Ask Lemmy

The book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt had a really clever idea. Create a regulation for operating systems that requires that their parental controls include an option that labels a device as belonging to a kid. When that option is toggled, requests will include some sort of header that labels the request as originating from a kid. Then, place onus (probably through some sort of legislation) on web platforms to restrict what content is shown to kids.

The hard way? Treat access to the Internet as if about to drive a car or being handed a gun. Along good parenting, responsibility should be taught throughout, and likewise smartphones shouldn't be simply given to children like a Gameboy.

Maybe its time for parents to parent their fucking kids...

I cannot emphasize this enough: I do not give a single living fuck what other people's children do on the Internet.

I like to think I'm a tech savvy parent and the amount of tooth gnashing to setup and maintain child accounts is incredible. I'm convinced the foxes guarding the henhouse are using dark patterns to make parents give up.

Why can't I just get a notification on my phone saying "Hey, kiddo wants to have screen time. Approve?"

Hell, I'd love a notification saying "Kiddo started watching Mr. Blah." If I got the notification and I didn't want them watching that, I could block the video, or creator with a click. WHY ARE WE NOT AT THIS LEVEL OF CONVENIENCE?

A LOT of these concerns would go away if phones/tablets/tv's had these simple controls. Move those privacy controls into the home and MAKE them so easy a neanderthal could operate them.

If I have to *.newsocialbook.com into my router, you can bet your damn ass that ~LiveLaughLoveMom<3~ is going to keep demanding that someone else do it for her.

Better parent supervision is the main way to combat these issues.

Companies should also either ban minors completely or allow parents to set up child accounts linked to their account with expansive parental controls that then can be migrated to full adult account once they reach legal age.

I don't think either will happen because there are so many stupid and lazy parents in America that don't care what their kids do as long as it's not bothering them

Some of it can be accomplished by just setting universal demands for how social media works for all users:

• ban targeted advertising
• make it mandatory for companies to ensure algorithms don't prioritize posts for making users angry, scared or depressed

Stuff like that. These kinds of regulations don't involve ID checks, and could take care of a big chunk of the problem.

Best solution IMO: Don't let them use social media. If they really need to communicate, just buy them a SIM and or let them use your phone and SIM to contact them directly.

And if you must let them use social media, set up parental controls on your router. I suggest NextDNS for this. And basically, monitor everything your child watches or interacts and engages with. If they're using YouTube, check their accounts to see what content they're consuming.

Tracer Tong knew the way. We have to destroy the MKULTRA total control panopticon known as the internet.

The answer is that we shouldn't have most social media to begin with and parents need to actually fucking parent their kid's usage. Social media is just the television replacement.

Home routers have something called parental controls which can help parents block certain websites and platforms at the home network level.

This together with parenting and education of ones children can help, all without sacrificing and giving away our privacy to third party corporations.

At a regional and country level I would suggest a government funded public service similar to a library to index the internet. Similar to how books are classified by age and genres.

These lists can be provided within each home router by defult for easy selection, or made easily available for upload by parents or users into existing routers.

These government funded publicly curated list can help parents offloaded a little of the "curration effort". This can then simply be a setting or toggle in the router setup, applying the proper age appropriate whitelist and blocking everything else that is not on the "approved list". The setup can even help parents classify specific devices on the home network as "child owned" so the list only works for those devices.

This would be the most "privacy respectful" option IMO over things like "age verification" or any other alternatives being suggested by corporate tech firms at the moment.

The tech for this is already here, where we are lacking is:

1. A government funded public curation effort.
2. Goverment funded public education campaigns and education programs.
3. A incentive for router manufacturers to make home router setup as simply and straight forward for non-tech or non power users.

As for power users and tech literate individuals, public lists curated by individuals online already exist. For example Pihole and Adguard lists, these help people block and whitelist websites at the home network level.

Kill the engagement algorithm. Your feed should contain a chronological list of posts made by people you subscribe to. In one stroke you could end the doomscroll - not just for kids, but for everybody. Also, infinite scrolling should be banned.

By making it so that social media can’t harm anyone, not just kids.

Ban advertising.

No, seriously, think about it. Imagine a word where narrow, strictly defined thing called "advertisement" is illegal. I mean, obviously, we're in magic fairy wonderland here, but y'know... I live in a state where billboards are illegal. Nothing's truly impossible... just 'unthinkable' mostly. Without ads, the incentive to make the platform addictive evaporates, suddenly companies are competing just to, y'know, make a better platform.

Yeah, don't give them phones.

Easy: by dropping social media completely.