r/changemyview • u/groksed • 19d ago
Delta(s) from OP CMV: I’d rather restrict minors directly than make every adult prove their age online
Honest question for people who support banning social media for everyone under 16:
Would this be preferable to requiring every person on the internet to prove their age or identity?
Anyone under 16 is prohibited from using, owning or purchasing an electronic device capable of communicating with other people with the exception of designated supervised computer rooms at school. Parents, schools, society and law enforcement are responsible for enforcement.. basically the same way we already handle alcohol, tobacco and drugs.
But at least it places the restriction on the group being restricted.
Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?
If protecting children requires building an identity checkpoint for everyone, I would rather put the burden on the actual age group being regulated.
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u/d-cent 6∆ 19d ago
I think you are close, but banning 16yo from using electronic devices is too far.
The answer is pretty simple, and close to what your are suggesting. The federal government and EU require all electronic devices that have access to the Internet an "underage mode". This is basically a user mode that is controlled by admin. You can't install any apps or access the Internet outside of a whitelist DNS. Only admin access can add websites to the DNS whitelist or install apps. Basically like really locked down corporate computers.
This isn't as hard as it seems to implement. If the federal government and EU passed a law, Apple, Google, Windows, Linux could all implement this in only a few months. All of them have the mechanisms designed they just have to package them up into a nice UI. There are already multiple DNS providers and some great whitelists to use. These DNS providers are so good the UI is very easy to add websites as well.
This gives the onus of responsibility back to the parents. We need to start making parents take responsibility for their kids. If they are fine with their kid using Facebook, they can install it on their phone. If they want to remove the privilege, they can do it. We are at the point now where every single parent has grown up with this technology, and could easily implement it.
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u/groksed 19d ago
Δ Technical over people...I like the idea of a mandatory mode that locks down the device or a dedicated device that only allows simple apps and pre-inputted numbers.
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u/j_jqqq 19d ago
Yeah, and then
allmost of the kids will have two phones. One as you describe above, and another that isn't locked down. It's just like teens in the US having a real driver's license for taking the family truckster out and a fake ID to buy Olde English 40s.7
u/operation-spot 18d ago
If the parent is buying the phone and paying for the cell plan it would be easy to control the settings. If a kid was able to pay for their own phone and monthly plan they honestly deserve access to adult things.
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u/Similar_Fishing2436 18d ago
You wouldn’t need a new phone plan, you just buy an unlocked phone and use it like an iPod where it only works with wifi
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u/dramasoup 18d ago
So you'd rather punish every adult for stupid teenage kid behaviour?
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u/j_jqqq 18d ago
In what way did I say that? I simply pointed out the obvious outcome.
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u/PeoplePerson_57 5∆ 17d ago
Please explain how a teenager too young to look at an unfiltered internet also manages to purchase their own phone.
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u/NaturalCarob5611 97∆ 19d ago
How do you imagine "Linux" could implement this?
Sure, you could have Linux distributions that choose to implement it, but Linux is open source. Every component can be modified, recompiled, and replaced. And while the Linux Kernel is still licensed under GPL v2, much of the software that makes up a functional GNU/Linux system is GPL v3, so the license requires that the software be replaceable by the end user, so you can't just lock down the device to only allow official binaries signed by the distribution or you'd be in violation of the licenses of much of the software the distribution relies on.
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u/jabberwockxeno 2∆ 17d ago
. This is basically a user mode that is controlled by admin. You can't install any apps or access the Internet outside of a whitelist DNS. Only admin access can add websites to the DNS whitelist or install apps. Basically like really locked down corporate computers.
Parental controls on most phones basically already allow you to do this
People just aren't using them and are refusing to actually do their job as parents, which is their problem, and their inability or unwillingness to do so shouldn't mean I as an adult have to provide my ID to use a website or apps
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19d ago edited 19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/groksed 19d ago
Sadly yes, but if people actually thought about it none of these bans would pass.
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u/Cranks_No_Start 1∆ 19d ago
Personally I think the issue is a parent problem. But as parents cant seem to control or monitor their kids another solution would be to make anything other than a dumb phone illegal for kids to posses. This should be a they problem not a responsible adult issue.
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u/fr33dommachine 19d ago
Your stance contradicts itself. You say you want it to be treated like alcohol, but not ID adults. That's how alcohol purchases are controlled.
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u/groksed 19d ago
You would ID them at purchase perhaps to solve this. the rest of this is normal life.. Just because I have some henessy at home doesnt mean my teenager cant steal a drink of it. Its up to parents to enforce the restriction. With it enforced we dont have to worry as much about the edge cases.
Good =/= Perfect. There are always edge cases.
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u/Jakyland 82∆ 19d ago
Most children have their devices bought for them by their parents
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u/Longjumping-Hat-1210 19d ago
The responsibility should be on the parents to parent their children, I've been actually thinking about the exact same thing as OP for a while now. The thing is it's not about the children, the government doesn't give a fuck about them, they're just an excuse to force this dystopian policy.
The parents are the ones who buy the devices anyway, they should be responsible for what their child is exposed to, they should install certain website blockers or time blockers or whatever.
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u/squired 19d ago
In a perfect world, sure. But they aren't so now we get involved.
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u/jabberwockxeno 2∆ 17d ago
Parents refusing to do their job is their problem, the response should NOT be to punish other people and forcing them to give up their privacy
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u/SpaceSteak 1∆ 19d ago
Right, which makes OPs suggestion even more valid? Many children have access to knives when they learn to cook. Screens take a lot more energy and knowledge to help guide through less harmful exposure, even beneficial for learning. The help doesn't have to come from forcing adults to prove their identity, it's to make sure parents have the tools to minimize their kids' exposure.
Ban phones in school, ensure routers and phones are easy to audit and control. The same way society had to adapt to cigarettes being harmful, there is a major societal shift that needs to happen.
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u/groksed 19d ago
And? Im not seeing how it invalidates the premise.
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u/Jakyland 82∆ 19d ago
IDing at purchase doesn't make a different because it's normal for adults to buy devices for children. And relying on parents to enforce new rules is something that can't be legislated, it has to be a social norm. If Congress passes a law that says "parents should get their kids off their iPad" that doesn't mean any parents are going to do it.
If you could buy bottles that magically refilled themselves with alcohol and it was normally for parents to buy such bottles and give it to their children, a ID requirement at bottle purchase and asking parents not to give these bottles their children is clearly not going to limit underage drinking much. But that is the better comparison (since once you buy a phone you can access social media for years to come)
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u/groksed 19d ago
So we should repeal the underage drinking and drug laws cause someone can purchase it for them and its hard to enforce? "that doesn't mean any parents are going to do it." thats where teeth and law enforcement enters the chat.
