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by tablespoon 1777 days ago
> Kendra Albert, an instructor at Harvard’s Cyberlaw Clinic, has a thread on the potential dangers to queer children and Apple’s initial lack of clarity around age ranges for the parental notifications feature.

>> The idea that parents are safe people for teens to have conversations about sex or sexting with is admirable, but in many cases, not true. (And as far as I can tell, this stuff doesn't just apply to kids under the age for 13.) — Kendra Albert (@KendraSerra) August 5, 2021

>> EFF reports that the iMessage nudity notifications will not go to parents if the kid is between 13-17 but that is not anywhere in the Apple documentation that I can find. https://t.co/Ma1BdyqZfW — Kendra Albert (@KendraSerra) August 6, 2021

I'm against Apple forcing a backdoor onto every device, but this argument falls totally flat to me. Yes there are shitty parents out there, but despite that, parents still need the ability to parent. If Apple's "think of the children" arguments for their backdoor are wrong, then this "think of the children" argument against it is wrong too. There's nothing wrong with notifying parents that their pre-teen is doing someone they shouldn't be doing with their phone.

IMHO, I'd support the existence of such feature, but only as long as it's a user-installable option, not installed on every phone as part of the OS.