Mesa

This stays here; but not long ago, I needed help debugging a part of our application that only a very attractive coworker touches. It was a Teams call, and you know that whisper you do when trying to figure something out? That going straight into my headset was CRAZY.

I've had a very shallow interest in hares for some time.

Now someone tell me a terrifying fact about them.

Scoubidoubideaux, tu vas où

I think maybe the barrier could be a little higher than just disconnecting from your home's network.

If we were to accept the premise that there is currently an issue with child internet safety, then clearly this still an issue despite the existence of router controls. But now the question of if this premise is valid. What do you look at to determine whether "internet safety for children" is adequate? I don't really know, and so I guess I have more reading to do.

I was gonna say something about PSAs, but no time.

Wrote a comment recently. Age verification? Unnecessary. OS-level parental controls? Possibly meriting.

https://programming.dev/comment/22589550

I am still against where all this age verification crap is coming from, and I'm against what specifically "age verification" entails; but here's the thing: We keep saying, "It should be the parent's responsibility to secure their kids"—and while that's true, you can do all the talking and educating you want, but the fact is that the internet is now nigh-fully integrated with our lives, and unless you are surveilling your kid at every moment they are on the internet (don't recommend), not every parent has the time, resources, or know-how to keep their children safe on the internet without help.

There are some states pushing for "OS-level age verification," and I'm not convinced the proponents for this idea know what this combination of words means—but the idea isn't all bad. An interface for apps to query the device for a simple "can access adult content" value would be helpful for parents to better manage what their kids can access without having to hover 24/7. There is zero need for any sort of identification at any point in the process. The fact that legislation is promoting cumbersome identification collection and not the already existing idea of parental controls is evidence enough that this is designed to surveil.

This may address the privacy concern, but the issue still remains of a centralized power deciding what is and what isn't "safe for kids."

I don't think we're gonna get around the child internet safety conversation, and for good reason; but the conversation should be around how we can do it without jeopardizing individuals' safety and privacy, including children.

What is this meant to represent? Was there a toy that everyone had or something?

This is the biggest thing, in my opinion. Decentralization is a double-edged sword.

If I cared about my Lemmy usage more, I might be inclined to build myself a service that aggregates similar topics into larger groups.

The issue still remains that with a check like this, who is to say what content need be age-restricted now lies with the state. They could (and will) restrict content and information that I think my kid should have access to.

Provided the above, I'd say the centralizing of information is the chief concern @SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone.

I don't know what a satisfying solution looks like here with that considered.

Yeah, I think you're arguing with clouds. This person isn't saying these aren't effects or even objectives of the age verification effort, but it's a little silly to say, "No, this isn't about surveillance, it's about stifling LGBTQ and atheist progression." It's just so tunnel-visioned.

You could've even said it's about centralizing education as a whole and that would've been better encompassing. I agree, that's a bad thing. But it's absolutely not the full picture.

I was raised in a somewhat homophobic household. One of my friend groups throughout high school was pretty densely LGBT, and so I grew. Exposure was all it really took.

I used to hate when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired. The episodes felt like they lasted forever, and I had no interest in anything that was going on. I finally finished watching it about a year ago, and it is one of my favorite shows to date.

The thing is, this shouldn't really be a problem.

I am still against where all this age verification crap is coming from, and I'm against what specifically "age verification" entails; but here's the thing: We keep saying, "It should be the parent's responsibility to secure their kids"—and while that's true, you can do all the talking and educating you want, but the fact is that the internet is now nigh-fully integrated with our lives, and unless you are surveilling your kid at every moment they are on the internet (don't recommend), not every parent has the time, resources, or know-how to keep their children safe on the internet without help.

So to play naive for a moment and ignore the well-understood reality that "child safety" is an atom-thick veil for mass surveillance: Why did we give up so fast on device parental controls? The info being stored on the OS / user settings actually isn't so bad of an idea if the implementation valued both safety and privacy. Upon setting up the device or account, it is the parent's responsibility to create a password or biometric or whatever to activate/deactivate the safety mode. No personal information required. It should be pretty easy. Are there technically ways for the kid to get around this? Yes, but that'd be breaking the trust. In the same way you'd deal with your kid sneaking out of the house, you deal with that separately. The existence of websites that don't perform the check is inevitable no matter what you do.

And if you don't believe your kid needs a safety lock on the internet, then that's your prerogative.

It's apparent that many parents need a more convenient tool available to them, but privacy doesn't need to be compromised in order to achieve a safer internet. I got lazy while writing this, and I'm sure that's clear in some spots, but I'm just gonna post it. There's possibly something huge that I'm overlooking, so I'll just let someone else point it out.

Sure! I don't really care what people use, I'd just like to see more of it. It's also on me to be part of the change I want to see, because I have my domain and everything, but I haven't given myself the time to set things up.