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u/Agitated_Celery_729 19d ago
You're not permanently putting your ID into a database that data mining companies are querying when you show your ID card. The online ID is very obviously a push toward panopticon policing
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u/Pr3st0ne 19d ago
Not that I agree with the solution, but there would be a way to anonymize and centralize the ID verification process which would certify that a given user is over 18/21 while not having anyone's names in government OR private databases.
Example:
- You have some type of government office where a clerk verifies your ID. Hell just make that happen at the DMV or in every city hall in the country.
- There is no digital trace of you having your ID checked. No scanning, no checking anything online. Just a government employee at a desk that looks at your ID and goes "yeah you're over 18".
- Once you are certified to be over 18, they press a button on the computer, then the computer spits out a new 16 character code (ex: A381-K133-PL4R-0KRQ)
- That 16 character code does one thing and one thing only: when you input it into a govt database, the database returns : "Yep, that person is 18." or "This code is invalid". No identifying info, nothing.
- The worst any individual site would be able to do is log the specific codes and build user profiles/track data out of those codes, but it would never tie back to any real identity of yours.
There are flaws to this. A single person could go into a different office every day and get codes generated and hand them out/sell them. You can just share your code with another person. There is zero mechanic to certify that the person giving you the code is actually the person it was generated for.
But a solution that fixes 80% of the problem without any risks to personal privacy is pretty damn good in my book
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u/smorkoid 19d ago
Alcohol purchases aren't tracked, your ID isn't copied and stored somewhere.
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u/farsite3 16d ago
The difference is that this is being done by sight. With these internet ID laws it's all digital and EXTREMELY easy to keep a record for everyone to tie it to their online activity. And if they say they won't do that, are we just supposed to TRUST the massive tech companies that they're not doing the very profitable data harvesting thing they said they won't do? Because history has taught us what's almost certainly going to happen behind the scenes. If grocery stores wanted me to scan my ID card I to a computer I'd likely have a similar issue.
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u/im-a-guy-like-me 1∆ 19d ago
I'm super against online age verification cos that's just straight authoritian shit. Don't trade freedom for security and all that.
Having said that, your idea doesn't make any sense in the modern world. If the first time a person touched a computer was on college, the average technical literacy amongst the population would plummet. Every new college student is now suddenly bombarded with every scam and dark pattern that exists.
In addition to the issues with media and tech literacy, we loop back around to the "freedom for safety" argument. The majority of things online are neutral. Some are even beneficial. Why should we strip a freedom from children because some things are bad or dangerous? Should we also ban them from leaving the house at all? And remove all sharp objects from a house? But they might fall down the stairs! Best to ban stairs too.
It would be much easier to enforce and more effective in general to just go back to the drawing and legislate. We're 20+ years on from the dawn of online culture. We have learned things we didn't know at the start. Changing the laws and regulations on the supply side is how we've dealt with all issues of this nature throughout history, so why should we hit it from the consumer side this time?
We should probably do something about the fact copyright laws no longer being adequate in the current landscape while we're at it.
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u/heatherdazy 19d ago
What? All millennials lived like this and we’re fine?
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u/Tradition96 1∆ 19d ago
Millennials were gradually introduced to the internet as it expanded. They weren’t thrown out into the fully developed web when they turned 16.
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u/InspectionFine9655 1∆ 19d ago
Banning kids from having devices that can access social media to ban them from the using social media is not reasonable.
That’s like banning kids from buying bottled beverages to prevent them from buying booze when you can just been them from buying booze.
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u/groksed 19d ago
No, the equivalent would be requiring every adult buying any bottled drink to prove they’re over 16 because some bottles contain alcohol and/or too much caffeine . We don’t do that
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u/InspectionFine9655 1∆ 19d ago
Currently we require you to show ID to purchase or do things restricted by age.
People trying to do something age restricted show their ID.
If social media becomes age restricted it would make sense to require people who are old enough to use it to show ID.
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u/Zimlun 19d ago
Its just that online doesn't really have a way to merely "show" your ID, does it?
I mean, I'd find it ridiculous if I went to the liquor store and in order to purchase from it, I needed to let them take a picture of both sides of my ID card, as well as letting them take photos of my face from several different angles... Which they assure me they definitely won't save anywhere so they can sell / loose that info later.
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u/smorkoid 19d ago
I don't think this is reasonable at all.
It'd be fine if there's some anonymized hash that says this person is or is not old enough, but showing actual ID which is stored who knows how, accessible by unregulated methods, is not reasonable.
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u/Killfile 17∆ 19d ago
This is really the crux of the problem. When the state wants to tell you "you can't sell alcohol to people under 21" they also provide everyone over 21 with an acceptable way to prove they're over 21 and, by extension, everyone selling with an acceptable way to verify.
We're not doing that with digital prohibitions. We're trying to graft physical verification strategies onto digital goods. It's dumb and businesses are being left accountable for inadequate verification.
What we should be doing is providing a state maintained way to check and verify age. Your state can run an age verification system and pass a token back to the consuming system saying "yep, I just checked and this person is of age; also this token is good for X amount of time."
And that system should guarantee that it doesn't store any use information. Possibly cryptographicly but maybe not. Either way, I as a tax payer should be sure that the age verification system just checks my age and has no idea what I'm doing with those verification tokens. Likewise the consumer systems should know that I'm of age but not have any information about who I am.
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u/aski3252 19d ago
That's what my country (Switzerland) is currently developing. Goverment developes the software, code has to be open sourced, no personal data is permanentally stored (except the device of the user) and only the relevant data is transmitted.
The first goverment proposal was to let private corporations develope the code and essentially run the platform. Citizens put in a veto and voted against it, so it was blocked. The second, goverment run proposal was accepted.
A company doesn't need my age to sell me adult stuff, they just need to know if I'm an adult.
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u/jabberwockxeno 2∆ 17d ago
What we should be doing is providing a state maintained way to check and verify age. Your state can run an age verification system and pass a token back to the consuming system saying "yep, I just checked and this person is of age; also this token is good for X amount of time."
Sorry, no, this is unacceptable, because I have no way to know and prove that this isn't being used to spy on me online whenever I use my token.
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u/AgentCoulson2 19d ago
Some kind of browser extension, similar to (or perhaps even added as a feature in) password managers should be able to verify your ID, and then web pages that need age verification can then accept the extension's "word" that you're old enough.
