The only relevant part of from op is the govt acknowledging that 2+2 = 4. But it fails to acknowledge that if they want to get 5, they can still order the equation to be 3+2.
In this case it has the legitimacy, but lacks the power.
This is an unusual turn.
We need online safety for kids. The aims of this bill should obtain widespread support from everyone.
But instead of carefully researching and implementing difficult ideas, framing it properly and obtaining permission from the people - a remit to empower us to embrace online safety on our own terms - it's taken a strictly 20th Century "Mother knows best, think of the children" approach and made this a battle with Big Tech.
It is laughably "Yes, Prime-Minister" in its clumsiness. We have anachronistic throwbacks in charge.
So a solution I think we brainstormed on the show was mandating open interoperable APIs that allow easy insertion of (presumably commercial or open source) plugins into the system, within the user's end-to-end digital estate, under the control of the user (parent) and completely rejecting the MITM and endpoint compromise via back-doors that the government naively proposed.
In many ways that would take a much bigger stick to Big Tech,
It also transitions the definition of "online harms" to those defined by the guardian/parent rather than problematically allowing the State to define harms and control the selectors.
What that says to me is that the government are dishonest about the real aims of the bill.
And further, as a consequence, it crushes my belief that the government even truly care out child safety except as a vehicle to greater tyranny.
Devices only in public areas in the house. Dumbphones for emergencies.
What you're proposing would likely enable the creation of some fairly invasive stalkerware. Don't forget that 1) just because a feature says it's for use by a parent on their child's device doesn't mean that it can only be used in that context, nor that 2) not all parents have their children's best interests in mind.
Not helped by the fact that children are growing up in a completely different environment to the one their parents remember. Familiarizing myself with TikTok or whatever the kids are into these days would fill me with dread. And the way platforms work means my experience of them would differ dramatically from a child's anyway.
You don't need to. Don't give them devices until they're 16, and then implement the built in parental controls that come on every smartphone. When they are 18 and can buy their own, they can do what they want. I'm guessing your actual issue isn't familiarizing yourself with TikTok etc, but is instead facing conflict. I'm not saying it would be easy but pretending the above isn't a workable solution is self-deception.
I know some parents give their children devices for safety reasons. For others, I guess they don't want their children to be socially isolated if all the other 14 year olds are chatting on messenger.
My only point was that it can be hard, and that not everyone who fails at it is lazy. It sounds like we are mostly in agreement.
Many societal problems would be trivial if you could get perfect compliance from the population. You can't, so if you're interested in solving problems you need to be willing to grapple with the world as it is. So far as I can tell online safety has not meaningfully improved since the late 90s - "enforce safety at home" has been the advice for all of that time and it has never worked.
I don't have a solution but "blame the parents" seems to be a very clear non-answer without some plan for how to make creating safety at home more easily actionable.
I started using the Internet in 1998, and the only advice my parents gave me was "Don't reveal anything about yourself online." (Thankfully I heeded their warning and still to this day I'm very guarded about disclosing any form of PII.)
Whilst admittedly a lot has changed in the last 25 years, I'd say only half the parents will actually try to keep their kids safe online.
The other half will sit around watching crappy reality TV shows getting angry at their five-year-old children finding porn on their own personal smartphone* because they don't want to look up how to prevent them from doing that, and instead absolve that responsibility to the gov't...
...who in turn use that as an excuse to censor the Internet.
*not entirely sure why a five-year-old needs a smartphone, but anyway.
Ok, so is our answer then to abandon safety for the remaining 50% of families? Do we think that's fine, or tragic? I'm going with the latter.
I really don’t understand why Big Tech should magically stop every crime on earth: child abuse, racism, harassment, etc…
I think the supreme Zuck is a dick, but pulling out of the UK market was the right move.