[naremu]

I assumed this is what parental controls are invented for, but all too many parents don't seem to even have the knowledge to activate those in the first place.

Maybe they should learn how they work instead of supporting a thin veil of totalitarianism.

[ndriscoll]

Which parental controls, and how would those even work?

Back in the IE6 days I remember there was some setting to tweak allowed content ratings for websites, which I believe was based on HTTP headers, but does anyone implement that anymore (did they ever)? I just checked reddit, and they don't seem to send any headers, and use the same domains for porn as they do for child-focused content.

The obvious thing to advocate for would be to require commercial porn sites to send some kind of standardized headers that would allow parental controls to work in the first place, and/or to require any domains with content targeted to children to not also host adult-only content (e.g. reddit should put either their child-focused subs or their porn on a separate subdomain).

Then require commercial browser vendors to implement content blocking settings based on those headers.

Alternatively, it would be possible for governments to provide an oauth style service that provides tokens that assert the user is an adult without revealing any other info about the user, and then require porn sites to check for that token.

[pfisch]

TikTok and instagram are full of things that are porn or are almost porn. Same with Reddit.

It is unrealistic to lock your kids out of all social media.

[blitz_skull]

> It is unrealistic to lock your kids out of all social media.

Excuse me, what?

Is it also unrealistic to prevent your kids from doing hard drugs? Sure maybe you can’t control them past a certain age, but you certainly can AND SHOULD within a certain age time frame.

Social media has been shown to be so hazardous to developing youth’s mental health I think not only is it realistic, but you have a duty and an obligation do prevent your kids from using social media in an unrestricted manner.

[genocidicbunny]

> unrestricted manner.

They didn't say unrestricted, they said locked out. As in, not accessible at all.

And you know what is also very hazardous to a developing person's mental health? Being left out of most social gatherings and interactions with their peers.

You can block your kids from accessing social media, but to succeed you also need to force their peers to communicate and interact with them in a unique and more frictive way. And you have no right to force someone else's kids to do that. So the reality is that without a lot of like-minded families that do the same, your kids are going to be left out of a lot of things.

So is it unrealistic to control your children's access to social media? No, not at all. But locking them out from it entirely as you stated, is a good way to negatively impact their social development.

[blitz_skull]

I disagree. I grew up without a cell phone while all my friends had them. Beyond that, my friends had online gaming where I barely even had access to the internet, and what access I had was limited.

I find the argument that kids are going to unanimously ostracize another kid without an Instagram account very hard to believe. Kids _will_ be assholes for any reason under the sun, so it's not a question of will my kid have a hard time socially from time-to-time—that's just life.

Hobbies, social outlets, groups in the community—these are all ways to ensure your kids aren't socially stunted without giving them the emotional / mental equivalent of heroin.

[genocidicbunny]

> I disagree. I grew up without a cell phone while all my friends had them. Beyond that, my friends had online gaming where I barely even had access to the internet, and what access I had was limited.

The world's changed since you and I were at the ages being discussed here. We grew up in a different world, frankly.

> I find the argument that kids are going to unanimously ostracize another kid without an Instagram account very hard to believe. Kids _will_ be assholes for any reason under the sun, so it's not a question of will my kid have a hard time socially from time-to-time—that's just life.

They won't be ostracized. They will just be forgotten. If you are messaging a group of 10 people, and for 9/10 you can just use one platform, but for the last person, you need to use something else, then eventually they will start being forgotten unless someone is very proactive about including them. Miss one get together here, one joke there, and quite quickly you find yourself on the outside of the group. It's real, and I have seen it happen. It's not that kids are being assholes, it's that they are just behaving as young humans do.

> Hobbies, social outlets, groups in the community—these are all ways to ensure your kids aren't socially stunted without giving them the emotional / mental equivalent of heroin.

Those are all good and well, but they are no substitute for your kids finding their own friends as they grow up. Having the autonomy to organize your own social networks yourself is very important for kids.

[ipaddr]

Loneliness and a lifetime of sadness has been shown to have greater risks. Is cutting out social connections the answer? Because that's what ends up happening.

[kelnos]

Please present evidence that denying teens access to social media causes them to have literally no meaningful social connections. I do expect social interactions to suffer for a teen in that situation. But I find it hard to believe that it causes complete isolation and (gimme a break) a "lifetime of sadness".

[genocidicbunny]

The parent didn't say "literally no meaningful social connections". You're asking for proof of a point that wasn't made.

Sadness, loneliness, isolation, these are not things that you can measure with such binary precision. They're emotions, and they vary, person-to-person, and moment-to-moment. Is it not plausible that for some people, 'social interactions suffering', even if not completely removed from social connections, is enough to make them feel a profound level of sadness or loneliness or isolation?

[fallingknife]

> Is it also unrealistic to prevent your kids from doing hard drugs?

Yes. If they want it, it's not hard to find.

[blitz_skull]

That's not the point. The point is that it's your obligation to do your best to protect them from it. "Ease of access" is hardly a reason to not try.

[jrockway]

Is it unrealistic? Like, social media wasn't invented when I was a kid and I found some way to spend my time.

I don't have kids but am planning on it, and I don't see myself locking kids out of social media. I also don't super care if they see naked people on the Internet. If it becomes a problem somehow I'll deal with the problem myself.

I'm more worried about kids shows on TV with messages like "follow all the rules or you'll be bricked inside a tunnel". I grew up with those, and in retrospect, they are super creepy.