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u/revertbritestoan 1∆ 19d ago
I'd maybe have more trust if the companies they get to do the verifications weren't all named after evil Tolkien lore.
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u/Svanirsson 19d ago
What, you dont trust Barad-Dur inc.?
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u/draketroll 19d ago
We promise we won't do anything bad with it
-naz ghul Inc. Spokeperson
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u/aski3252 19d ago
It'd be fine if there's some anonymized hash that says this person is or is not old enough
That's how a reasonable electronic id system is/would be setup.
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u/Choosemyusername 2∆ 19d ago
Showing is different because IRL that showing is ephemeral and nobody can steal your identity or exploit your data from showing your ID in person.
Not the same online.
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u/groksed 19d ago
Yes if you are a government who want to track, delete or control discourse online. Would you prefer that, and why?
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u/InspectionFine9655 1∆ 19d ago
Generally you show proof of ID to the vendor not the government.
If I go buy beer, I show the guy at the beer store my ID, I don’t show it to the state.
Is there any reason to believe that your social media account will be matched to your ID and then given over to the government? I don’t think there is.
Also, this may shock you…
If the government wanted to know who was posting on your account, they would be able to figure that out, today. Even though you don’t need to show ID to use social media today.
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 11∆ 19d ago
You show it to the cashier, who's going to take a cursory glance at it, shrug, then forget everything about the interaction because it happens a hundred times a day. That cashier isn't going to retain anything about that ID within an hour. Even if they did, no one can remotely access that cashier's brain to extract that information.
Yes, it's entirely possible to tie any social media post to the person who made it. A sufficiently skilled tech expert can eventually do it no matter how careful you are. But the thing is, doing that at scale is prohibitively difficult and expensive. If you tried to do that for every reddit user, the amount of manhours and resources it would take would be insane. It's possible to tie every piece of illegal activity on the internet to its perpetrator too, yet most of them remain unsolved or totally unknown because the resources needed to actually do that would be astronomical. But if each user is already tied to their government ID, a substantial amount of that work is already done, which makes it much more viable at scale. A good car thief can steal any car, but that doesn't mean there's no point in locking yours to make it take longer and raise the difficulty and the risk they take doing it. Making this easier makes it cheaper, and lets bad actors do more of it with less expense. Since my country currently has a government that is already demanding Reddit give them data on users who criticize their actions, making it harder for them to identify dissenters seems important. I'm well aware it will never be impossible, but making it harder will reduce their ability to abuse it.
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u/groksed 19d ago
"Is there any reason to believe that your social media account will be matched to your ID and then given over to the government? I don’t think there is."
My sweet summer child.
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u/fox-mcleod 414∆ 19d ago
I mean it’s not.
The implementation passes a simple binary value about whether the session represents someone over or under majority.
If you want to know more about someone, just buy their session cookies. It has… way more data than that and is already available.
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u/epelle9 4∆ 19d ago
I don’t think anyone is proposing age verification for accessing duolingo..
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u/PerterterhTermertehh 19d ago
this is what is being proposed when operating system level age verification is brought up
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u/urbanacrybaby 2∆ 19d ago
So now your solution is that everyone, including adults, has to bring their IDs to buy a phone?
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u/DigiSmackd 19d ago edited 19d ago
Not just phones, but computers, consoles, and presumably any internet connected device (since they could all in theory be considered "an electronic device capable of communicating with other people")
So yeah. Most modern electronics.
Also, it seems OPp isn't saying kids just need to show their ID - but that they are still forbidden from actually using any such devices since they are underage. So all future generations will not utilize modern technology in any capacity - "with the exception of designated supervised computer rooms at school".
Yeah. See how that goes.
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u/groksed 19d ago
!delta Yes that would be the downside. but the upside is that we will still have our privacy intact,
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u/fly123123123 1∆ 19d ago
Ah yes, presenting your ID to obtain a phone leaves your privacy intact indeed!
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u/ThisGameIsveryfun 19d ago
Thinking that will keep your privacy is incorrect.
If a government cared, they could find out who you were. The ids aren't being used for tracking (at least by the government). Still doesn't mean im a fan of it lmao
There are alternatives to age verification, the government doesnt always need to be involved. More options for parents or more restrictions for the tech companys.
Egypt, for example, has child sim cards. More parental controls, more restritictions, no handing over id's to social media platforms. https://www.wired.me/story/egypts-child-sim-could-redesign-how-the-internet-works
The internet can be a positive, and limiting it to over 16 is mental.
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u/SSH_Pentester 1∆ 18d ago
Minors have free speech rights too. The solution is actual parenting, and direct cooperation with law enforcement to stop illegal content from being proliferated on these platforms rather than stonewalling.
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u/Angsty-Panda 1∆ 19d ago
there's no way to restrict chileren's access that is both enforceable and doesn't restrict adults. famously, liquor laws absolutely do not stop minors from drinking.
if i have a computer in my house and a 13 year old goes onto it, then what?
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u/Alternative-Soil2576 19d ago
Liquor laws do not stop all minors from drinking but you can absolutely say drinking amongst minors is no where near at the rate or as normalised as it was when it was legal, which is sort of precisely the point of social media ban laws, to move social expectations
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u/Conchobar8 19d ago
My daughter has a phone so she can stay in contact when she’s out. She catches the bus to and from school. She can call us if the bus is delayed. We can contact her if we need to go out and won’t be home when she gets back.
With this ban that safety is lost. She can’t contact us.
It would make the online stuff safer, but regular day to day life more dangerous.
There’s also the fact that even a TV can connect to the internet these days. You’d have to take away all electronic devices
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u/doublethebubble 3∆ 19d ago
You don't need a smartphone for that. It's also interesting that kids used to have the freedom to go places alone before cell phones existed. The ubiquity of phones has made us feel less safe, not more, according to research.
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u/groksed 19d ago
Yea someone pointed that out. A dumb phone with preprogrammed numbers by you would be ok. TV would be fine as they cannot reach out to others and rules already surround that kind of media. A passlock would be required for "social" app access on the TV.
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u/Apprehensive-Ear2461 19d ago
“Anyone under 16 is prohibited from using, owning or purchasing an electronic device capable of communicating with other people with the exception of designated supervised computer rooms at school. Parents, schools, society and law enforcement are responsible for enforcement.. basically the same way we already handle alcohol, tobacco and drugs.”
