[happymellon]

Why don't they do things that are within their control.

Such as mandatory site filtering options. So the same place you pay your bill, you can also set which sites you want to be blocked by an "admin" password.

Or are they afraid that people will add tracking.facebook.com to the block list?

The chances of the kids stealing the admin password are about as likely as the kids stealing your age verification password that you needed to set up to access Reddit.

[blitzar]

Parents dont want to be the "bad guy" or parents in any real sense.

[edu]

I think it's more the case that many parents are not tech savvy enough to even know that's possible or how to do it. Also, this create a safety net which seems too fragile, as you just need one family that doesn't do it to potentially expose all their friends.

[blitzar]

It's no different to the phones for toddlers at school - they can, they know how, they are just even more affected by FOMO, peer pressure and judgement than children.

The other excuses are all just cope - little Timmy will just find a way around the blocks is true. Little Timmy can also get Heroin if he really wants or just one family might offer all the kids a hit on a crack pipe but it isn't an excuse to keep a needle, pipe and some fresh gear in the living room.

[happymellon]

The rules can be whatever they want them to be.

Block adult sites by default (much like a lot of phone companies already do) and the account owner can go in a make changes.

You only need one kid with a fake id that works, or for them to discover AI that can fake faces on a webcam to potentially expose all their friends...

Lazyness is a terrible excuse

[gorgoiler]

And as another commenter points out, this also requires parents to unionize and enforce blocks together. (”Block en bloc” if you will.) Otherwise Timmy just uses Johnny’s phone to watch XXX videos.

I’m not arguing for either side, just pointing out a reality of the situation.

[hedora]

Who are these six year olds with cell phone plans?

They’re going to use their parents’ devices, which are all age verified anyway.

More to the point: Age block technologies have been around since the mid 90’s and, for thirty years, parents have voted with their wallets and not installed them. In areas where they’re free, parents still don’t want them.

[stevenicr]

I too have wondered why there has not been huge pressure from parents to demand that cell phone hardware and the cell companies (and cable companies) - offer a portal they can log into and choose a 'bouncer / blocking system'

I have suggested publicly in the past that there should be a set of community blocker bots that are transparent about what they do and do not block and they are easy to fork and change for this sort of thing. And parents can choose which level of blocking their networks adhere to.

Of course they could just block all things sex for the moment -

But parents have not demanded this.

I imagine that way back in the day when if the porn via cable boxes was enabled by default, many parents would not have chosen to just give their kids one in the living room and one in their bedroom, many houses put one in every room of the house.

And yet they know that these phone devices can bring up porn and many worse things - and they just hand them over with an unlimited data plan like its nothing.

Many years ago, some parents could argue they did not know there was naughty things on the telephone like connected to the computers, but today's parents grew up with the porn on the internet and most partents just give them unlimited anytime access to all the things.

If the zealots riling up the churches and mom groups and such truly believe that porn is proven scientifically destruction to the children, why are the parents not in trouble for giving these devices to the kids? Like giving a car and alcohol and unlimited ammo to what 90% of kids?

I do believe part of the problem has been non-great options for blocking. (I have heard there are more options today than there were when I researched this a bit 10 years ago - back then disney circle (too expensive) and an open source dns poisoning thing I couldn't figure out how to setup)

But I think we also need to be honest that all parents know the porn is there (and worse, they know they have cameras on these devices and things like snap have been around so long everyone knows there are worse things that can be done with these devices) - and yet people have not demanded non-camera, all adult blocked devices, in fact they have been buying them up and paying premium prices to provide unlimited 24/7 access.

So the few people who are getting their ego stroked by the choir for saving the children, it would seem being in their bubbling is preventing them from seeing the reality of the people's choices, and providing better alternatives and education.

It seems every year each group needs a boogie man to raise money and get the likes and shares before campaign season. It's a shame they are willing to slay the rights of people just to get some temporary popularity - and likely knowing it's not going to fix the thing, but it is going to cost time and money for many - but they don't care about the masses.