Comment by bluGill
7 days ago
What is adult content? I know parents who have no problem with their kids seeing porn. I know parents who give their kids a beer. I know parents who take their kids to violent movies. I used to know parents who will give their kids cigarettes. Most parents I know will disagree with their kids doing one of the above. I know songs that were played on the radio in 1960 that would not be allowed today, even though today we allow some swearing on the radio.
That's between parents and their local governments. Yes when I was a kid my mom let me watch whatever and go wherever. The parent in my example ultimately decides what a kid may or may not do which is in alignment with existing laws. If the parent is endangering their kid that is up to them and their government to sort out.
Point being, put the controls entirely into the hands of the device owner. Options can be to default to:
- Block everything by default unless header states otherwise.
- Block only sites that state they are adult.
- Do nothing. Obey the operator. (Controls disabled on child accounts or make them an adult or otherwise unrestricted account on the device).
I think the options are just limited to our imagination.
> - Block only sites that state they are adult.
This is the problem. What is an "adult" web site? Websites that show porn? Websites that show gore? Websites that show violence? Websites that show non-porn naked people? Websites that have curse words? Websites that promote cults and alternate religions?
Why is it the site's responsibility to "state" that they are adult, given whatever parameters they dream up? Why is it the government's responsibility to say "This is adult content, but that isn't adult content?" Shouldn't the parent get to decide which categories of content count as "adult"?
Let’s not pretend like this is a brand new problem. Even pre-Internet, there have always (well, let’s just say definitely the whole lifetime of anyone GenX or younger) been tons of first-amendment-protected content falling under all 3 of these categories: “obviously fine for children” (e.g. Sesame Street, Paw Patrol), “obviously not appropriate for children” (Hustler magazine, Pornhub), and “Controversial / maybe ok for teens / still probably not okay for 6-year-olds” (e.g. sex ed, depictions of rape, graphic violence). This last category is obviously one where Opinions May Vary, but the way we have handled it in the past has been laws. Nearly every state has statutes prohibiting sale, display, rental, or distribution to minors of material deemed “harmful to minors” - the distinction between the second and third categories is determined by a court if it really has to be. This has worked fine in the offline sphere, and it’s why I couldn’t walk into a video store when I was 8 and rent a stack of porn tapes.
At minimum, it would be a reasonable legislation topic to at minimum mandate that websites publishing obviously “Harmful to minors” content tag it as such[1]. And also it would be ideal to create some kind of campaign to tag the first category as safe (honestly Apple and Google ought to be working together on that one). If you in good faith operate a site in the controversial category, that would be no different than selling books on sex ed in a Barnes & Noble - protected.
Parents could then choose, with simple device controls:
- Allow only “tagged safe” pages (parents with very young kids, or who have a hard time monitoring use)
- Allow safe + no-tag (open-minded parents who choose to err on the side of allow, and monitor the controversial stuff themselves)
- Allow all (parents who want to be solely responsible to regulate it)
I find it frustrating that people are talking like we have to either have a completely “no rules” Internet where obviously any kindergartener is going to stumble upon super disgusting stuff, or this gross surveillance state Internet, where people have to show ID to use any site. Neither of those are how things were before the Internet and it doesn’t have to be how things are now.
[1] you might ask, what do we do when say, a Russian porn site doesn’t want to comply with this tagging. In my opinion, it seems reasonable that someone could put obviously bad faith sites like that into a block list database. In a place like the UK I would expect that to be a government regulator, but there’s no reason why that couldn’t just be something private companies do in the US. As a parent, I would pay two bucks a month to subscribe to a service like that if it were integrated into the operating systems my kids use.
> Websites that promote cults and alternate religions?
Websites that promote any religions. No way should under-18s be exposed to that.
> I know parents who have no problem with their kids seeing porn.
I don't agree with showing actual children porn, but I also totally expect teenagers to find some way to get access to it in the age of the Internet.
Part of the challenge with this is cultural. Different places in the world think about sex, sexuality, and even the concept of what is a child differently. In the US, showing a woman's bare breasts to a person under 18 is generally considered wrong, and in many cases is illegal. In most of Europe it wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, because bare breasts are on television, sometimes in commercials even.
Set aside for a moment the question of age verification and age limits, we cannot even agree in any sort of universal sense what even qualifies as porn or adult content, and at what age someone should be able to see it. There's a difference between a 7 year old and a 17 year old seeing the same type of content, and there's also a difference between a photographic nude and a video of people engaged in coitus.
The story is basically the same for everything else you listed.