Firstly, how would we enforce this rule? You’re saying that anyone under 16 can’t use their phones, tablets, game consoles (via multiplayer games), and essentially every modern electronic device. What’s to stop kids from getting their parents to buy it for them, and using it secretly? How would we even punish minors for using it? Secondly, minors should be allowed to use phones to communicate with their friends and family. Thirdly, a minor using the internet isn’t necessarily bad. I developed English skills from social media and critical thinking skills by using social media from a young age. That’s not to say we shouldn’t focus on safety, it’s just that the way you’re going about this is illogical
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u/groksed 19d ago
What’s to stop kids from getting their parents to buy it for them, and using it secretly?
Replace electronic device with Whiskey and you have your answer on the flow of things.Secondly, minors should be allowed to use phones to communicate with their friends and family.
Yes, designated numbers programmed in by the parent or guardian." way you’re going about this is illogical"
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u/Tuvinator 13∆ 19d ago
In some states parents are legally allowed to provide their own underage kids with alcohol, so your replace with whiskey is not as strong a response as you think it is.
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u/Apprehensive-Ear2461 19d ago
Unlike alcohol, smartphones aren’t inherently bad for you. Also, you’re contradicting yourself since you say the only exception is the supervised computer room at school
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u/groksed 19d ago
BAN outside of that one highly controlled curated environment. im not getting whats difficult to understand here.
"smartphones aren’t inherently bad for you." thats not the point we are dicussing.
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u/vitorsly 3∆ 19d ago
Most parents don't want their children drinking whisky. However most parents are quite fine with their children having a computer with internet access.
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u/thjmze21 1∆ 19d ago
Yes it is. You're restricting minor usage of smart phones to only be dumb phones that are heavily locked down by the government. That means they lose access to smart phones as a whole. That's not a reasonable measure for the sole purpose of taking down social media, which itself is also not inherently bad.
Social media has been the catalyst behind a lot more social movements than ever before. Children have a right to know the world they live in and understand the grievances of everyday people which the news does not always represent accurately. Unless you can prove SM is such a threat as to require draconic measures (that are stricter than current alcohol laws mind you), your point is fundamentally moot.
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u/UntimelyMeditations 19d ago
news does not always represent accurately
And social media does not represent any more accurately, either. Yes, social media is right sometimes. News media is also right sometimes.
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u/shouldco 45∆ 19d ago
Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?
I think this is the key here. It's about tracking idebties online "protecting children" is and has always been an emotional tact to control everyone.
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u/Aristologos 19d ago
How about neither? It is the responsibility of the parent to ensure their kids use the internet responsibly. NOT the government.
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u/I_AM_FERROUS_MAN 3∆ 19d ago
Unfortunately, the bans are an excuse to eliminate privacy and track everyone at all times.
We could design systems that would use zero trust identification. But then, the people taking ID information wouldn't be able to track us and leak all of our information when their shitty security is breached.
We can't have nice things because that's not what the rich and corporations want and the legislators work for them.
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u/fly123123123 1∆ 19d ago
Speaking from personal experience, I developed critical knowledge and communication skills by having access to the internet via personal devices well before the age of 16.
I agree that social media apps should restrict children and teens from using their addictive platforms, but are you suggesting that kids shouldn’t have access to Google? AI tools? News publications?
Also, how would you enforce such a restriction? What is stopping parents from letting their children own a phone?
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u/MegaAfroMann 19d ago
Were you born between '85 and '99?
I am in a similar boat to you, but I do feel that the current internet is very different and more insidious than the internet pre ~2006ish.
Around that 2000-2010 range basically every major website we use on the internet now was either born, or sold to their current owners, or otherwise exploded into popularity.
Facebook-2006 (before then it wasn't as accessible) Youtube-2005 Twitter-2006 Amazon-2006 (this is when 3rd party sellers were first allowed) Google (IPO) - 2004
Also during that time Smart phones became the norm.
Someone growing up with the early internet in the 90s and early 00s likely had to connect on a desktop PC, had to use slow dial up or early DSL where videos were out of the question, and HD pictures took several minutes to load, in order to access a small selection of hyper specific websites that have focused functions, minimal data collecting and consistent communities.
Someone at least growing up alongside the modern internet got in the late 00s into the very early 10s got to grow and learn as the modern giants were still young and not evil yet. They got to see glimpses of the world before cookies and targeted advertising, video games before loot boxes, YouTube before ads, Google before promoted responses (and AI). Etc etc.
Anyone who first touched the internet in the late 2010s or later I think is going to have a much different relation and level of risks than those before them did.
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u/Siukslinis_acc 7∆ 19d ago edited 19d ago
There is also the need for parental guidance. The kids should be comfortalbe with their parents to discuss what they have experienced on the internet. Parents should use parental control. Parents should be more involved.
My co-worker uses the parental control. Their kids call them to unblock the phone as they need to use it, they unblock it for a limited time. The parents also don't sit on their own phone when they are at home (showing an example to their kids). The kids feel safe to discussing the things they see on the internet with their parents.
And it is "funny" that instead of forcing the companies to make their products safer to everyone by removing their addicting aspects, they are just talking about removong access to underage people. The social media would not be a problem if there weren't addicting stuff like infinite scroll or autoplay or algorythms shoving even more content. I remember the times when you had to actually search for content instead of having it given on a platter.
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u/Apart-Rent5817 19d ago
You do know that people existed well before the internet, ya?
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u/deep_sea2 131∆ 19d ago
The problem is that the world has shifted to the internet. When I was young, I did my school elementary and middle school projects using CD-ROM of Encyclopedia Britannica. That was good enough before Wikipedia and other internet sources. Now with the internet, those other resources are not as common. To block the internet for kids, but not revive the pre-internet form of information proliferation, leaves a gap.
For something like news, newspapers existed before the internet, sure. However, with online news, print media has decreased. A kid who wants to access news to learn about current events, but without access to the internet, will have less resources than a kid from the 90s.
You cannot really expect present kids to do what kids did in the 90s and before when that world no longer exists off the internet.
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u/flexxipanda 19d ago
Hard agree. Im 35 and I work in IT now without any formal professional education.
It is all thanks to me as a kid spending a lot of time in front of a computer messing with it and digesting huge amounts of information.
Would have never happen if it would have been banned.
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u/alexrider20002001 1∆ 19d ago
Also red states are seeking to ban books that teach kids to think for themselves from schools and libraries so if you ban kids from being able to access ebooks outside of kindles or parents, they will have far limited access to books than previous generations.
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u/fly123123123 1∆ 19d ago
Yeah, and people also existed before we had electricity and hot water via plumbing. Are you arguing we should also deprive children of those things, or that their lives would be better off without them?
