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This increasingly popular take comes across as a generational rung-pulling exercise. We pine for the 80s and 90s of unbridled freedom, lament that a 7 year old boy can't go out walking by himself in the neighborhood anymore without his parents going to jail, and then talk about "toxic materials" by saying things like "create an immutable record of browsing history - down to the request/response", as if that's not a preposterously toxic environment in which to raise a kid, for a plethora of reasons.

I was raised in that environment. It was but one aspect of my abusive upbringing, but a key one; the internet represented free information, which is dangerous to a child one is attempting to religiously indoctrinate. I can tell you now, it is a horrible way to raise a child, leads to zero trust and if anything, encourages antisocial, subversive behaviors.

I get that I really do. For a while our compromise was that our child could go to the library - that way they had access to free information.

But after some chats with the librarian, it became clear that wasn’t working. The libraries filtering software wasn’t great (it never is), and some of the books are only appropriate for certain ages.

They didn’t feel comfortable providing additional filters.

What happens then, man? I understand your concern. My current rule with the one is: you can read anything you want as long as it’s paper.

I get some parents are abusive, but I’m very opposed to using “a parent might be abusive” to limit parents discretion- within reason.

When parents are identified as abusive there is a system to mitigate damage. But when that system is never initiated, there needs to be a presumption of parental benevolence.

This will fail some kids. But the alternatives fail more.

I appreciate your response, and I'll address your concerns in turn.

> some of the books are only appropriate for certain ages

My great aunt was the main librarian at my elementary and middle school. Early on, I'd pretty much read every book that was interesting to me in our library. The rest of the material was not engaging for various reasons. Sensing my appetite and believing I could handle more adult-oriented material, she gave me access to a secret shelf in the back which contained adult novels deemed not suitable for the shelves. I was really into slasher and supernatural horror at the time, and there were a surprising amount of such novels already on the normal shelves, and quite a few novels had sexual content (I read a lot of Judy Blume, etc).

But this adult section gave me what I was missing. The stories weren't just more adult because more killing, or more sex, or whatever, the stories themselves were written for more advanced minds. Having taught myself to read at age 3 and having commanded a collegiate reading level by second grade, I finally felt like I wasn't stuck and could continue to progress as a reader. Since my computer use at home was heavily monitored and firewalled, this was great. The agreement was that I would not tell my grandparents about this arrangement; she knew to some degree how oppressive her brother was.

Later on in high school, I made friends with the bus driver who went by the local library, and convinced her to take me to the library after school instead of home, so that I could read and have unfiltered internet access to learn what I wanted without oversight and avoid a few hours of potential abuse at home. The library was my lifeline. I inundated myself with the staff to get extra privileges and slack. I hosted an open mic night, etc. When I met the love of my life, that's where I would take her to spend time. We would study together and get to know one another in a safe place, away from our oppressive parents/guardians. We're still together, 16 years later, and I owe that to the library providing a safe space.

At this point, my guardians literally just wanted me to end up dead in the street, so they stopped paying attention enough when I wasn't home that I was finally able to grow and discover myself. Up until that point, I had no concept of a personal identity and struggled to form one, because most aspects of my life and thoughts were controlled by my religious zealot guardians.

> They didn’t feel comfortable providing additional filters.

The above situation might be why.

> you can read anything you want as long as it’s paper.

I've read some very subversive things on paper, from 120 Days of Sodom to the manifestos of deeply-troubled individuals, and plenty in between. And anything can be printed out. I used to print out adult or erotic stories as a kid and hide them so that I could read them later. I had a small, but coveted secret stash of adult magazines. My belongings were regularly searched, as I was not even allowed so much as to draw anime figures with swords, or journal freely, so everything had to be routinely searched. Sometimes I didn't have a door. All that happened is I got better at hiding things.

Anyway, the material being on paper seems like an arbitrary line to draw.

> I get some parents are abusive, but I’m very opposed to using “a parent might be abusive” to limit parents discretion- within reason.

While hopefully unintentional, what you're saying is, "Because I can provide a privileged household where my child has (what I consider to be) reasonable restrictions, I should be allowed to have access to absolute and chilling effect inducing levels of surveillance and control over my child, and if that means that less privileged children with objectively abusive households live in a total hellscape, that's their problem and not mine. I only care about the welfare of my children, and other children are just collateral damage. Besides, it's statistically not many children who have to live in a total hellscape. And I didn't have to experience that myself, so it's fine."

> When parents are identified as abusive there is a system to mitigate damage

That's a nice idea, for sure. That is not how my life played out. I had two drug addict parents who went in and out of jail and homelessness, and lived with my abusive grandfather who was an ex boxer turned Catholic deacon. He would regularly beat the shit out of me and do awful things to me, and controlled every aspect of my life, would strangle and shake me while telling me that I'm Satan, etc. Cops were over all the time because the violence would get really bad and everyone in the family would join in on physically assaulting me.

