Comment by armchairhacker
3 days ago
You should be able to choose what's age-appropriate for your kids. Giving them access to e.g. "PG-13" media when they're 9 isn't the problem. Giving mature kids unrestricted access isn't a problem. The problem is culture:
- Many parents don't think about restricting their kids' online exposure at all. And I think a larger issue than NSFW is the amount of time kids are spending: 5 hours according to this survey from 2 years ago https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/04/teen-social-use-mental-h.... Educating parents may be all that is needed to fix this, since most parents care about their kids and restrict them in other ways like junk food
- Parents that want to restrict their kids struggle with ineffective parental controls: https://beasthacker.com/til/parental-controls-arent-for-pare.... Optional parental controls would fix this
> Parents that want to restrict their kids struggle with ineffective parental controls: https://beasthacker.com/til/parental-controls-arent-for-pare.... Optional parental controls would fix this
I don't think they will, and this is because there's an inherent conflict of interest from these large tech companies about actually protecting my kids.
To be blunt: They don't give a fuck, they make money. They will pick money over kids EVERY time.
My current answer is that absolutely none of my children are allowed anywhere near these devices. Mandating shitty age verification laws isn't going to somehow make these companies act responsibly... it's just going to drive alternatives that are actually respectful out of business with additional legislative burden, while Google and Apple continue to act irresponsibly and unethically.
Further - it continues to enshrine the idea that parent's aren't responsible for their kids (see your first point)... The parents that are already neglecting this space will point to laws like this and go "look, the government is doing this for me!". Which is exactly wrong, and exactly what these companies want parents to think (again - the alternative, that parents actually engage and realize just how fucking morally bankrupt these bastards are, hurts bottom lines)
If you want change - remove the damn duopoly. Break them up. Force open markets. Force inter-compatibility.
This is not rocket science. This is basic political science we've known about for literally hundreds of years, the only difference is that our government in the US has been fucking useless because of regulatory capture (of which this will worsen) and the perceived national security & economic value of "owning" the tech stack used internationally.
"Security" when used in these contexts has very little to do with protecting you, or me, or our kids. It has a whole lot to do with protecting corporate bottom lines and governmental control.
Part of the issue with phones is that they are already controlled by the Google/Apple duopoly, and hence heavily optimized for constant distraction and addiction. These laws only cement that duopoly and provide fewer means to build more friendly platforms.
While I don't appreciate the implementation of "security" generally involving monopolization, I think it's important to note that you only need age verification for things that are irrelevant to children. In fact the entire point is to exclude children. So a non-Google/Apple device is still perfectly usable for them if (or even specifically because) it cannot pass age verification/attestation. Really the main concern should be use of attestation for banking/government stuff.
> Parents that want to restrict their kids struggle with ineffective parental controls: https://beasthacker.com/til/parental-controls-arent-for-pare.... Optional parental controls would fix this
Did you mean "mandatory" parental controls? All current systems are optional and as you describe they are frequently ineffective, so not clear why keeping things like they are would be different.
The current systems are not ineffective because they’re optional, they could be more effective and stay optional.
I also don’t mean “mandatory” as in “the software manufacturer must implement parental controls” like the Colorado bill. There only needs to exist one decent operating system, one decent messaging service, etc. with good parental controls; parents can use those technologies and block the others. Although regulators could pressure specific popular platforms like YouTube, and maybe that would be fine, I think it would be better to incentivize and support add-ons or alternatives (e.g. kid-safe YouTube frontend).