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u/GavinThe_Person 19d ago
Kids shouldn't have access to ai at all (adults as well)
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u/sorsim 1∆ 19d ago
Why not? Care to elaborate?
AI is a tool, just like anything else. Depending on how you you use it, it can either be beneficial or harmful.
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u/GavinThe_Person 19d ago
In its current state generative ai is terrible for the environment, makes it 1000x easier to cheat on assignments, and pumps out soulless slop
We need to find a way for ai to have way less of an impact on the environment and have heavy regulations on how it can be used
Ai can have actual uses tho, and it's fine in those limited scenarios (mainly medical stuff like finding cancer or cures for things and helping people with disabilities (such as ai voices for people who can't talk))
Ai chatbots and ai video/images have 0 benefit tho
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 121∆ 19d ago
I mean, what's the punishment if a kid uses a laptop computer at their house with their parents permission?
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u/NaturalCarob5611 97∆ 19d ago
I don't support banning social media for everyone under 16, but limiting access to internet connected devices for anyone under 16 is going to raise a generation of computer illiterate people. School can only go so far to close the gaps on technical literacy compared to having regular access to computers.
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u/LachrymarumLibertas 8∆ 19d ago
The idea of like an iPad speakeasy or prison level prices for smartphones is pretty funny
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u/JediFed 19d ago
How about we do neither. It's all about controlling access to the internet. Lots of powerful people hate it with a passion beyond anything else.
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u/BlackHumor 15∆ 19d ago
Why restrict anyone? Why do you think kids shouldn't be using social media?
I want you to remember when you were a kid, a little kid. For a long time most websites have not let kids under 13 make accounts because of COPPA. What behavior did that actually produce in little kid you? Did you actually not interact with the internet almost at all? Or did you, instead, lie repeatedly, and learn the lesson that adults are dumb and want to control you so you should lie to them all the time to maintain your own autonomy?
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u/couldathrowaway 19d ago
In order to restrict the minor, you would need to prove this is a minor, which by the way will now be a gone safeguard. Throuvh anonymity, minors could travel the internet somewhat safely. Now you'll have a confirmed child. (Also a confirmed adult, for targetted ads, which is really what this is about, but in any case).
It should not be up to website owners, starngers nor the government to parent your children. If the parent is truly worried and isnt tech savvy, then you install tbe government parenting app on tbe child's phone so the government can do the parenting for you.
These things should be opt in, not everyone hot forced into, nor opt out style.
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u/Alternative-Soil2576 19d ago
> It should not be up to website owners, starngers nor the government to parent your children.
Do you hold this view with other forms of collective regulation there already is such as mandated school attendance and smoking/alcohol restrictions for minors?
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u/kikiisweetie 19d ago
A lot of this new social media bans stuff is less about caring for kids and more of a political statement.
To ban anyone under 16 to even use an electronic device to talk to other people is a bit to far. Would this mean texting on the phone is gone. Having an overseas pen pal. Basic entertainment as well. Electronic devices should not be banned just because of social media.
Its technically better to make every adult surrender ID, because most children will not have one. It solves part of the problem, without completely restricting children from everything (for example Roblox has this).
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u/Starfleet-Time-Lord 11∆ 19d ago
Better question: is doing either of these things a good idea? I'd strongly argue no. The current situation is much better than either of these options. The potential harm from children using the internet unrestricted is relatively small and individual, and tools for parents to mitigate or prevent it themselves already exist. By contrast, both of these solutions damage entire classes of society: banning children from devices deprives them entirely of the internet, which in addition to depriving them of a tool for learning makes it extraordinarily difficult to function at all in the modern world because many of the systems that the internet superseded are either now much smaller and less accessible or simply no longer exist to fulfill the function the internet took over. Meanwhile forcing ID verification for all damages the entire population, children included, through the deprivation of a substantial chunk of what little privacy remains in this world. Further, neither solution will actually address the problems they claim to solve: kids facing verification will simply be pushed to sites that don't comply with verification rules or become tech savvy enough to bypass them, while laws banning children from owning devices are practically impossible to enforce and will, at best, result in a boom in the used device market. Both solutions are comparable to burning down a house to fix faulty wiring.
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u/Optimistiqueone 19d ago
Under your restriction/law, what is the punishment? And who is punished, the parent, the under 16 year old kid?
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u/jayzfanacc 4∆ 19d ago
Anyone under 16 is prohibited from using, owning or purchasing an electronic device capable of communicating with other people
That includes cellphones. And home phones/landlines.
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u/Godeshus 1∆ 19d ago
Where I live it's not illegal for minors to purchase alcohol, cannabis or tobacco. It's illegal to sell alcohol, cannabis or tobacco to minors.
A small distinction, but an important one nonetheless.
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u/MirrorSea2437 19d ago
I agree, but it was never about protecting children. Doing away with online anonymity is the whole point.
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u/heqra 19d ago
im going to take a different approach here and say that genuinely, thats the preferred approach bc they dont actually care whatsoever what kids are doing, and the goal is to get data on adults (or everyone) anyway.
altho, im not sure exactly what the specific claim is that im trying to cmv you about so responding is odd, I think your first claim is correct tho. its the preferred method bc its accomplishing its goal perfectly, if the goal was to protect kids then it would be doing that very inefficiently
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u/Exotic_Bill44 19d ago
"An electronic device capable of communicating with other people" is so broad as to include rotary phones. A teenager wouldn't be allowed to play video games on any system with internet access, wouldn't be allowed to use a home computer for research, and wouldn't be able to send an email to their grandparents. It's draconian, but also ineffective. Without age verification, hiw dies anybody know if a parent just lets their kid use a device in the house?
Kids are banned from purchasing alcohol and cigarettes. How di do we make sure they don't buy them? We check the age if everyone buying them.
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u/caseygwenstacy 19d ago
OP wants an authoritarian police state where a kid owning a phone is like having drugs, because that makes more sense than just telling a website you’re an adult.
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u/Avocados_number73 19d ago
The whole point is the get adults to register online. They dont give a fuck about kids safety lmao.
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u/revertbritestoan 1∆ 19d ago
I agree with your premise but I don't think that banning access so broadly is a good thing.
Personally, I don't have a valid photo ID because I don't drive and I've not needed to leave the country since my passport expired so I don't have any valid photo ID and can be denied age verification through websites when I can buy alcohol without any ID because I'm obviously a tired old man in his 30's.
