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These sorts of features shouldn’t be mandatory, if parents want to lock down their kids’ devices they can go find and buy the ones that support that sort of thing. Or install aftermarket software. This is already the way it works.

Also underage people could go to the store and lie about their age, so if we want this plan to be effective we’d need to ID everybody buying electronics, which would be annoying.

It also isn’t clear what it means for a device to be “for somebody,” if somebody buys a desktop and a kid lives in their house, it is at least possible that the kid will get access to it.

My point wasn't that this should be done, just that it's a more viable option if moral busybody legislators actually want to legally restrict children's access to adult content instead of finding creative ways of harassing Pornhub.

Obviously porn blocking should just be something parents should concern themselves with, and parents alone. Software and device vendors already provide all the necessary tools.

I think it isn’t a very viable option. I understand the logic of saying to them “here’s a more effective solution, which you would have suggested if you were operating in good faith,” but I think that your solution wouldn’t work, which causes the whole argument to unravel.

iPhones are pretty locked down, and stand a good chance of allowing parents to totally block adult content. Android and general-purpose computers less so, naturally.

But VPNs have already come up as the way around these new age-verification laws, and that didn't stop them. Kids can always find ways around this stuff (when I was in high school eons ago, just about everyone was underage drinking, and a lot of my friends had porno mags too).

Fortunately, most democratic countries will be constitutionally prevented from enacting full-blown police states to stop kids from doing naughty things. Hopefully.

- Fortunately, most democratic countries will be constitutionally prevented from enacting full-blown police states to stop kids from doing naughty things. Hopefully.

Constitution/law just transfer responsibility to other entity. Whithout responsibility, there is no freedom. State never bringing morale or ethics to society. I would rather focus on why kids doing naughty things, where they learn it, what are consequences of their actions, etc.

Right. And this is just in phones, which are already a pretty locked down ecosystem.

In general, there would be more implementation problems the farther we look away from there: what about things like laptops, particularly laptops with Linux, or raspberries pi, or heck, an Analogue Pocket… there’s a whole range of computing devices; locking down all this stuff would be a huge pain-in-the-butt process. Rather than have some legislatively confusing mess where every device manager has to wonder if they are responsible for implementing some giant DRM scheme, we’re better off just letting the market handle it.

I think you agree with each other. How about: smartphones arrive with a parent lock(*) using a manufacturer code. Flashing an ID or interacting with a (possibly standards-compliant) body reveals the unlock code.

(*) Yes, jailbreaking gets around that, but now you’ve circumvented a content-control system, which is a bigger legal problem under DMCA than any legal Internet content.

That sounds like a fine system for a private company to sell to their customers. There shouldn’t be a law about this, though.

I think you both agree on that. Whether “Software and device vendors already provide all the necessary tools.“ is the question.

They were making a rhetorical point along the lines of “if the politicians actually were engaging in good faith on this stuff, they’d propose this other more effective plan.” I agree with the sentiment that the politicians aren’t engaging in good faith here. We are basically on the same side.

However I disagree that the plan would really be able to accomplish what legislators claim they are trying to accomplish, so I don’t think this line of argument works as a rhetorical device.

I’m not sure that “Whether Software and device vendors already provide all the necessary tools” is really the sticking point… sorry, I’d write more, but actually I’m not sure how that is supposed to link into the argument so I’m not sure where to go with it.

This means disabling any means of downloading custom software for the under 18, right? Forget coding if you are under 18, because all of that would be so simple to bypass unless you completely lock it all.

Games and everything need to be vetted when you are 17? Since if you allow them any kid could also download a custom browser as well to get past that, and if there is a way, this info will be shared amongst kids.

Google Play and the App Store already have account-based restrictions and fairly annoying rules about apps that can access unrestricted content. When I was a kid and smartphones weren't a thing, I knew kids whose parents had installed similar restrictions on their PCs and Macs.

Not if the parent controls a screenshot analyzer trained to detect objectionable figures, patterns, and phrases. This would work above the browser and IDE.

Maybe could even have a drone follow your kid before they are 18 to make sure they do nothing else questionable as well?

> in which case either the device is placed in "child safe" mode, or printed instructions are directly provided giving instructions to do such

It's not hard to imagine a jailbreak showing up shortly to defeat it. Even Apple can't prevent jail breaking for their devices. I think it's unreasonable to expect other consumer devices manufacturers to win a game of cats and mouses like that.

Requiring legislations on this is even worse. It will serve as a regulatory capture for big corps that can afford to invest on security.

> Adult sites are required to list themselves as such so they can be filtered (they already do this quite voluntarily).

There's actually a meta tag that most adult sites set to do this already. It's also used by Google to identify a website as adult for SafeSearch reasons. The process seems simple enough, https://www.rtalabel.org/index.html?content=howto (meta tag) and https://www.rtalabel.org/index.html?content=howtofaq#apache (http header)

It is strange web browsers don't take advantage of it, though. This combined with some kind of AI model would work in most cases I bet.

I'm sure that there are browser extensions that use that meta tag. There is no shortage of software options for blocking adult content.

Because they would just download a custom browser that allows it.

Couldn’t a proxy just bypass this filter?

Just as with the “you must be at least 18 to view this site, only click ok if you’re at least 18” popups, I’m pretty sure a smart 17 year old could figure out that notpornhub.com silently drops the special filter tag but is otherwise identical to pornhub.com

And a VPN bypasses these age-verification restrictions some states are adding. And kids find ways of buying alcohol too (when I was in high school eons ago, just about everyone was underage drinking, and a lot of my friends had porno mags too).

Fortunately, most democratic countries will be constitutionally prevented from enacting full-blown police states to stop kids from doing naughty things. Hopefully.

Most of the my friends when I was a high school kid in the 80s had access to porn, alcohol, weed and were having sex under 18. All not allowed by their/my parents, but no ended up even remotely bad or damaged. It’s just growing up.

But did they have access to 24/7 always on social media shaming and bullying?

No but is this 18 check for all social media? I didn’t get that from the article. I would vote for that over checks for porn.

> the salesperson (or web store) is required to ask if the device is for an underage child

Is there a penalty if they don't?

Is there a penalty if an adult lies? Is there a penalty if an underage person pretends to be an adult?

Why is it any different than alcohol? Typically the penalty is banning sales at that store.

Maybe it wouldn't be, but if you're going to declare that "something is simple" and provide a solution that's based on rules, you need to include the penalty for breaking those rules.