Comment by debazel
1 day ago
Children are just too effect of a tool when building a surveillance state. We should have banned children from owning open computers a long time ago just like we do with Alcohol, Driving licenses, etc.
Instead children would own special devices that are locked down and tagged with a "underage" flag when interacting with online services, while adults could continue as normal. We already heavily restrict the freedom of children so there is plenty of precedent for this. Optionally we could provide service points to unlock devices when they turn 18 to avoid E-waste as well.
This way it's the point of sale where you provide your ID, instead of attaching it to the hardware itself and sending it out to every single SaaS on the planet to do what they wish.
Would be a nightmare to implement and achieve the goal, but I have to say I think it’s more right than wrong. All of the data is very clear about the harms.
China has restrictions for social media and screen time for kids — how do they implement this?
I actually think this would be easier to implement than many of the current ID verification methods I've seen being pushed. We already have the infrastructure for selling age restricted goods, this is nothing new. Manufacturers that are unable to restrict their hardware in a "child" mode don't have to do anything and could simply continue selling to adults only.
It's obvious we're moving in a direction where we are going to get these restrictions in one way or another, and this is the only way I've come up with that doesn't come with serious privacy implications.
Most importantly, this solution would be simple for anyone to understand. You don't need to be a cryptography expert to understand there are child safe devices and then there are unrestricted devices for adults.
Would the parents comply though? Many of the restrictions work because most adults agree is OK. For example for alcohol, children could drink as much as they want at home, if adults would permit it.
If most adults would be convinced there is an issue, one probably has enough lock-down modes even nowadays, not sure it is a "technical" problem.
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I don’t understand how id-ing the buyer helps? What is the age restricted good here?
Are you saying that kids now buy their phones with pocket money without their parents knowing?
> It's obvious we're moving in a direction where we are going to get these restrictions in one way or another
It’s not obvious, it’s just sad. I still hope reason will prevail in this.
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The new California law requires all operating systems to have a child mode.
It's a nightmare to some extent to prevent underage people from consuming alcohol if you want to phrase it that way. But we don't try to ban stores from selling alcohol because of concerns children will be drinking it. Instead we require the store checks for ID.
Why on earth would we be looking to China as a template on how we should run free societies? Are you mad?
Good ideas can come from anywhere. Shutting yourself off only does a disservice. You don’t need to replicate 100% of another society to recognize individual strengths.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/09/1077567/china-ch...
That describes something very similar to what the OP suggested.
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> how do they implement this?
Centralized power and being unafraid to use authoritarian tactics. Also the general cultural ethos of the people.
> China has restrictions for social media and screen time for kids — how do they implement this?
China is much more socially conservative, and less likely to abandon their kids to latest thing.
Passport /citizen ID linked to your WOW account, etc.
Which has never worked. Korea had a system to prevent kids from gaming after midnight for something like 15 years. All it did was make Korean kids very good at memorizing their parents ID.
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Parents are already allowed to restrict their children access to 'dangerous' things like open computers or knives.
Parents are also allowed to restrict their children access to alcohol and cigarettes, but it seems a government ban on them buying those things works better
Alcohol is totally legal for a child to drink in my state as long as consumed privately. It's only illegal for them to buy. My parents gave me alcohol all the time in order to teach me about it and the result was that I didn't really drink when I turned 21 or have any urge to sneak it.
That's exactly how I'm doing technology. I sign my kid up for kid accounts. And I apply parental controls.
Given the ease with which kids who want them can get any of those things in schools, it's not clear that the government ban is actually doing anything of significance or that the reduction in usage isn't more a result of convincing people that those things are actually bad for them so they choose not to partake despite the continued widespread availability.
Notice that consumption of those things is also down for adults even though adults are not banned from getting them.
I’m sorry in what world is age restriction effective at keeping teens away from alcohol? Are you from the 60s?
Doesn't seem to be a universal truth to me. As a teenager I had rather easy access to both cigarettes and alcohol in spite of usual age-restrictions legally imposed. I didn't care what gov't thinks about it. I did care about what my parents would do if I caught drunk though. That was my real barrier.
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I don't think debazel was saying that children should have been banned from owning computers for the benefit of the children. He was saying that children should have been banned from owning computers so that the government would have no excuse to regulate what's allowed on computers.
Well, it didn't work for alcohol and tobacco: in addition to being banned for children in many jurisdictions they are still heavily regulated.
so we agree that governments only using the safety of children as pretext to extend their control of people's lives, otherwise there are better solution protect children of the harms of the internet.
At the same time, I remember growing up in the internet's wild west and bad encounters weren't an issue for me because of the golden rule I was taught from the start: you don't give your personal information and you don't interact with complete strangers. Learning to navigate the web instead of being in a walled garden was helpful in many ways.
The better question to ask ourselves is, does the capability to gather more information also lead to more power to act on this information? If the investigative resources are spread thin already it's not like they're gonna catch more criminals with investing more there. Repelling questionable individuals off the platform with lots transparancy -is- an effective way, but just a specific tool for a symptom.
I think a part of a better solution is to give parents and children better tools to manage their social graph themselves. Essentially the real problem is discovery and warding off of social outliers in a way that doesnt out all responsibility on opaque algos or corporations.
A part of their e2e keys could be shared using an intentionally obtuse way like mailing an item or a physical "friend code". That way parents and vetted friends can have their privacy. You don't need to tie an id to someone's person to get positive confirmation on someone's poor behaviour. If someone crossed the line then parents can see it and escalate. In additon, what would happen to a child with abusive parents who can then arbitrarily restrict and deny a childs freedom to communicate? I did not have this myself, but without free access to other minds and information I would have been duller. Does a large information dragnet really serve our collective interests or are more precise tools needed?
