[moritonal]

I don't get why the device changes the blame logic.

If child-services knew a parent was constantly watching/leaving around adult-content near children, that'd be considered the parents fault. If a parent lets a kid watch anything they want on TV and the kid watches adult content, it's the parents fault. But if the parent gives the child a phone, and doesn't manage what apps they use or content they watch, now it's the companies fault?

[sdoering]

I could just as easily turn this argument around:

If my younger self, went into a store to buy a bottle of Vodka, before I came of age at 18 here in Germany, it wasn't my parents fault. It was the shop that did not check my license that was liable.

If they sold me beer before I was 16, same situation. Analogous for cigarettes. Or me trying to enter an amusement arcade (with monetary gains possible, not just pinball like things.

So why should "online stores" / "arcades" / "non kid friendly/appropriate venues" be treated differently than brick and mortar ones?

Wouldn't that be the same argument?

[pardon_me]

The company should be responsible for providing options to block all or part of the content, and warn users of the content type, depending on their place in the pipeline.

For example, Apple and Google should provide tools for the parents to set up a device appropriately for a child, much like the shop should not sell alcohol to underage customers. Similarly, content producers should specifically need to label content targeted for children or specially 18+, like the producer of alcohol must warn customers on the label and inform the retailers.

Parents and caretakers need information to make an informed decisions before being able to consume the media themselves. They also need some granular tools on the device to avoid banning them entirely. The burden is shared between creator, distributor and consumer.

We already had laws for this and it makes sense for some type of access control to the open internet. The shocking part is the requirement for everyone to verify ID to multiple public and private institutions, more than once per.

An analogy for the UK now would be needing ID to enter the supermarket (access the internet), ID to look at anything aimed at adults and potentially harmful such as alcohol, chemicals, sugary food, medicine etc. (know "potentially harmful" subjects exist), ID to look at anything lawfully 18+ such as alcohol and cigarettes (view the content), then ID again to make the 18+ purchase from an account needing ID to open.

[sdoering]

Back in the day, I was able to enter a video rental store without ID. But the erotic section was cordoned of to my younger self.

Today, my younger self would go to Reddit, click any of the myriads of subreddits catering to any kink and just click "yes", when being prompted to ensure he is old enough to view NSFW content. Or on p*nhub. Or anywhere. I actually do not care for tobacco or liquor advertising. I did not become an lsd eating circle for playing PacMan. Nor did I become an alcoholic for watching hundreds hours of alcohol advertising till coming of age in Germany.

So why ask for an ID when entering the internet (supermarket) instead of fining the respective companies into oblivion, if they allow minors in? Why burden the tax payer with an infrastructure? Make the companies making a shitload of money pay for ensuring they adhere to the law. Because actually allowing minors access to hardcore porn is - at least here - already illegal. But hey, we can't enforce it, because it is the internet.

Sorry, but I am just not a fan of setting up a society wide system, that tells the big advertisers: This is a real person. Or even: This is Joe Schimansky from so and so, age this and that. This is not any data the likes of Meta or Google should have.

Nor should the government have a system in place that enables them to track who gets verified for what content.

If private entities want to make money from content that is not fit for minors - they need to pay to ensure it isn't accessed. Or carry the consequences.

I know, I can get riled up. But quite a few of these initiatives to me either smell like regulatory capture and/or like a convenient way of monitoring society.

[ASalazarMX]

> If my younger self, went into a store to buy a bottle of Vodka, before I came of age at 18 here in Germany, it wasn't my parents fault. It was the shop that did not check my license that was liable.

Except this can only be fair if they carded everyone who buys liquor, not only people who appear young, otherwise it's subjective, and businesses shouldn't be liable if a tall, bearded teen buys vodka, because he looks older than 18.

Of course, in reality, liquor store cashiers are allowed to judge subjectively, but VPN providers won't be allowed to. And they'll probably be asked to share records of registered adults in the future, given the repeated efforts to backdoor encryption in the same UK. This is unlikely to be only about protecting the children.

[whynotmaybe]

I bought a product that requires ID verification in Massachusetts and the cashier couldn't complete the transaction without scanning my driver's license.

[moritonal]

That's a really fair point. I suppose it's reasonable to point out that adults do have to provide ID quite often to buy things, but it's skipped so often because people can just look at us so we don't "feel" it. I think my problem comes from how I don't believe my cornershop records my ID when they see it, whilst I imagine these services would.

[luplex]

the problem is that devices are meant to be tools. They do not provide access to services, but you use them to access them. Limiting my devices' ability to do what i ask of them is more like geofencing my shoes, because you might use them to walk to the casino.

[sdoering]

Sorry, if I was not clear enough. I explicitly did not want to limit devices - on the contrary. I am all for my device, my ability to use it how I like.

I meant that it is the responsibility of Facebook/Meta/Instagram to ensure that content is age appropriate - given the laws, rules and regulations of the country they are delivering the content to.

I mean, clearly it should be in the responsibility of p*nhub not only to ask "Are you over 18"? If I had this form of freely available porn, clearly I would have clicked it. Or respective subreddits.

Clearly and totally fine for consenting adults. Not so much for my 13 year old self a few decades back.

[simion314]

Does big tech help the parents? Can I set the age of the child in the phone user account and then the browser will report the age to the websites and the nice websites will aknowledge it and deny minors to watch adult content?

No big tech and browser makers did not put their hurds of developers to handle this and forced the governments to try more retarded solutions.

