Comment by jvvw
3 days ago
I don't agree with age verification, but there isn't anywhere 'set your children's ages in their device accounts' that limits their access to inappropriate content and social media.
You can set age in Google Accounts, but they can access pretty much anything when they reach age 13 (which is about the age a lot of these things start to become a real problem) and as a parent you don't have any way to limit that. They don't even need to ask to install new phone apps.
Children also use computers as well as phones and you don't want to stop them using a web browser! You also obviously can't supervise them every moment they are online even if you wanted to.
In moments where you can not supervise them, do not let them play with the dangerous device anymore. You wouldn't leave a kid alone with a gun either.
I think there are many ways to limit that. E.g. Google Android parental control https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103028?hl=en#zip...
I understand technological advancements can be overwhelming for older people. But that does not warrant giving up on kids...
I have a hard time calling it a technological advancement, that's what it was when we had bloggers and forums some 20 years ago. Until we all collectively agree that kids should not have smartphones and iPads until they're maybe 17, or come up with a solution where they do have them but will only be able to use them for Maps, Books, Word/Excel, the Chrome Dino game, Tetris, and obviously messaging/calling with parents - without being the weird ones in the classroom. Until then, it's one ugly experiment which got completely out of hands.
Agreed. Many parents I've spoken to want operating systems to provide a standard set of age and/or content flags that app stores and websites are required to respect.
But various groups are deliberately conflating that desire for self-attested flags with verification: Politicians who want to police speech, companies who want to advertise to verified humans, and privacy advocates who want an easier strawman to attack.