The "mitigation" was them telling me that if I didn't listen to my benevolent grandfather, then I would be taken to a foster home or juvie, where they assured me my life would be even worse, and I would have even less access to an opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty and abuse.

> This will fail some kids. But the alternatives fail more.

It's so easy to write things off by saying, "you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette" or something, when you or your family aren't the eggs being broken. Instead, this impacts a disproportionate number of impoverished children like me who did not have other financially stable environments in which to flee. It's classism, when you peel back all of the layers.

I hope you don't take this post negatively and understand why I feel the way I do about these things, and why "getting it" isn't enough if the conclusion is still, "this system works for me and therefore the lives it ruins are worth it."

I’m glad the responses to my comment are personal horror stories, because my comment is a personal horror story. It makes sense.

I’m dealing with a mentally ill adolescent addicted to very toxic content.

You grew up in an oppressive environment where among other horrible things information restriction was abused.

Both legitimate concerns, and both should be part of the same discussion.

But consider: it was librarian cautioning me about what my child was doing in the library. Not quite kicking my child out, but simply saying we can’t guarantee their safety.

For you the library was a safe space. For my child the library is not - according to the librarian.

I’d like to point out, nobody is saying parents should allow their children to access anything. Especially on the internet.

Are you saying that? I don’t think you are - but you are understandably skeptical of parents moral rectitude.

What tools should a parent whose child is addicted to videos of animal abuse or self harm have at their disposal? And I mean pretending to sleep until mom and dad have gone to bed and watching for 6 hours straight instead of sleeping, for multiple nights in a row. Going 72 hours straight with no sleep to watch people cutting themselves and animals being slaughtered (hypothetical).

I’m simply saying the tools parents have to effectively filter are antiquated and broken.

Also keep in mind the original article is one that discusses removing encryption and adopting some type of state surveillance. Something I am quite opposed to. My proposal is far more permissive, and affects child free grownups not at all.

Thank you for your careful reading of my post, and I am very sorry for the things that happened to you growing up. You’ve come a long way and I respect that.

That's a difficult situation to be in, especially when it's someone close to you. Thanks for sharing, and I agree that horror stories on both sides of the aisle are how we find a solution that protects as many children as possible, especially those with less resources and support.

A few questions come to mind:

- Does the adolescent have any diagnoses such as OCD?

- Have you uncovered any specific psychological reasons for why they might hypothetically be seeking such content? Any luck with therapy? When asked directly why they seek out such material, what answer do they give?

- Do they identify the material as toxic, or do they not understand its toxicity? Do they understand why it's not good for them to consume?

- Have you identified if they are being or have been abused or bullied at school or elsewhere?

Six hours straight, that tells me there could likely be a clinically obsessive-compulsive component. I say this as someone who has both OCD and ADHD, which can lead to long bouts of hyperfocus and obsession if coping mechanisms are not properly developed. Medication may also help. I assume you've already reached out to professionals, but it would be worthwhile to find out if they are struggling with any recognized disorders.

It's scary knowing that at any time your child's unrestricted internet access could lead them down dark paths, such as abuse content or far-right radicalization pipelines. Parents shouldn't be rendered completely powerless, but I think the reality of an increasingly connected world means that kids will need to rely on informed parenting (hard, I know, the internet is a moving target) and good peer groups who can keep them accountable, informed and socially integrated.

I don't think absolute surveillance over their internet usage is going to help, because it will never be absolute, and it won't address any underlying psychological issues. The child will find a way to consume this material until their addiction is cured, and just like drugs, they will put themselves in increasingly dangerous situations to get their fix (for example, accessing the material at school).

And eventually, if the root problem isn't found and addressed, the child will grow up into an adult who is no longer supervised and has developed serious addictions. I know this is your fear, but I just don't believe the appropriate or effective battlefield is enabling mass technological surveillance. Studies and personal experiences have shown that invasive surveillance inhibits personal growth. It's difficult learn about yourself and try/learn new things when someone is constantly watching over your shoulder and analyzing everything you do, especially when they lack the correct context and treat everything as suspicious.

If this is a conversation you'd rather continue privately, email's in my bio.

The child is mentally ill and being treated clinically. Medication, therapy, etc. I’d rather not go too into the clinical details, because I’m not an expert, I’m a parent.

Roughly they are having difficulty with emotional regulation and processing previous trauma.

They’ve attended treatment camps in the past - which were very positive exercises for them. The approach to the internet at these camps is almost exactly what I am proposing: white lists and immutable history. They have to brew their own software but it’s done. I don’t see why it can’t be offered more widely.

Speaking more broadly, what controls do you think parents should have over adolescent Internet viewing?

Keep in mind most of the really bad stuff is on mixed content domains . Nobody builds a “watch-monkeys-die.com” website. They build a watchMonkeysDie tumblr or subreddit.