This big OSes should have a super easy activation procedure where a parent will enter the birthday of the account user and then the tech should do the magic,/

What are the current solutions for Android and iOS? To buy some apps and give them root permissions and they will filter out webpages or block entire domains ?

[teekert]

This makes the tech companies the decision makers over what is suitable content for children. But this has many problems. A big example is that some people are more open about sex than others. I'm reminded of a scene in an anime of a father in a bath with his daughters, normal in many cultures, deemed perverted by many (particularly christian US residents). Also here in the the Netherlands, a pretty open society when it comes to these things, we have parents complaining about books that show genitals to kids, even though they'll see them when they look down.

This is a hard problem, from about 0 to 18, kids go from being, well, kids, to being expected to be full adults and are expected to be able to deal with every liberty, every temptation that comes with it. There is no single best path to achieve this.

I want to educate my kids about sex, about alcohol, gambling, drugs, I want to teach them that the internet is a source of many good things, and many bad things. I'll make arrangements, determine the suitability of online materials, and will set boundaries together with my partner, thank you.

[simion314]

>This makes the tech companies the decision makers over what is suitable content for children.

No, the big tech just needs to 1 ensure that at the OS setup birthday is read, then if OS is queried about the user age range to answer

2 apps and websites will not decide anything, they will follow the local laws and on top of those they can addf their own moral or PR filters.

Then if you have a blog or big webiste and you care about the laws or users or the PR you then setup your server to ject say under 13 from your blog.

I am not a big tam of obscenely paid developers and managers so I bet they can improve on this idea or they can milk the ads until the government will pass retarded laws

[lemoncookiechip]

You can block the entire internet and whitelist specific domains. There's multiple ways of doing this, from router parental controls, specific OS tools in iOS/Android, Windows, as well as apps specific to it, and all it takes is for a parent to care enough to make a simple Google or Youtube search and learn if they don't know, and don't even know to know that they should care in the first place.

The failure here is two-sided.

One and the most glaring are the parents who let devices raise their children, this hasn't changed since before home computers were a thing.

Secondly it's a failure of the state for not educating both adults and teenagers on best practices when using online platforms to be safe. If they're interested enough in policing people's web habits, they can spend time and resources on educating the masses. The best time to start doing it was 20 years ago, the second best is now and it could take a decade plus for it to have a meaningful impact.

Also this is important. The UK, like it or not, is a nanny state. They like to use child safety as an excuse to police adult habits, and more important their speech. There's quite a few times they've admitted to this plainly without any ambiguity.

"The Online Safety Act 2023 (the Act) is a new set of laws that protects children and adults online"

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act...

There's also examples of them being asked directly in interviews and they admit to wanting to police adults speech and content they consume online.

Australia is in a similar predicament and honestly most of the world is rolling towards this, just not as fast as the UK.

The UK unfortunately has incarcerated people for simply lifting cardboard signs saying Free Palestine. They've jailed people for innocuous social media posts on Facebook and other platforms.

I'm not proud of the USA for a lot of reasons, especially lately, but one thing that any and all Americans should be proud of is their Freedom of Speech protected by the First Amendment, it's the most American thing and one of the best aspects of America that other countries should aspire to, and I hope that the jabs Freedom of Speech has taken over the past decade doesn't make it crumble away.

[crimsontech]

In the UK all mobile phones default to no adult content on the mobile networks, if you want to access adult content you need to request it with the mobile network provider. They could have gone the same route with consumer internet access. Most ISP supplied routers support content blocking, it could have been turned on by default with a simple update pushed by the ISP.

Kids here in the UK get educated about online safety in school, schools have sessions for parents covering this stuff too. My own kids have had age appropriate internet access all their lives, its not been difficult to control it, we have had the tools and knowledge for years.

This stuff really isn't about child safety in my opinion.

[chrisjj]

> The UK unfortunately has incarcerated people for simply lifting cardboard signs saying Free Palestine.

Completely false.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Well, not signs saying "Free Palestine", but instead signs saying "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8de6rq37v5o

[chrisjj]

Completely true! :). Thanks.

[simion314]

Does router setting spply when the child is at school and using data? I do not think so. So you need to have the averager parent setup DNS records and probably pay some subscription to soem people doing the filtering?

It is not easy, if there was just a simple toggle and iOS/Android would ask the parent what kind of religious extremist or prude they are and then do the filtering then sure, but you want a parent to know what a router is, or DNS, or buy some subscriptions for some big tech app?

I agree that parents should do the filtering, but I think big tech should cooperate here, for example I could allow my young child on a PlayStation since Sony did ask the age of the account user and did apply filters in the store and chats.

But what is your objection? Is it really, REALY to much to ask for the Os to ask the birthday of the account user and then the browser to set the appropriate age range flag in the requests? Then the websites can deny the requests instead of the "Are you over 18" popup? Is that too expensive? too dificult? is it too communist?

[direwolf20]

The Uk could force the OS to have that toggle instead of censoring the internet

[simion314]

>The Uk could force the OS to have that toggle instead of censoring the internet

I know, and my point is if Big Tech would have added that toggle (or add it now before even more countries or USA states make more laws with different requierments ), made it easy to setup when you turn on a device for the first time to give it to your child then you could tell the politicians that the solution exists already. Now using the think of the children some governments will implement more invasive laws.

[direwolf20]

The EU seems to have no problem forcing manufacturers to add certain reasonable features. I'd hope they would do it.

[u8080]

Because this is push to identify and track internet users, noone genuinly cares about kids.