Comment by hliyan
3 months ago
Why can't we handle this the same way we handle knives, guns and chainsaws: require adults to secure the device before letting minors near them? All the devices need is the ability to create limited access profiles. A human adult performs age verification by only providing the minor with creditals to a limited profile. Trying to perform that verification so far away from the minor, after they have got to the last gate, seems like the worst way to do it.
I want my kids to grow up in a world where they can install linux themselves. I don't want them to grow up in a world where they can't walk to a neighborhood park without me.
Not sure I see the crossover between activities performed at home and problems of car centric street design and the resulting poor pedestrian traffic safety?
If I have to watch my kids 100% of the time they can't walk to the park.
Nothing to do with street design - most suburbs have a park a safe walk near any house. That kids are not walking there is nothing to do with street design.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/mom-arrested-after-tween-wal...
there's a general issue with rise in protectionism
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>same way we handle knives
I'm pretty sure most kids older than 12 do have access to kitchen knives. And actively use them too.
I generally agree with your point. But at the same time access to the internet resouces and to gun or a chaisaw is not the same.
I have no problem securing a few items if my home, but I have no control over whatever is available on the net.
Sure, I can write some firewall rules or create "kid's account" on a streaming platform, but I can do this for every single known service, chat, IM group etc.
Even if you did, you just lower the chances. I've created Netflix kids account specifically for mine. On its own it suggests also various documentaries on top of cartoons. We took the first one it suggested, and IIRC in second episode there was a very gruesome and detailed part with polar bear eating baby seals, one chew at a time.
One way to traumatize 4-year old, I'd say an effective one.
It’s a content issue mostly. Content providers do not want to properly tag and silo their content. And add parental control to kids account. They want to shift that burden to everyone but themselves.
"Of course, they're gonna know what intercourse is By the time they hit fourth grade They've got the Discovery Channel, don't they?"
Netflix age recommendations are a complete joke.
There was one documentary series that apparently appropriate for 7+ and had "motherfucker" within the first 30 seconds of one episode.
I don't know which parallel reality they're from where that is an appropriate word for a 7 year old to learn.
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The knife and the knife maker doesn't have intentions to pump propaganda and porn into the childs mind. The internet is not neutral like knife. The internet has an actor on the other end (human or algorithm) that has certain intentions. Thus a child can be intentionally influence via the internet. A knife does not act on its own to influence the child's mind. So, apples and oranges. I'd argue the internet is significantly more dangerous to a child vs a knife. The internet wasn't built for children, it was never child friendly to begin with and we shouldn't mutate the internet to cater to children. Its best to treat the internet like a hostile force for a child's mind and keep children completely off it to begin with. Make it illegal for children to use a device connected to the internet, it is the parents responsibility. Same as guns. Its not the gun smith or gun sellers responsibility to keep the child safe from guns - its the parent's.
> I'm pretty sure most kids older than 12 do have access to kitchen knives. And actively use them too.
True, and it's the parents responsibility to ensure that children won't injure themselves with the knives, or take them out or to school or whatever.
Yes, but my point was - they are not handled the same way as guns (and many other things) and that you simply can't enforce some things.
For some of these, we fully disallow company to child transactions or interactions. Wouldn't applying the same logic require the adult to fetch any internet content and give it to the child on a case by case basis?
In this case, it is the data from the website, not the electronic device itself, that is seen as the item being transacted and regulated by age gates, no? The attempts to actually regulate it do feed back into changes on the electronic device, but the real cause of concern (per the protect the kids argument, if that is the real reason is debatable) is a company providing data directly to a child that parents find objectionable. That transaction doesn't have a parent directly involved currently.
Controlling the device itself and saying free game if a parent has allowed them access is a bit like saying that if a parent has allowed a kid to get to the store, there should be no further restrictions on what they can buy, including any of the above three items.
I don't know why you think this will stop page verification requirements. For almost all items where a parent/guardian is responsible for a child's access to the item, third parties are also required to not sell or transfer the item to a child. That gets us right back needing to age verify people.
That is kinda the idea behind the california law that was on the front page a few weeks ago. The parent set up a local account with a age bracket, and the OS verifies that in the app store and maybe webpages if they fit the age bracket.
> Why can't we handle this the same way we handle knives, guns and chainsaws: require adults to secure the device before letting minors near them?
Is this a thing?
My 10yo has used all three of those things. If there were some legislation requiring they be "secured" before my son could be in my presence, obviously I'd oppose it, along with every other reasonable parent.
Because this is clearly not about children. Children is a pretext.
Doing it "the same way we handle knives, guns and chainsaws" would require handing over your ID to even buy computer parts if it's the same as the EU.
This is essentially what the California law is mandating
Not really. It's the difference between a mandatory field and an optional field. And in practice, and its effects on the internet, that difference is huge.
Because that doesn't work?