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Comment by dmje | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that kids need the tools and techniques to understand how to deal with dodgy online content, rather than locking it away. Prohibition tends to drive things underground; I'd rather have (and am having - I have 2 teenage kids!) realistic and honest conversations about porn and other content. I don't lock my router to stop adult site access, instead we're having a conversation about it.

I'm under no illusions, btw. I know they'll access it. I know I did as a teen (albeit magazines rather than the web) but I think a dialogue is sorely missing about damage, the impact on women, body image, etc etc. The more this is pushed into a black/white old enough / not old enough over-simplified scenario, the less we can have nuanced conversations about it all.

I suspect this whole move is purely an optics piece. That doesn't make it any less dangerous, in fact it maybe makes it more dangerous, but it explains the incompetence and lack of thought behind it.

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Even though the net has drastically amplified the issue, both 20 and 40 years ago it was tricky for a boy to make it to manhood, at least in the West, without seeing some nude magazines and perhaps more than a few hardcore films. Your advice was sometimes the advice given then, and I think it was right then and now. But while telecommunications has enabled 4K porn videos, it doesn't seem to have enabled us to talk with each other about it seriously, in proportion.

There are more than boobs, etc. on the internet these days.

Today we have criminals, government, criminals in government, and numerous corporations desperate to build surveillance profiles on us at every opportunity. These are passed to third-party aftermarkets to the highest bidder. Once obtained, no one is concerned about securing that data.

Personally I think the boobs are less harmful than scammers in the crypto and investment space who will with providing elevated expectations lead people to large losses.

But isn't it ultimately the better choice to equip our youth to recognize and deal with dangerous, malicious, scammy, blackmaily or otherwise evil aspects of the internet instead of inevitably failing at trying to keep these things away from them (or vice versa)? In addition to being much more achievable this also trains future generations in fundamental principles of IT security, which is arguably something any nation will desperately need during the next decades.

So instead of attempting to shut the dangerous things away you teach them how to recognize them, why they want to avoid them, why sometimes other kids or even adults fall for it and how they deal with it. Our parents took that approach with us in regards to smoking, drugs and alcohol and it worked out quite well. Or let's say: It worked out a thousand times better as with other kids who just got punished for even looking strange at a pack of cigarettes.

A nice side effect of this is that your kids will be more likely to talk about what stuff they encounter and how it affects them, if you don't try to push them away from the stuff they should not use (punishment), but instead try to pull them into a worldview where that stuff isnt something that interests them in the first place (beyond natural curiosity).

Yes, but it depends on their age. Everyone tends to forget services typically have age limits of 13, for example.

Also, one rarely gets to choose whether to deal with surveillance or not. Mitigations and education are therefore often useless and exhausting even if they work. You either submit or forgo an increasingly large aspect of society.

For example, the DMV and payroll companies are selling our private details as we speak. Resistance would result in homelessness.

> I'd argue that kids need the tools and techniques to understand how to deal with dodgy online content, rather than locking it away.

We can't even get grown Adults to do that.

you are not wrong - but that is changing.

small data point - so the overall affect could be negligible - however,

6 years ago a youngster I was watching came home with digital literacy handouts and had teachings about internet hygene, non-trustworthy data sources, and more.

since then, more than once a year we use news stories to discuss false info, digital stalking, methods used to dox via photos, sextortion scams and more.

we've spent time talking about checking multiple sources for information, especially health or sex info - and especially for any 'viral challenges'.

So it won't be long before this next gen is adults that have been taught to look for these things, and I'm sure many have witnessed at least part of the shit show the parents have been going through yelling at their screens and each other about fake news and similar.

Not sure that the apps are making it easier to check sources, but at least the teaching of the option is a thing much more so than I think most of 'the adults' of today had a chance to learn anyhow.

Thing is it is not that difficult to lock down most porn sites if you are in control of the router and can force the use of a specific DNS.

If you have your childrens iPhones as part of a family setup you can also block their access that way.

However I salute you for your choice, which is the harder and better way. If more parents did as you, we would not have the issues we have today.

Porn is nice enough but watch, but because there is essentially no discussion about how to have sex (outside of school, which at best is put tab a in slot b, here is how not to become pregnant, this is what STDs are.) the only input too many teens get is porn.

I've wondered what is the best strategy is over the years.

1. Heavily restrict the porn/bad sites.

2. Let them see the bowels of the internet, and hope they will go in the opposite direction.

Depends on their age, I think.

3. Talk to them about the bowels of the Internet in a way that makes them not like it. Talk about what they should do when they encounter a thing/situation that is too much for them (close the tab, talk to you about it). They should feel that they already know what is out there without actually having to go through it themselves.

Reminds me about how my parents explained drugs to me. They told me a lot about different substances, why it is bad, why people get addicted them, what it does to them. E.g. my father had a friend who was a alcoholic till he died and he told us the story of how fun it all started and how everything went south for him. Similar things for other drugs, cigarettes, etc. Not for the sake of shocking us, but to rationally and emphatically explain the dangers (and fascinations) involved with the thing.

With all 4 kids this turend out to be a pretty solid strategy

Idk.....Some things cannot be unseen and humans are curious. Porn is one thing, but seeing gruesome deaths is completely different experience. There are things I wish I have never seen before, and I did not want to see many of them.

Today, I know in many places people are being killed in awful ways because of their religion or lack of it, sex, what they identify as, or because they live in a unstable place.

Plus, you can tell a child the stove may be hot a million times, yet they will touch it and burn themselves. Children and younger adults often feel they know better and something wont happen to them.

If they have phones with a sim and data they can just turn off the wifi and bypass the local network blocks.

>If you have your childrens iPhones as part of a family setup you can also block their access that way.

Apples allows you to disable their access to install apps, browse the web (with or without restrictions) or use any other installed app. You can turn your childs iPhone into essentially an ipod with facetime (that can only contact you) if you want.

If you give them an unlucked laptop, you are right of course. So don't do that, if you want to go that route.

In the UK many mobile networks block sites by default unless you go through age verification.

That is super handy. We don't have that down here in Australia. We do have some country wide blocks but it is only those mandated by the government.

Won’t block Firefox which uses encrypted DoH dns.

Firefox has an official way to disable that. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/configuring-networks-di...

All Pi-hole instances use it by default. https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/releases/tag/v4.4

That doesn't work if the user manually enables DoH:

> Note: The canary domain only applies to users who have DoH enabled as the default option. It does not apply for users who have made the choice to turn on DoH by themselves.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/canary-domain-use-appli...

I have no idea what DoH is but if the kid is smart enough to defeat the counter measures they deserve to watch the porn.

Some of that crap can change you if exposed at too young an age. I feel like keeping it out of reach for as long as possible is a good thing.

And I think this is the responsibilty of the parents not of the government. What might be the responsibility of the government would be to equip parents with the skillset and knowledge to keep thwir kids safe.

Also the dangers of the web should be apoken about in school. Digital literacy and all that.

Yeah, agree. Was in reaction to not wanting to install any filters.

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