[inigyou]

Websites mix content far more than TV shows do.

Think about the Twitter home page (back when it was Twitter). If someone tweeted something that should be restricted, what do you suggest?

Mark the whole page over-18 and effectively ban kids from using Twitter until it falls off the front page? That's ridiculous.

Ban people from tweeting over-18 content or hide it from everything except direct links? This is what Twitter management would choose, in reality, if the other option aa the above. They'd just make the whole platform child-safe. Remember how much outrage this caused when Tumblr tried it? But you want to force this on all platforms.

Hide the over-18 tweet from users who are under 18, but display the rest of the page? This is the obviously most sensible solution, and it requires the server to know whether the user is over 18.

[johneth]

I think "over-18" posts on X within the feed are hidden behind a "please verify your age" button if you've not verified your age (in UK and parts of EU, probably Australia too). They're intermixed with non-hidden posts.

X lets post authors mark their content as NSFW, and I'd assume they're doing some sort of algorithmic checking or making use of user reports of content to classify content too, to varying degrees of success. It's definitely subject to the whims of the platform owner, given the sheer amount of racism, sexism, and porn that isn't marked.

My account is >18 years old so it never showed up for me (it just used the account age to determine I'm old enough), so I'm going by what others have said.

[inigyou]

That's pretty stupid, that means X has to verify your age. If the browser could just send a header saying whether adult content was allowed, the server could just respect that and not verify anyone's age.

[pcrh]

Kids don't need Twitter.

There would obviously arise a market for a moderated, or more regulated, version of this type of social media.

Social media doesn't deserve an exemption from the efforts society makes to protect children in other domains.

[pibaker]

Who do you trust to moderate a platform like twitter? Its current owner? The US government?

[inigyou]

So basically you just ban any company from serving both kids and porn stars, no matter how hard they keep them separated? This is one of the avenues people often go down to censor the porn industry. You're effectively doing "think of the children! ban porn!" without doing it explicitly.

[pcrh]

A system as above would matter only to sites that want children among their audience.

Those that don't, or don't care, would not seek a rating, and would not be accessible to devices that parents control. Otherwise they would be free to host whatever legal content they wish.

[inigyou]

Twitter wants to serve children and it also wants to serve porn stars, and there's no good reason it can't do both as long as it keeps them separate, but your proposal doesn't allow it to know who's a child so it can't keep them separate and in response to that it has to ban one or the other from the platform entirely.

[pcrh]

Twitter can make a "Kid's Twitter" (Kitter? Kidder?) if it wants. It's far less oppressive than forcing people to reveal their identity to Twitter.

[inigyou]

Great now you have two websites. This seems way more inconvenient than simply hiding over18 tweets if the user is a kid?