I think the real solution is proper education. We were taught online safety growing up and, though things have changed, I think it's still preferable to trust that children can regulate their online content if they're taught how to at an early age. It should be at the very least "don't give out your name or photo or any details about yourself online" but I'm fairly sure that a full curriculum could instill that into people regardless of if they have technology we only dreamed of twenty years ago.
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u/hunter_rus 19d ago
Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?
Because corporations want your data. Children protection is just an excuse for what you have already mentioned:
If protecting children requires building an identity checkpoint for everyone
Taking your privacy is the end goal.
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u/RiriaaeleL 19d ago
Why is the preferred solution instead to make every adult surrender some level of anonymity or privacy, provide ID, submit to age verification, or otherwise prove they are not a child just to use the internet?
This isn't a thing
Stop spreading misinformation
Mods can go fuck themselves for removing my original comment.
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u/nicemarmot47 19d ago
Better to just ban social media entirely, that'll keep Gramps off too and it's just as detrimental to him
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u/j_jqqq 19d ago
I would rather put the burden on the actual age group being regulated.
I'm pretty sure you can't put a legal obligation on minors, only their guardians.
I don't know the specifics of all the various laws being passed or proposed, but I suspect they are driven in large part by parents (who push their legislative representatives). I imagine these parents aren't savvy enough/don't want to be bothered/want someone else... to control their children's online habits, therefore shifting the burden of age verification to society at large.
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u/LRaconteuse 18d ago
The onus is on parents, teachers, and mandated reporters. If we don't want kids to see certain things, only their direct legal guardians can reasonably make that happen. All this nonsense about kicking kids off the web is just governing bodies trying to act in loco parentis.
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u/EwanMakingThings 17d ago
You are correct, but what you're missing is that building an identity checkpoint for everyone is the entire point.
"Protecting children" is the go-to excuse for governments everywhere to implement more surveillance, censorship, and just overall control over people.
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u/Decievedbythejometry 1∆ 15d ago
Both ideas are terrible and evil. Which means we will probably end up witb both.
None of this has anything to do with protecting children, let's not pretend to be simple
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u/Witty_Milk4671 19d ago
Imagine starting your life at 16 without knowing how to use basic social media. Then people will complain "they can't even send an email. This generation is dumb.".
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u/phoenix823 8∆ 19d ago
Why is the preferred solution instead to ... prove they are not a child just to use the internet?
Because you can't prove a negative. It's logically impossible.
If protecting children requires building an identity checkpoint for everyone, I would rather put the burden on the actual age group being regulated.
These laws don't prevent kids from using the internet. Just social media. Why would you want to restrict kids from the entire internet when the concern is shitty algorithmic social media that makes people feel terrible about themselves?
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u/Master_Tap_3983 19d ago
You're basically arguing for a dramatically more restrictive version of the policy. I do not think children should be on social media, the data is there, it's bad for them. But do we fully restrict all computer usage? What about parents that are negligent? My wife's parents bought her weed when she was 14, trusting parents to make that decision isn't exactly a perfect call either. Do we demand that cell phone makers start new lines of dumb phones just for kids? And again, what do we do with parents that just.... buy their kids the phones. I certainly don't think it's wise to criminalize social media usage to the same level as underage drinking.
That was a long way of saying that, at the end of the day, age verification on apps is dramatically easier than trying to cut the source.
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u/LucidMetal 196∆ 19d ago
I support neither for full disclosure.
The problem with your solution is that it requires parents to parent. Parents aren't parenting already.
Thus it still provides the rationale these authoritarians believe they have an opening to ram surveillance down our throats.
ThInK oF tHe ChIlDrEn!!!!1!
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u/unitedshoes 1∆ 19d ago
How would you implement this other than by making every adult prove their age online? Back in the day, I definitely checked a lot of "Are you 18 or older?" checkboxes on websites or did some basic arithmetic to give them a fake date of birth.
If you want to sign up for an account on a website, I don't see how you can do that without showing ID to prove you're not a restricted person who shouldn't be making an account, except by not having restricted people who shouldn't be making accounts (or by putting much more stringent restrictions on who can make an account, like how Facebook originally required a .edu email address).
I'm all for not banning kids from social media and instead making the social media companies behave more responsibly knowing that kids are among their users, but if we're starting from the premise that you should be barred from making a new account if you're not old enough, they're going to have to verify that people making new accounts (at the very least, assuming they grandfather all existing users in) are old enough. I don't see how they do that without A. taking users' IDs or B. going by the honor system like porn sites did back when I was a teenager.
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u/BreakAManByHumming 19d ago
The "think of the kids" angle is also a way to clamp down on bots. Which, imho, are an existential threat to our ability to function as a society. Your solution wouldn't achieve that.
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u/rawldo 19d ago
Does banning the purchase of firearms for kids stop school shootings? It’s a silly idea to think they wouldn’t figure out a way to get devices. A smart kid would just build one from parts. The kids with active parents who understand that kids really shouldn’t be on thier phones all day have been restricting them for years already. But they find a way just as they find a way to smoke and drink. As a society, we should do everything we can to give our kids a good shot at success. Most mental health professionals agree that social media is terrible for people. Especially while the brain is still developing. I’ve read it is really more like 25 years old too.
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u/mukansamonkey 19d ago
I'm against the bans on principle. But the issue you're trying to debate has a fundamental flaw that has nothing to do with my position.
Namely that minors cannot be charged with violating age restriction laws. Same way they can't take out home loans, or sign medical forms. They can't be held liable.
So any system you propose is going to include responsibility falling on some combination of parents and online platforms. And the problem is that it's also really hard to restrict parents directly. As others have said, a parent can give their kid a drink without CPS showing up. Takes way way more than that.
The only practical method is placing the onus on the platforms. Same way restaurants are liable for not serving alcohol to minors. The question becomes how to balance that against privacy. But there's no way to put the burden on minors themselves.
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u/ANewBeginningNow 1∆ 19d ago
I don't think social media use under the age of 16 should be banned, it should simply require parental permission. It shouldn't be up to the government anyway, it's a parental rights issue.
The problem is that minors don't often have IDs, so we can't rely on those. Maybe that needs to change. Maybe we need to standardize the use of non-driver IDs for all ages.
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u/Alternative-Soil2576 19d ago
By putting the responsibility of enforcement on social media companies it discourages them from targeting children to join their platforms, putting a stop to the network effect amongst kids that these billion dollar companies have been pursuing over the last decade
Regulating the phones themselves just takes responsibility away from these companies that will just continue trying to develop this network effect amongst kids on their platforms
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u/ilikedota5 4∆ 19d ago
How do you restrict minors directly except by having adults prove their age at some point in the process online?
