a 2 party 0 trust way. I.e. one party signs a jwt like thing only containing one bit, the other validates it without ever contacting the issuer about the specific token. So one knows the identity, one knows the usage But they are never related
      - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
miki123211 8mo ago
I'm a lot more okay with that because alcohol purchasing doesn't have free speech implications. It's weird how radicalized people get about banning books compared to banning the internet.
- gzread 8mo ago
  [dead]
- manuelmoreale 8mo ago
  > It's weird how radicalized people get about banning books compared to banning the internet. I don't think asking for age verification is the same as banning something. Which connection do you see between requiring age and free speech?
  - snackbroken 8mo ago
    First, children also have a right to free speech. It is perhaps even more important than for adults, as children are not empowered to do anything but speak. Second, it's turn-key authoritarianism. E.g. "show me the IDs of everyone who has talked about being gay" or "show me a list of the 10,000 people who are part of <community> that's embarrassing me politically" or "which of my enemies like to watch embarrassing pornography?". Even if you honestly do delete the data you collect today, it's trivial to flip a switch tomorrow and start keeping everything forever. Training people to accept "papers, please" with this excuse is just boiling the frog. Further, even if you never actually do keep these records long term, the simple fact that you are collecting them has a chilling effect because people understand that the risk is there and they know they are being watched.
    - manuelmoreale 8mo ago
      > First, children also have a right to free speech. Maybe I'm wrong (not reading all the regulations that are coming up) but the scope of these regulations is not to ban speech but rather to prevent people under a certain age to access a narrow subset of the websites that exist on the web. That to me looks like a significant difference. As for your other two points, I can't really argue against those because they are obviously valid but also very hypothetical and so in that context sure, everything is possible I suppose. That said something has to be done at some point because it's obvious that these platforms are having profound impact on society as a whole. And I don't care about the kids, I'm talking in general.
bregma 8mo ago
The difference is the internet is forever. A one-time unrecorded transaction like showing your ID at the bar is not. It is a false equivalence. Not only is the internet forever, but what is on it grows like a cancer and gets aggregated, sold, bundled, cross-linked with red yarn, multiplied, and multiplexed. Why would you ever want cancer?
- manuelmoreale 8mo ago
  > It is a false equivalence It's a false equivalence only if you decide to equate the two. My question wasn't worded that way. I'm curious to know if someone who oppose this type of laws is also for or against other laws that are dealing with similar issues in other contexts. Also, as I said in another post, there are plenty of places, online, where you have to identify yourself. So this is already happening. But again, I'm personally interested in people's intuitions when it comes to this because I find it fascinating as a subject.
  - leetbulb 8mo ago
    Personally, I am pro-both. Even if it helps a single child not fall in to a bad situation, it's worth the many other cons that come with it. <tinfoilhat>I believe that the original concept had good intent, then flowed through a monetization process before delivery.</tinfoilhat>. If our weird reality eventually balances out, at least we'll have this on our side. People > Money.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

joe_mamba 8mo ago

>The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. Yeah but many parents are stupid and want the government to force everyone to wear oven mitts to protect their kids from their poor/lack of parenting. What do you do then? Remember how since a lot of men died in WW2 so kids were growing up in fatherless homes which led to a rise in juvenile delinquency, and the government and parents instead of admitting fatherless homes are the issue, the "researchers" then blamed it on the violent comic books being the issue, so the government with support from parents introduced the Comics Code Authority regulations. People and governments are more than happy to offload the blame for societal issues messing up their kids onto external factors: be it comic books, rock music, MTV, shooter videogames, now the internet platforms, etc.

Cthulhu_ 8mo ago

> The solution is parents using the parental control feature on their children’s devices. This is a stopgap at best, and to be blunt, it's naive. They can go on their friends' phones, or go to a shop and buy a cheap smartphone to circumvent the parental controls. If the internet is locked down, they'll use one of many "free" VPN services, or just go to school / library / a friend's place for unrestricted network access. Parents can only do so much, realistically. The other parties that need to be involved are the social media companies, ISPs, and most importantly the children themselves. You can't stop them, but they need to be educated. And even if they're educated and know all about the dangers of the internet, they may still seek it out because it's exciting / arousing / etc. I wish I knew less about this.

well_ackshually 8mo ago
In what universe do you live where children have enough disposable income to buy a smartphone ?
- boelboel 8mo ago
  You can get smartphones for 80 dollars (like the moto E15)
- ninalanyon 8mo ago
  You can get a usable smartphone for well under 100 USD on AliExpress or a reasonable secondhand one from a reputable brand for about the same price here in Norway on online trading sites. Don't teenagers get pocket money or do weekend jobs any more? My sons were grown up by the time smartphones were affordable but No. 2 son bought his own Siemens C65 with saved up pocket money when he was in his early teens.
- bsharper 8mo ago
  You only need $25-30. It'll be locked to a carrier, but that doesn't matter and is perhaps preferable (no monthly fee for a subsidized device) if you are able to use wifi. There's an ETA prime video which explores using a 2025 Moto 5G as handheld game console: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ad5BrcfHkY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ad5BrcfHkY tl;dw it's quite capable for the money and would could easily get on social media apps/sites.

flakeoil 8mo ago

I think firstly the kids need to get education about this subject in school. The dangers online, the tools to use to protect oneself etc. Secondly the parents need some similar education, either face-to-face education or information material sent home. It will not prevent everything, but at least we cannot expect kids and parents to know about parental control features, ublock origin type tools or what dangers are out there. We have to trust parents and kids to protect themselves, but to do that they need knowledge. Of course some parents and kids don't care or do not understand or want to bypass any filters and protections, but at leaast a more informed society is for the better and a first step.