[falkensmaize]

One very simple way to give parents control over what their children see and participate in without violating everyone else’s privacy is to create adult and social TLDs and require these sites to migrate to them. So instagram.com becomes instagram.social, etc. Then mandate that all consumer network equipment mfrs and internet providers provide easily accessible ways to block these TLDs. Maybe combine that with some public education materials to teach less savvy parents how to do this.

Now you’ve given every parent a way to easily mass block all adult/social sites/apps if they want and no one’s privacy need be compromised.

[drblast]

This idea has been around as long as the web, but you can't get momentum behind it.

A much better idea was a .kids domain where the content was vetted, and you could allow-list your child's device to that. Much easier than trying to migrate everyone over to specific TLDs, especially when that ship has sailed already. But that never got traction either.

Edit to add: I used to work on "family safety" software. Blocking bad content doesn't work - it's too difficult of a problem. Walled gardens do work, however. The fact that there's not a push for the equivalent of an Apple App Store for kids is probably evidence of ulterior motives on behalf of regulators.

[ryandrake]

One of the problems is the binary nature: we lump everyone between 0 and 18 years old into a "kids" bucket, but the content appropriate for a 17 year old is very different from the content appropriate for a 4 year old.

My family has tried the curated "kids" content from the major players: It's junk and not going to be interesting to a teenager. Your 14 year old is not going to be satisfied with a version of Netflix that's all Bluey and Daniel Tiger. And your 5 year old probably shouldn't be watching stuff that's made for teenagers. But our regulatory hammer knows only "kid" or "not-kid". You can't make a single walled garden.

Even within a single age. My 15 year old might not be ready for content that your 15 year old finds to be routine. How is YouTube going to know what is appropriate for any given 15 year old? Walled-off content and numerical age gating is just not a workable solution.

[Cthulhu_]

This only works if ALL TLDs become strictly regulated, which goes against the idea of a free, open and distributed internet.

And even then, what about social networks showing porn? Chat apps like Whatsapp and Discord having porn etc groups?

Any platform that accepts user-generated content, from Pinterest to Ebay to forums, etc can host it. And that's just what's on the public internet.

[harshreality]

There was some optimism with .xxx that adult content producers would voluntarily switch over. Spoiler: almost none of them did, except for domain name availability reasons.

[xeonmc]

Plot twist: in a few years all the indie and counterculture web appropriates .xxx domains to evade AI crawling and legislative interference.

[cobertos]

And then suspiciously the .xxx registry jacks up the prices to herd everyone back

[numpad0]

You're massively underestimating rule interpretation skills of horny teenagers and gambling game developers. Total segregation based on actual solid cold hard ruleset is pure gasoline to them.

[palata]

What this misses is that many parents do allow their children to access social media because kids need to conform. If all the other kids have social media access, your kid is excluded by not having access.

Is it better to have TikTok AND friends, or no TikTok and no friends? Sure, the best is no TikTok and still have friends, but you can't always have it all.

[falkensmaize]

That’s fine because an enforced TLD system would default to them being allowed to access social networks and parents having an easy way to block them. It makes it easier for parents to do their jobs and doesn’t affect everyone else. Want your kids to have access to social media? Just…do nothing.

[pmg101]

It seems to me that the supply of friends is more or less unlimited, such that it's pretty reasonable to apply filters when choosing who to befriend.

"Also not using tiktok" could be one such filter.

[hawaiianbrah]

That may be true in theory, but not so much in practice where they only have so many people in their classes and extracurriculars.

[j1elo]

At last the best option is to have the cake but not eat it too!

[thefz]

I don't get why a problem specific of parenthood should apply to everyone else. Don't give your kid a smartphone then.

[Cthulhu_]

This is such a naive take, I see it a lot. Have you considered they can:

* Buy one themselves

* Get / use a friend's

* Use public internet access points

* Need one for school

* Use the smart fridge / tv / gaming console / anything with a browser

* Access stuff in Minecraft, Roblox, etc

You can only stop it by going offline and raising them in a cabin in the woods, which is a whole other thing.

What you can do is give them The Talk, of course (but that only helps / prevents to a point, it's more to prepare them for what they may find or how they can identify problematic things). And the other is to push back as a community effort, with e.g. many schools banning kids from having phones in the first place.

[trashb]

Have you considered that even if unwanted material was only accessible in physical form with age restriction for buying. Like porn magazines, cigarettes or alcoholic drinks, kids can still access them and find a way around it. You can ask older generations. Perhaps you can't stop it by "going offline and raising them in a cabin in the woods".

Best is to assume they have access to it one way or another if they seek it. The discussion should not be about banning vs allowing, it should be focused around how to deal with situations that arise regardless.

Education about the subject and why kids shouldn't seek access is quite effective, additionally they will be informed once they are allowed access. Think about how the last decades saw a sharp decline in smoking and alcohol consumption.

[pluto_modadic]

I think the earlier commenter is right. If a parent fails to... well... "parent" that's on them. Locking down the internet to republican-approved sites only is not the answer.

[palata]

I can see that you don't get the problem, indeed.

One problem (there are others) is that it's not always possible (or easy) to not give your kid a smartphone, or access to social media.

Imagine that your kid doesn't have those and is having a hard time at school because all the other kids do have them. They have a whole culture based around those, and your kid is excluded from it. What do you do? Tell your kid that it's okay to wait 10 more years before hoping to not be excluded?

[dyauspitr]

Block how? You can block sites now and all it takes is a proxy/vpn to get around it. Nothing short of personalized age verification will work. The best we can do is make sure the age verification system is centralized by the government. The client sites can’t see who you are and the centralized government server should not be able to see the sites you visit.

The only way this can go wrong is if the client sites collude and publish their visitor logs and then the government can do the legwork to identify you. But even this is pretty easily bypassed if you use a VPN.

[imtringued]

>Nothing short of personalized age verification will work.

Specifically, daily personalized age verification by the specific app/website, not by a third party.

>The only way this can go wrong is if the client sites collude and publish their visitor logs and then the government can do the legwork to identify you.

Well, the government has the right to request proof that the company in question is properly conducting the age verification process. This means that the companies performing age verification will keep your personally identifying information (PII) and maintain an association between your PII and your account/activity on the platform.

On a different note, the government has the right to gather evidence of criminal activity, where the definition of "criminal" is under their discretion and if there happens to be a convenient stash of information that can be linked to your person, that's just a happy coincidence.

[_heimdall]

Whether such a system could be bypassed by a VPN would depend on exactly how the age verification works and whether said government decides to ban the use of VPNs.

More importantly, I don't personally have any faith that at least the US government could properly define and build a system that is reliably and provably resistant to tracking. The government has incentives to want to know what sites a person visits, the NSA would be loathed to allow that opportunity to go unused. The government also likely doesn't have the skills or resources to do it in house, I'd expect them to outsource it at an absurd cost to a third party that would also have incentives to want to track usage data through the system.

[dyauspitr]

I don’t mean bypass as in get around the verification system I mean bypass as in its one flaw can be mitigated by using a VPN.

[hdgvhicv]

Just add as an SRV or TXT dns record. Give the power to the owner of the device to allow it or not.

[enoeht]

Reminder that the internet was created to be live and a indestructible means of reaching one and another, none of what you wrote can meaningfully do what you think it would.

Failing in parenting and lobbied politicians (regulatory capture) on the other side.

[account42]

Using TLDs as any kind of categorization has failed long ago.