[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.