Comment by ars
3 days ago
That's just not true. If you give your kid WhatsApp access because that's how 95% of their peers text each other, then your kid has access to a hidden chat that can only be revealed by typing a secret code in the search bar.
Tell me how a parent is supposed to parent their kid when they can do that? Locking down WhatsApp is no solution because then they can't talk to anyone. (Other countries do not use SMS as much as the US does, it's mostly WhatsApp.)
Say you are sure your kid is being bullied or abused and you want to check their phone. You can't. From the password to encrypted apps kids can hide their communications in ways that are impossible for a parent to check.
Apps do not have "child modes" that disable all the secret stuff, although that would be nice.
> If you give your kid WhatsApp access because that's how 95% of their peers text each other, then your kid has access to a hidden chat that can only be revealed by typing a secret code in the search bar.
So the solution to parents deciding to give their kids access to stuff is to make me flash my ID every time I go online on one of my devices that I use in my childless household? And you're confident that there won't be plenty of parents who just put their ID information in for their kids anyhow?
That's an argument you made, I was simply responding to this idea that parents don't want to parent. It's not true, they do, they just can't.
A solution is needed, and I think age verification is a good start - divide apps into kid apps, and adult apps. Kid apps will be made such that parents have full access to them, and they are blocked from social networks, only individual messages, and pre-planned groups.
Other solutions might also work - I'm not stuck on any particular one. But they all start by making it impossible for kids to access the adult internet (and I don't mean porn, I mean unrestricted communication).
Do you have a solution? And again, don't say "just parent the kid", because we've established that as impossible with modern devices.
> I was simply responding to this idea that parents don't want to parent. It's not true, they do, they just can't.
I never claimed otherwise.
> A solution is needed, and I think age verification is a good start - divide apps into kid apps, and adult apps.
That's where I disagree. The existence of a problem that a lot of people want to solve doesn't mean that literally anything is better than nothing. We have much larger societal problems with known solutions that don't get implemented because some people argue that they introduce other problems that have gone an awfully long time without implementing (e.g. healthcare costs and universal healthcare, mass shootings and gun control). I've yet to see a plausible explanation for why this is so urgent that it requires addressing immediately by an invasive solution, but there's a pretty plausible explanation for why this one is so much more palatable to the people passing laws: the surveillance is useful to them for other reasons.
> Do you have a solution? And again, don't say "just parent the kid", because we've established that as impossible with modern devices.
Again, by that logic, we should have had medicare for all and enforced strict gun control decades ago. It's hard to believe that this is a consistent argument if you're not as vigorously arguing in favor of stuff like that.
I don't have kids but I do wonder if maybe the downsides of WhatsApp etc outweigh the benefits?
Lack of practice with face to face communication, near inability to talk on the phone, less quality connection with people in general, craned necks, myopia, hidden bullying, privacy violations, dependency on a US company etc
And what do you mean by "can't talk to anyone"?
In places where WhatsApp is highly used you basically can't function without it, school events are posted there, friends organize activities on it, teachers communicate to both parents and kids on it.
Giving a highschool kid a phone is basically mandatory or they will be cut off from activities, and/or rely on a friend to relay messages. In some places even middleschoolers need it.
There are definitely downsides (not to mention WhatsApp is a really badly engineering program), but the network effect is too strong to fight.