[genocidicbunny]

To me, the problem is that while you might block your children from using social media, are all of your children's friends going to be in the same situation. If your kid has a circle of friends that interacts a lot on social media, and your kid doesn't participate in that, eventually they will be left out of that group.

[jrockway]

Yeah, exactly. That's why I think a categorical ban is not necessarily "good parenting". I think you have to peek in and see what they're watching on TikTok, and provide relevant information. If they think a video where someone burns down a store as "a prank" is funny, remind them of the consequences; hurting other people, prison, whatever. (OK, TikTok is a little less extreme than that, but you get the point.)

Certainly, I understand why people want to delegate work to the government here; parenting is hard work. But it's necessary work, you don't want the government's children to go out into the world and do their own thing. You want your kids to. And so your touch is going to be required in their formative years. There is no getting around that.

[genocidicbunny]

> That's why I think a categorical ban is not necessarily "good parenting".

I agree -- both because it's unlikely to be effectual, and because it's not really addressing the root problem of parent involvement.

> I think you have to peek in and see what they're watching on TikTok, and provide relevant information.

Exactly. You can't just expect to go into your firewall settings, ban some URLs and expect that to solve the problem. Or at the same time, to just completely ban them from accessing social media at all (though arguments could be made for monitored/timed access at certain age 'gates') -- I've written multiple other comments about why that can backfire too.

[simion314]

>It is unrealistic to lock your kids out of all social media.

Really? so the state blocks porn, but then that social media will have people that use bad language so the state needs to also protect your kids from bad language, maybe people say on those social media that Santa or Jesus does not exist so state should protect them again and ban this stuff too.

Do not allow your child on social media that is for adults. I am sure PlayStation offer social feature for children with strong moderation, so find similar social media that is targeted for children.

[munk-a]

It is perfectly reasonable to lock your kids out of social media until they're mature enough to handle to it. It's actually probably in their benefit to block them from the non-nsfw parts of social media as well since social media has an extremely negative effect on mental health.

Parents are allowed to autocrat - it may feel icky but to parent well you need to occasionally put on your villain hat.

[logicchains]

>Parents are allowed to autocrat - it may feel icky but to parent well you need to occasionally put on your villain hat

It's not about icky. If you autocrat too much as a parent your kids will simple resent you and once they're 18/left home they'll do whatever they want now that you're no longer around to control them, because they never learned any self control. Like US college kids going all out with drugs and alcohol.

[munk-a]

There is a place between a micro-managing helicopter parent and laissez-faire - your parenting should be in that place. And while it'd be awesome to be your kids' best friend forever it's more important that they learn boundaries, self-control and how to human. You can impart self-control without opening every door and, given how psychologically exploitative a lot of the internet and advertising is, it's hardly a fair fight to just let them sink or swim.

Guidance is a responsibility of parenthood.

[belval]

What a weird argument in the context of this bill. "If I'm too strict my child will resent me therefore I will vote so that my opinion can be enforced on everyone by the government and I can be my child's buddy".

Must be interesting with other "sinful" activities, "I'd totally let you do cocain but shoot the government won't let me!".

[kelnos]

My parents were pretty strict with me as a kid, and I missed out on a lot of things that my peers got to do. I did resent them, somewhat, at the time, but by my mid-20s I was able to recognize that they were just doing their best and, like literally all parents, were making things up as they went along.

When I went to college I was fine. I developed a new social circle quickly, and didn't end up becoming a drunk or a druggie. Sure, I did many of the things my parents never would allow me to do, but it was fine.

I totally get that some people end up in a worse place than I did, but that's not an excuse for blanket governmental bans on things. But I would absolutely 100% support any parent that decides to deny their children any and all access to social media. That shit is cancer, and IMO is worse for developing brains than nicotine or alcohol.

I hesitate to present such a hard line on social media, when I'm kinda "whatever" on teens seeing some porn. The problem is that I see what social media does to adults with fully-developed brains, and I start to feel like social media is akin to heroin: no amount of it is safe, for anyone.

A more relaxed view might be to give teens access to social media, but only in a supervised setting. Parents should be monitoring what goes on with their social media accounts, and have frank (but calm and non-judgemental) discussions with the kid whenever anything concerning comes up. Also parents need to find a way to impress upon their kids that social media is not real life, and that people present whatever slice of their lives (often an unrealistic rosy picture) they decide to paint. And then there's all the misinformation and echo chambers, and... ugh, yeah, no, just don't let kids on social media.

[cf1241290841]

I believe its even more unrealistic to make the internet sfw / children.

While i do sympathize with the impossible difficulty of being a parent in the current decade, there is realistically no way i am going to just accept the death of the adult internet. Thats likely a common sentiment and realistically the people making these laws are too stupid to enforce them against motivated opponents with technical expertise.

I dont see a way out of this other then create a whitelisted subset for children with enforcement being the responsibility of the parents. Because going death of anonymity for access control is a no go either.

Looking on the bright side, to me this looks like just a lack of safe for children platforms that are still tolerable to use.

[standardUser]

I sometimes forget that we consider simple nudity to be "porn". We shouldn't.

[munk-a]

It's absolutely ridiculous that we consider nudity to be nsfw - but TikTok and Instagram have a fair amount of content on them that are intentionally as close to nsfw as you can get without getting banned. I agree with your literal point - but there's actual porn on social media.

[vezycash]

I've seen actual porn on Twitter. I don't have an instagram account many porn models put links to their IG profiles.

[pfisch]

All of this and worse is on tiktok.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tiktokthots/

[laweijfmvo]

or you know, talk to your kids