[whatwhatwhat]

I'm sure there are plenty of kids that can circumvent this and access facebook from friends' computers, from school, cafes, etc. This is especially true if the kid knows they are being watched or if they have a laptop. Kids are smart. You suggest that a parent out-tech their child. I don't imagine thats so easy to do for some parents that aren't great with computers when they are up against a tech-savvy teenager.

[darklajid]

Listen, what's the purpose of the law? To help parents control their children?

If you don't trust your children to understand your lessons about being careful online, do you install cameras on their way to school as well? Do you read their text messages and diaries? Is this seriously acceptable/normal over there or is this explicitly targeted at Facebook/social media sites?

For me this seems like an easy way out. If you are suspicious that your own kid does something you don't like (Yeah.. And you never did that in the good old times..), let's just snoop out their communication on Facebook.

And - as we all know - the things you say or write as a kid are like totally acceptable all the time. You'd never talk bad about things your parents like and you'd always like your parents to check out the people you've got a crush on..

Edit:

You suggest a kid can use a computer at another kids house (to do stuff on the 'net that has to be controlled) but trust your kid to not abuse the distance to your home in other ways? "Yeah, she's over at a friend's. Hope they're not on Facebook again."?

[cabalamat]

> Listen, what's the purpose of the law? To help parents control their children?

More likely, the purpose is to grandstand and give technophobic/worried parents the impression something is being done on their behalf, in the hope that they'll vote for the politicians responsible in future. Whether the law works is irrelevant.

[cookiecaper]

There's always a way around this kind of thing, that's just part of life. If someone is adequately determined to circumvent your restriction, they can almost always do so. You're correct that many children could just use the computer at a friend's house, but there's nothing we can do about that short of imposing IP and/or MAC restrictions on Facebook logins (parents could extract Facebook passwords, however, and login to their childrens' accounts independently). A router with adequate reporting capabilities would be a huge upgrade for most families, and it's becoming increasingly important to place this kind of monitoring on the network side given the ever-growing preponderance of mobile devices.

[whatwhatwhat]

The article seems to be linkbait anyways, but if it were true I would be entirely against it -- I am just pointing out where the argument for home network monitoring falls short when both parties are aware of the monitor being there. I suppose the key to having one, for a parent, or for someone building one, would be to leave a kid completely unsuspecting.

[nitrogen]

I suppose the key to having one, for a parent, or for someone building one, would be to leave a kid completely unsuspecting.

If I were a parent installing monitoring software, I think I'd tell my kids exactly what the software monitors, show them the logs, and teach them a way to get around it that logs access times but not content. I would say, "If you need to hide something from me, that's cool, but I'm going to know that you hid something and I'm going to ask about it, so keep that in mind." The purpose of the monitoring software would be to provide an opportunity to analyze the potential consequences of my kids' online activities.

Of course, imagining and doing are very different things, so ask me again in n years after I've actually started a family and see if I actually followed my own advice ;).

[MichaelApproved]

You ask the child for all their passwords and install a monitor on their computer for other activity. If the child is going to circumvent this by creating a fake account or lying to you about being on a social network then this law still won't help you. In order for a website to give you access to an account, you have to know that account exists.

Bottom line, monitoring your child is part of being a parent and there are already tools in place to help with this. As the saying goes Trust but verify.