Require sites that may have content not appropriate for small children to have RTA headers. [1] Require mainstream browsers to look for the header if parental controls are enabled. Don't even try to block teens, a futile and pointless effort that will only push them underground and even further away from monitoring. Parent decides when small children are mentally ready for mature content then give them a normal device account. Many HN discussions are in linked article. Set a future timeline to do this instead of trying to do it right now so that app/devices developers can ensure a properly sandboxed child account can not be bypassed by the best red teams. Teens can and will bypass anything.

[1] - https://nochan.net/b/Internet-Crap/20230829-Think-Of-The-Chi...

Parents should parent their children and not make it everyone else's problem. This is a social and political problem, not a technical problem with a technical solution.

What problems? The bill says it's to "Protect Children Online" from "accessing age-inappropriate content". What counts? What doesn't? Doesn't say.

Maybe it's the stuff that's already illegal for minors, or where minors are required to be segregated. Well if the law already requires online businesses to follow those laws, what the hell is this bill for?

Online businesses can already verify ID or ask for age at sign-up. They don't need an extra layer of technology shoved into the OS. This new OS-level control does not add anything a company couldn't add itself. What it does do is enable the government and corporations to track every individual, on every site they go to.

The other thing this bill does is indemnify online businesses so they don't have to protect kids. When a predator makes an account on their computer that says they're 13, they can now sign up for an account on Roblox as a 13 year old. When they abuse some kids, and the parents sue Roblox, Roblox will say "not our fault! the account said it was a 13 year old. blame someone else."

And how can you actually prevent every child from accessing any age-inappropriate content? It's so overly broad it's like saying "Protect Children In The Streets". You can't protect every child in every street at all times, you would need a police officer every 50 feet on every street in the world. Hence why we require parents to protect their own children. Until they go on the internet, that is.

The bill says parents "deserve the peace of mind" that their kids are "shielded from inappropriate and harmful content". There's no way to ensure that in general. But there is a billion-dollar industry of parental control software, so parents can already protect their kids when they're on the internet. Afraid of them meeting a predator on social media? Don't let them on social media (it's good for them anyway). Not sure who they're messaging? Install a keylogger/screengrabber. There's thousands of tools on the market to manage kids' online activity. This bill just pretends kids are safe, so parents can avoid their own responsibility.

The bill is not intended to protect children. It's for mass surveillance, and to allow Meta to sell ads to kids without getting fined hundreds of millions of dollars yet again. You wanna protect kids? Lock down their devices. But don't spy on the entire world.