My case is not the best example because of the legit mental health concerns. But the principals are the same. As a parent I have decided my child needs granular access to the internet - how does that happen?

I can't help you with respect to the library, that needs to remain a safe space for those who need it. But at home, do you have control over their networks or devices? I agree that the hardest yet most important things to moderate would be mixed content or UGC domains. Outright blocking some of these domains of course does the child measurable social harm, and social isolation is something you do not want when dealing with a problem like that. And the problem with just sniffing the network is TLS is going to obscure what content is being accessed.

If existing on-device controls are not adequate for you, I think one obvious modern approach which compromises on privacy in a situation might involve having a privacy-oriented on-device small language model look at the contents of each website and only alert you to suspect URLs, letting the child retain privacy if they stay away from toxic content. While this approach has many advantages, it also has disadvantages, such as requiring integration on the device level since an add-on wouldn't prevent a child from using another browser. But then we're moving into the territory of platform-locked devices with hardware attestation, age-gating etc. and the problem gets incredibly difficult fast.

Moderation on the internet is such a hard problem from many angles, and very unsolved. Multimodal models probably are the only way out; even now, the only reason platforms like YouTube, Facebook, etc. are usable by the general public is because tens of thousands of relatively poor individuals who are subjected to the worst material imaginable for 40 hours a week. It's a classist system as currently designed. A lot of these problems are very nuanced and need a lot of careful thought.

I do worry that if enough programmers who care about privacy and free access to information don't organize and provide stronger solutions, regulation will come from outsiders and it will suck. But right now, the current efforts to age gate the internet are concerted and not a rational measure against a lack of internal regulation; rather they're just exploiting that narrative in order to push through this legislation with broader public support.

No, you don't "get that".

As someone who grew in poverty and neglect (thankfully less so physical abuse), and whose lifeline was a free, open and full access to the libraries since the ripe age of 6, I'll just say that yours "there is a system to mitigate damage" is terribly ignorant and indeed privileged, but "this will fail some kids" is just plain awful - indifferent and careless.

Look outside.

One thing I've seen discussed that throws a wrinkle in all of this is the question of whether or not a parent can have control over what their kid can see when they're at a friend's house, and if the answer is no, does that mean something more global like mandatory age verification is necessary to ensure they are still protected.

The argument I've seen goes that even if a parent has complete control over what is available on their home network and on their children's devices, the fact that another parent in their children's friend group does not enforce the same means in practice the amount of control a parent can exert on this problem is effectively zero and a higher-level approach to eradicate this loophole is necessary.

I don't think I agree with that, but that's the strongest case I've come across for implementing such policies.

What I think it really calls for though is a solution in the space of community and communication rather than direct governmental intervention.

The friend part is less important than you think. Devices are very personal these days. Most kids are unwilling to hand over their phones and tablets to a trusted friend. It’s like a diary.

Even if they are willing, it’s only for a short time.

The bigger problem is schools. I touched on that with Google Classroom. Lots of schools require devices and rely on third parties like Google Classroom (which is horrible for filtering).

Another problem is family members: grandma and grandpa. Nice people but not tech savvy.

This isn’t an academic study. I’m reporting from the trenches here. And I’m trying to give advice that will make things better, while not encumbering adults.

> I say this again and again in various places - something wise needs to be done about children and the internet.

There already is. It’s called parenting.

If your child cannot handle the internet, do not give him access to it.

If your child can only handle supervised internet, only allow it from the home pc.

If your kid, like quite some children, is perfectly capable of navigating the internet and talking about worrisome content they encounter, give them a personal device.

This sounds like the parents who are shocked that their kid does criminal stuff, but let him or her be on the streets till midnight without any supervision.

The local public school gives a Chromebook they must use for class. Not optional.

More broadly your advice is very out of touch with modern life. Don’t let them go to the library? Or summer camp?

How am I supposed to supervise them 24/7?

Every actual expert I’ve spoken to has said “do what you can without driving yourself insane, and understand you’ll fail.” None have advised me to simply “do not give them access to the internet.”

I already forbid it. There are too many damn workarounds (school chromebooks).

Here’s the funny thing - I totally trust my troubled adolescent with devices that log history. Never a problem.

So that, combined with advanced cooperation on parent imposed filters should work fine.

And best part - none of this impacts adults! Don’t turn on immutable history, and don’t turn on white listing! Easy peasy! They can be off by default (and should!) so adults don’t have to do a damn thing!

Kids going to the library is modern life? Sure.

You don’t need to control them 24/7. Some however you need to restrict more than others.

That means no personal device and talking to the school about what they do with the device there. There are teachers present and the kid can hand it in during break time.

No personal device - easy and done. The result is extreme social isolation, but sometimes that’s a cost worth paying.

Teachers do not generally monitor computer use during class time. They don’t have the capacity.

Chromebook’s are necessary to complete homework, including during study halls and recess. And at home, of course.

Schools are generally unwilling to create custom rules for individual students - nor are they required to.