A new bill sponsored by Sen. Schatz (D-HI), Sen. Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Murphy (D-CT), and Sen. Britt (R-AL) would combine some of the worst elements of various social media bills aimed at “protecting the children” into a single law.

  • korazail@lemmy.myserv.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    As a parent, and as a kid who grew up in the infancy of the internet/Social Media, I think there is a very fuzzy line here. Specifically, I’m fighting the concept that ‘parents are 100% responsible’. I’m responding to Cookie, but not really disagreeing with them.

    Kids have attempted to subvert their parents rules since the beginning of time. “I’m not touching you…” says the older brother in the car as his sister screams in annoyance. “You didn’t say I couldn’t have Ice Cream – With sprinkles on it!”

    I am an IT professional, focused in Cyber Security. I can lock down anything that touches the internet – if it’s in my house.

    My kiddo, though, has access to a school chromebook. Guess how much control I have over that.

    Chromebooks are fun. I have one, I have a family account for him, where I can control what and when he can access the internet. If he logs into MY chromebook with his SCHOOL account, he bypasses all of those controls. Hell, even his school chromebooks have a ‘guest’ option that bypasses almost all controls at the OS level. That was a relatively simple fix (for MY chromebook, not his school one) once I caught it, but it’s a symptom of a bigger problem. All these internet connected devices tend to have their own flavor of browser with their own flavor of parental controls, if any. For any non-tech-savvy person to understand all the ramifications is unreasonable - and you’d better believe that the kids are more tech savvy than their parents and will find the gaps.

    I don’t claim to know the solution. And I fully agree with the article linked: ‘Age verification’ and ‘Parental approval’ are BAD (from a tracking standpoint, but also because kids and parents might not align on some issues) if not merely insufficient, but I do think there needs to be some culpability on the service provider to ensure that children are not subject to obvious( and here’s the rub – what is “bad”) bad stuff.

    If my kiddo turns out to be racist, that’s partially on me, but I need help from other parties to ensure it wasn’t because he tripped over a pokemon lets-play where the streamer was spewing hate-speech and he internalized that because he is 8 and takes everything for face-value. I literally cannot keep him off youtube completely, and even if I could, I would also deny him any bit of the cultural knowledge that would help him to make relationships in the real world. I have forbidden fortnight and roblox and you can’t imagine the angst I get from just those. (And he plays them at friend’s houses anyway)

    The majority of the onus falls on parents, that is true, but kids are not rational and don’t see the world the same way adults do. I need help ensuring that my kid is not subject to the trash pit that the internet is. There are too many ways and places for my kid to fall in to terrible things. The linked bill is terrible, but we probably do need something to help the average parent keep their kids away from large parts of the internet. ___

    • gornius@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      As a 1998 who had access to the internet during its wildest peak with no parental control at all (had internet since I was 10 years old), I do not agree with ANY parental control. Your kid is going to stumble upon these topics anyway, sooner or later, internet or real life.

      Instead of preventing it - monitor it, and make sure you discuss it with them. Some years from now on, you will lose whole control over them, and then they won’t be easily persuaded.

      Censorship creates people that are easily manipulated - no matter what your intentions are.

        • gornius@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          The times just before social media. Internet was just modern enough to serve memes to thousands of users, yet it wasn’t treated as serious as now. It was literally wild west of digital world.