> I think a part of a better solution is to give parents and children better tools to manage their social graph themselves. Essentially the real problem is discovery and warding off of social outliers in a way that doesnt out all responsibility on opaque algos or corporations.
This is actually a key consideration for the proposed implementation. The biggest issue for parents when restricting their children's online activity is that they simply don't understand the tool available for it.
By having a "child mode" iPhone, parents don't have to know any of that. They simply buy the iPhone Kids for their children and then get a plain iPhone for themselves.
If these restrictions were to actually be enforced by law as well, then it would make it very easy for teachers and other guardians to check if a device is appropriate for the child using it.
From what I've seen, the bad effects don't necessarily just come from free access to the internet, but that everyone around them in their social group has a video camera that can covertly record, they're all immature children and thus you cannot slip up once or you get kid cancelled, and they start doing a collective dissociative freeze response in a self-imposed emergent panopticon as a result.
So if the teen phone turned into a restricted "call mom" device with no cameras and with neon yellow obvious fuck you coloring and a restricted set of apps, and police took away a full phone much like they take away cigs and beer it might be enough to break the critical mass to create this issue. They can have dedicated cameras for video club, use the family computer, have an xbox or switch and have whatever tech experience that millenials had, the last generation to not have exponential increases in anxiety , depression and sexlessness.
It's the covert camera + internet that it's the key issue.
Locking down children’s devices doesn’t stop adults sharing illegal content with other adults though, so there would still be pressure to monitor communications between adults.
At some points, laws become an ineffective tool to prevent malevolent people to act in detrimental manners, no matter what it states. But prejudices of wicked states will always continue to impact more badly general public as ever more drastic laws lacking any balance become enacted.
I don’t think they’re doing that on TikTok
Indeed way past time. Though no CEO would admin publicly what the addiction to attention/social media, gaming, and general screen use, causes to children. Of course this should've been regulated similarly to Alcohol, but billions would dry and it's much easier to witch-hunt marijuana, and illegal raves, right?
> Instead children would own special devices that are locked down and tagged with a "underage" flag when interacting with online services, while adults could continue as normal.
California is mandating OSes provide ages to app stores, and HN lost their mind because it's a ban on Linux.
> California is mandating OSes provide ages to app stores,
They forgot to put in the provision which exempts apps which do not need an age rating? As in: everything os related.
Sounds like a good way to get rid of snap at least since that is where all the commercial bloat is located. Last time I did a fresh Debian install I do not remember installing any app from the os repository which would require age restrictions (afaik).
> They forgot to put in the provision which exempts apps which do not need an age rating? As in: everything os related.
That's correct. You need to provide your age to install grep.
This honestly sounds like the best proposed solution I have heard.
Agreed. Putting the burden on parents is quite something:
1. You end up being the bad guy, other parents don't restrict their kids internet usage etc. Some folks would argue to just not set up restrictions and trust them. But it's a slippery slope and puts kids in a weird position. They start out with innocent YouTube videos, but pretty quickly a web search or even a comment can lead them to strange places. They want to play games online, but then creeps abuse that all the time. Even if you trust them to not do anything "wrong", it's a lot to put on their shoulders.
2. If you want to put restrictions in place, even if you're an expert, the tools out there are pretty wonky. You can set up a child protection DNS, but most home routers don't make it easy (or even allow you) to set a different DNS server. And that's not particularly hard to circumvent. I suppose a proxy would be a more solid solution, but setting that up would be major yak shaving. Any "family safety" features (especially those from Microsoft) are ridiculously complicated and often quite buggy. Right now, I got the problem on my plate that I need to migrate one of my kid's accounts from a local Windows account to a Microsoft account (without them loosing all their stuff), because for local accounts, it seems the button to add the device is just missing? Naturally, the docs don't mention that, I had to do research to arrive at that hypothesis. The amount of yak shaving, setup and configuration you have to do for a reasonable setup is just nuts.
3. If you're not good with tech - I don't see how you have _any_ chance in hell to set up meaningful restrictions.
Some countries are banning social media - sure, that's one thing. But there's a _lot_ of weird places on the internet, kids will find something else. I for one would appreciate dedicated devices or modes for kids < 18. Would solve all this stuff in a heartbeat.
After struggling with this problem for a while, we started using Qustodio. It's not perfect by any means, but it's the most broadly effective and usable tool for parental control I've found. Loads better than the confusing iOS native screen time tools.
> We should have banned children
I see you Mr Quaker Oats
> while adults could continue as normal.
After providing their identities to prove they are adults, and having all their activities tracked wherever they go and whatever they do.
The first 18 years aren't freedom either, just the system prepping you for what's ahead.
apple SDK already can return underage/adult
The most important principle in the modern age is the freedom to prey on wallets. You can’t give parents tools to conveniently restrict what their children do. Impressionable minds ought to live in a lord of the flies state where they are bombarded with stuff to nag to their parents about and give them FOMO about what their friends have that they don’t have.
That’s why children must be free.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not
TikTok has a drug-like effect on the brain. Multiple studies show a clear link between excessive TikTok engagement and increased levels of anxiety, depression, and stress. Maybe it is time we regulate it like a drug?
Is that because of engaging with tiktok, or because of the content on tiktok? If the app was exclusively pictures of kittens and nice flowers you saw on your commute, would it have a detrimental effect?
What do you mean exactly, tax it as a vice?!
Hyperbole of some sort. I think it works on both the positive and negative side of the axis too.
I’ll have a packet of cigarettes, a fifth of vodka, and an unrestricted personal electro device.
ID please.
Seems entirely reasonable.
Possibility entirely ineffective, but then again I don’t often see children walking around with bottle a of booze.
It’s about 15 years ahead of its time. Too enlightened for most.
This is how the internet is run in countries where you need ID to connect to services. It’s not at all dystopian.