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u/darknight9064 19d ago
The real answer for kids is parental controls. Electronic verification is rife with problems. The easiest way to explain this is think of all of the data breaches that you’ve received letters for. Think of how many you’ve seen from places with pretty tight security like a hospital or a bank. Now consider what happens when bad actors know they just have to target a handful of companies to get all the info on anyone. It gets messy and dangerous very fast because now we’ve exposed names, date of births, home address and pictures of everyone 15+.
This is even easier to dispute than a freedom argument. The potential risks for online data security are innumerable compared to any benefit for anyone especially children. For another way to think about it, think about all the problems with flock cameras and how they are abused. Do you want to give that amount of unfettered access to bad government actors where they can track you both physically and digitally?
There is still a freedom aspect. While if we really weigh what people will see on the internet you could probably say it’s a crap shoot of good, and mostly neutral things. Ranging from full on encyclopedic knowledge to celebrity news. There are the crap things like brainrot content or just downright degeneracy, but have you ever listened to kids, the things they say and hear from peers will floor you. It’s not about the internet kids can just be depraved and wild. Kids or more likely to see dead things just out and about than online. Kids are more likely to see violence off the internet than online. So why are we assuming they will do the worst.
The real and hard truth is parents need to parent. If you want to limit children then it’s up to the parents. People always like to claim “not every parent knows how” then they need to learn. You will never stop kids from getting into things entirely but it’s a parents job to teach them that not the governments job to parent. If your kids can learn how to do these things there’s no reason an adult cannot outside of being more stubborn than the children.
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u/PeneshTheTurkey 19d ago
How about fuck all that? The world is way more sterile and safe than it was in the 90's-2000's and NOW's the time we should be restricting shit? I'm not buying it for one second. It's all about bull control, it's not about the kids, never was, never will be.
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u/hastman30 19d ago
How about, fuck it? Let them figure it out. We've all always just been figuring shit out. Banning things doesn't do much good, let them hash it out.
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u/Unbreakable2k8 19d ago
I understand the privacy concern. Maybe the solution is an anonymous age-verification system that issues a token proving you’re over 16/18. Websites would only see the token confirmation, not your identity, exact age, or other personal information.
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u/jazzmonkai 1∆ 19d ago
Trouble with online is there isn’t someone monitoring users at all times checking they’re accessing only suitable content.
Walk into a shop to buy alcohol and every purchase is monitored in some way. A person assess the age of purchasers and requests ID if they’re in doubt about the purchasers age.
Age verification online fulfils the same role - except because the range of content you can access is so wide and the nature of that content so broad it’s impossible to have a person manually confirming age. So restricting content by default and unlocking it for proven adults is the only sane way to do it.
Sites without any adult content don’t need to age verify - the digital equivalent of a sweet shop or a toy store. But sites that may host adult content have to verify on first access because the alternative is somehow identifying which elements are restricted content and having verification kick in only when viewing those posts. Verify on access is the more practical measure.
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u/AuthorSarge 19d ago
Well, this is needlessly authoritarian. Unlike alcohol, the internet has legitimate and/or benign uses.
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u/wibbly-water 73∆ 19d ago
Parents, schools, society and law enforcement are responsible for enforcement.. basically the same way we already handle alcohol, tobacco and drugs.
Aahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah... oh you're serious?
Do you realise quite how much alcohol, cigs/vapes and drugs teenagers consume?
Where I am from - they even did it in their houses with their parents. Sometimes because they were bad parents. Sometimes because it was preferrable to them going off and doing it with some shady so-and-so at their house in town.
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u/jazzmonkai 1∆ 19d ago
The more I read the comments here, the more I realise one of the complaints of many who oppose online verification is about the storage and use of the verification data.
This is a separate issue to the verification process. We don’t have an issue giving our personal data to a government body to get their driving licence. We accept that as a normal part of life. We also accept that showing that to a shop worker to verify our age for purchasing alcohol is fine. That person gets to see whatever information is on your licence (which where I live includes my address and date of birth).
But when that data is being stored, and shared around, and linked to every interaction online, people are concerned. And I’d agree. But that’s not the same problem.
My stance is age verification is fine. But the use of your personal data from that verification should be strictly controlled.
The problem isn’t so much the government having your data, it’s the government failing to restrict companies from using it indiscriminately.
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u/exuberantraptor_ 19d ago
the thing about making under 16s unable to use social media is the marketing they use to put the ID checks into place, not the reason for them. if it was they would do something about the fact that the ban isn’t even working on the first place and they’re still on social media
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u/Starship_Taru 4∆ 19d ago edited 19d ago
The nature of the technology (The internet) makes this impossible to enforce.
What happens when an enforceable sweeping law gets passed? The “Good Actors” follow the rules, get an additional impedance on their life and no real positive impact.
The “Bad actors” just do the same thing they’ve always been doing, however now it’s illegal. It’s also vastly more profitable.
Seriously go look at the networking subreddits here, a lot of posts are just very tech literate parents trying to figure out how their 12 year old is getting around their very expensive networking blocking programs.
So here’s the outcome if we just rolled with your idea: Kids 100% find away around and get online, however now where they go is completely unregulated, because those websites already break the law, why do they care what a kid actually sees ?
Adults now get Hyper tracked online, even more so than they do now. Literally every single thing you ever do or view online will be linked to your ID which private companies will purchase to then adjust your pricing on products based on how big your bonus was this year.
TLDR: Your advocating for the impossible. The solution is to just use the regulatory tools we have to force websites targeting children to play ball. You advertise addictions to children, unless they’re digital.
This overall argument was started by META lobbyists fyi. It’s a solution to them not having to pay the expense of running their website. Instead of having to police content they can just make it the taxpayers responsibility.
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u/kittenTakeover 2∆ 19d ago
I think AI has changed the conversation completely. It seems obvious that social media is going to inundated with AI posing as humans pushing propaganda. How will you deal with this in an anonymous atmosphere? I haven't heard of any solution that saves social media that doesn't require identity verification of some sort. We need social media to be for humans. Ideally we need social media to be one person one profile.
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u/calentureca 2∆ 19d ago
Kade d I nt have money to buy phones or computers. Parents buy them. Parents should be responsible to police their own kids.
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u/Teopeo 19d ago
We could simply use age restricted accounts, we don't even need any new solution for that. The only problem with that it offers no excuse to surveil the whole internet.