These age verification laws in many ways are trying to use the most heavy-handed mechanism possible to enforce American cultural norms on the entire planet. That's clearly wrong to do. What the GP suggested using RTA headers though puts the control into the parent's hands, which is as it should be.
I considered many of the same points you mentioned.
Though, one area I am still struggling to grasp is the harm that governments are trying to mitigate. If a child were to see inappropriate material, then what harm can truly arise? Also, why do governments need to enact such laws when the onus of protecting children should be on their parents?
I am not trying to start any kind of flame war, but I really cannot see any other basis for all this prohibition that is not somehow traceable back to Western religious beliefs and the societies born and molded from such beliefs.
It seems like you might be a big believer in cultural relativism and that nothing can be right or wrong, so this may be unsuccessful, but many of us do believe that it’s harmful to the normal development of children to be exposed to certain types of content. It is mostly about maturity. A five-year-old who sees explicit sexual acts performed on a screen is going to be curious about it and be interested in trying it. He or she will likely have no sense of what would be problematic (e.g. trying to initiate such an act with a peer or an adult. Consider how they probably don’t understand ideas of consent). It’s why it’s generally considered grooming for people to exhibit that type of thing to children. Children who have been groomed frequently abuse other children (including by force), and can be taken advantage of by pedophile adults.
I think it’s important, as tough as it can be to identify where exactly the line is, distinguish the concept of a 16-year-old cranking his hog to some Internet porn (which yes, probably pretty harmless and inevitable), with little kids being exposed to explicit types of content. And little kids are curious, so just the fact that they make an attempt to find the content doesn’t mean they’re ready for it.
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We don't need to care what France or China thinks when we make our laws that are about our own citizens. They do the same over there.
> These age verification laws in many ways are trying to use the most heavy-handed mechanism possible to enforce American cultural norms on the entire planet. That's clearly wrong to do.
Yes there's a chance our rules spill over there naturally, and I don't consider that wrong either.
That was our struggle with implementing "blocking" tech at a school I worked at. Is a kid looking up how to do a breast self exam porn? What about a self testicular exam.. What about actual Sex Ed kinds of sites?
Then those parents can turn off their browser/client’s age protections. I think that’s actually a decent argument for the solution posed by this thread.
There is such a thing as making the "kid ok" header so rare or "18+" so eager that nobody takes it seriously, so that'd need to be kept in mind.
> I know parents who have no problem with their kids seeing porn.
Surely you mean at least teenagers, and not literally children, right? Consider the prevalence of violence, racial stereotyping, and escalation of fetishism into degeneracy that clearly exists within this medium; what's the line that these parents draw? Are they making sure it's only something vanilla? Or is there no line whatsoever?
They don't care. The kids won't think to ask until they are teens, and they are not showing it until then, but it is technically available.
There are already laws defining this. Had to draw the line somewhere, and they did.
In which legal jurisdiction and culture? Many or most website are have users from many locations.
Is the header a json encoded map from country code to age rating?
The US. If they want to serve users in other countries, or if certain states make their own rules, it's business as usual whether to serve different content there or serve a different header or take the legal risk.
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i can make arguments as to potential merits of kids having a beer/cigarette, listening to swear words, or witnessing casual violence. i cant make an argument for letting kids see hardcore pornography in any capacity.
I have hard time imagining what is that argument, that apply to the thing you mention but that doesn't apply to hardcore pornography.
Or do you also think we should forbid hardcore pornography also for adults?
there may be valid use cases in certain demographics eg the disabled. to me it is evidently advantageous teaching a teenager how to have a smoke or have a drink properly , so that they don't go overboard with self directed learning for a valid activity (loosening social inhibition). we could totally teach teenagers the generation and consumption of dispassionate violent relationship simulacra. may I ask what would be advantageous about this ?
Swear words and violence don't cause addiction, alcohol can but it's way less likely and also easier to restrict... idk why a kid should have cigs even once though
it is literally always the same thing - who gets to make these decisions? if you come from a family of alcholics (there are many) you will view alcohol for what it is, one of the most dangerous drugs that someone decide should be "legal." if you come from family that lost loved ones to smoking - same thing with smokes. hardcode porn, eh, they will eventually start putting this into practice ("hard" part is personal preference) so while probably not the greatest thing to have kids exposed to who makes these decisions? Personally, if you gave me a choice between smokes and porn and I had to choose one for my kid - I would choose hardcode porn. the core issue as always - who is making decisions on what kids should or shouldn't be exposed to?! and what do you do when whenever someone else gets that power then decides that reading or math or fishing or camping or ... is not allowed?
There are things where like 90% of people will find common ground
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