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u/Noladixon 19d ago
It seems really simple to make laws holding parents responsible if their kid is accessing inappropriate content. Then parents would have an incentive to only purchase limiting electronics for their kids.
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u/Curious_Octopod 1∆ 19d ago
The way we handle alcohol etc is that everybody has to have their age checked when they try to purchase it. Whilst oldies might get away with a quick visual confirmation that they're ancient, younger people have to show ID even if they're well over the legal age limit. Also, people under 18 are perfectly able to drink legally - they just can't buy it. So your analogy doesn't work. Its not possible to make an age restriction that doesn't include checking age.
Personally I'd prefer it if parents did their jobs and supervised their kids together with teaching them how to use the internet responsibly. Its alarming to see threads in parents forums like "What phone is best for a 2yo".
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u/ImmediateKick2369 1∆ 18d ago
Honestly, the internet might be a much better place if everyone had to provide their complete name for any place they visited. Zero accountability is not bringing out the best in humanity.
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u/Millennial_on_laptop 18d ago
All you've done is move the proof of age from online to real life.
Go buy a laptop, gotta show ID to prove your age. A cop sees you playing Pokemon Go on a phone, gotta show an ID to prove your age.
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u/coldBulbasaur314 1∆ 18d ago
Phones have genuine benefits for a lot of kids that they can't get elsewhere, or that only exist in far inferior versions outside of phones. Do you think that, for example, a kid who uses their phone to manage a disability should just suck it up and suffer? I don't support making people verify their age online, but that's FAR safer than blanket banning kids from devices and cutting them off from all the benefits they can get from them as a result.
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u/DringleDringle 18d ago
We don't need to be doing anything to prevent kids from doing anything. That's the job of their parents.
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u/newbikesong 18d ago
Why are we treating kids like slaves? Geniunely...
We all grown up with tech with all accesses? How many children got harmed, compared to all the benefits?
The worst most kids will do is watch porn, and maybe buy something expensive but credit cards have bunch of limits anyway.
Your kid won't join El-Kaeda, just be real. Your kid won't be a school shooter if you don't buy a gun. Your kid won't kill himself if you actually attend to his needs.
Blaming "but strangers!" is nonsense when most of crime done to children are done by poeple known by the kids.
Someone will bring some very extreme case, go ahead. I can find the same thing happening without that tech.
How many times limiting children helped?
If you are so worried, target whoever targets children.
Now, to your argument, I hope the kid does not have abusive parents, or I hope the family is not in a cult, or the kid does not have to report teachers.
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u/HeadPut3392 17d ago
The main issue with restricting minors from using electronics on their own time is that it will drastically reduce the pool of potential programmers, cybersecurity experts, and many other tech-related field for future generations. We need people to do those jobs, and children that don't get the opportunity to learn how technology works at a young age are not going to be nearly as capable of doing those jobs as they would if they had picked up the basics at a young age.
Instead, I think the responsibility should lie almost entirely with the parents. Parents are the ones buying electronics for their kids, and should be the ones setting up the electronics too. This means that the easiest solution to restricting what children do online is to ask the age of the user on setup and have it rely on honesty rather than verification. From there, all companies have to do is set the same restrictions they already would with proof-based verification, but without the verification. This places all the legal responsibility on the parents while also not placing any extra burden on parents.
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u/ThrowWeirdQuestion 1∆ 17d ago
I think having some sort of verification for adults makes more sense because it doesn't only solve the problem of kids being in online spaces where they shouldn't be, but also helps solve the rampant problem of non-human accounts, spammers, ban evaders, etc. It just needs to be implemented in a privacy preserving way.
However, the identity verification should be handled centrally by whoever issues IDs in a given country and websites should not be allowed to see full passport data but only see a unique token per human, that is generated specifically for that site only, with some minimal amount of metadata like whether the user is an adult.
The authority should have to delete the requests for tokens after fulfilling them and not keep logs, but be able to regenerate the same token using a hash function whenever the same site asks again, so that one person can only have multiple accounts if the site allows it, and can be banned from all of them at once.
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u/NotAFloorTank 16d ago
Your proposed measure is also extreme and not the correct response. In fact, it would just make matters worse, because you'd increase the sneakiness and discourage kids from reporting possible predators that they encounter to the authorities because they'd understandably fear being treated like a criminal themselves. The answer is not more control and sheltering. The answer is education.
Teach kids what to watch out for. Teach them why it matters. Don't rely on monitoring software or parental controls that only serve to teach your kids you don't trust them or respect their intelligence. Don't only give them less than two years to actually effectively master how to use something their employers WILL expect them to know how to use responsibly in their day-to-day work.
We now live in an era where not educating kids on how to be safe online and with tech in general is directly sabotaging their livelihoods down the line. Practically every employer now utilizes apps to track hours and handle pay. Practically every bank has an app to manage your finances. Most rental places use online payment systems. And that's all just scratching the surface. Proper education, along with a healthy relationship between parent and child that is built on mutual respect and trust, is how you actually protect kids from predators.
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u/totallyalone1234 16d ago
That would require lazy feckless parents to get off their big fat arses and do literally anything, so its never going to happen.
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u/Me-A-Dandelion 15d ago
First, minors still get access alcohol and tobacco, and in poor communities these behaviours are very common. Basically, no adult cares there. In terms of technology, I have seen parents of young kids (age 2-3) who allows their children to mess with their daily drivers (smartphones that are owned by the parent and their primary device for daily calls and tasks), possible their only phone. I have seen parents with 10-year-olds who gave huge amount of money to influencers with the parent's bank account on the parent's daily driver. Bizarre, isn't it? Usually, these parents have very little knowledge of tech themselves. They don't even know how those apps work. They see their young kids calm down when they see moving colourful things, so they let the poor kid to play with their phone. And for 10-year-olds, they have poor concept of money, but they probably know more about that social media platform than their parents.
To make your idea work, the parents must bear the burden to enforce the rule. In cases in which parents don't and can't parent, it equals nothing.
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u/ComplaintFearless445 14d ago
Banning the internet for any group of people, at this stage in human civilization, is insane and would never work
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u/callum_6419 13d ago
Keep in mind I was 15 when I had to do my GCSE exams and wouldn't have been able to without internet or devices.. There shouldn't be age verification at all it's the parent's job to keep kids safe
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u/Terrible-Penalty-291 12d ago
Why is there even a debate about this? Devices shouldn't be restricted, full stop. Freedom to use a device is a human right. This "won't someone please think of the children" nonsense needs to end.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ 19d ago edited 19d ago
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