This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't think we should be letting kids under 16 use social media, and the issue is a collective action problem that is best solved collectively (i.e. with government regulation).
But, I understand concerns raised by many, for example the EFF, that legislation banning children will have negative implications for online privacy. How do we "protect the kids", while also maintaining online privacy, which has been a fundamental part of the internet for a long time?
You have to pay an ISP which knows where you live to get internet. I think any potential age attestation stuff should happen at that level, with websites being able to query ISPs on whether a given ip address belongs to a child or not, and ISPs allowing customers to opt in to child-labeled ip addresses.
A wired connection to a house in the US usually only supports a single IP to be shared by everyone in the house. Kids also access the internet from more than their home (e.g. libraries), so this also runs into overlap elsewhere too.
That's the unusual part (for wired connections in the US at least) and it's story isn't much better, it just didn't make much sense to detail its "why"s when the usual part (IPv4) already doesn't work for much simpler reasons.
This already exists more or less exactly as you describe. Family mobile phone plans offer the ability to designate a number as having parental restrictions, and the phone company will intercept DNS requests and substitute a version of Google with SafeSearch enabled and locked, provided by Google for this purpose along with a friendly message "your network operator has locked your safesearch settings etc etc". Don't let anyone tell you this isn't mainstream.
This is an incredible parental competence, awareness, and knowledge failure.
If you know a child in public school, ask them about what other kids watch on their phones at school.
It's a literal felony if you were to hand a kid a porno, gore/death videos, etc, but handing a kid a phone with unrestricted internet is completely fine for > 50% of parents [1]. And, the children of these failed parents go around the schools showing other children "shock" videos to get their reactions, like (an example I know) another child being murdered, on a gore website.
Seems like something has to change. Or, for those who think nothing has to change, should we stop pretending, and remove/lessen the existing laws around giving children access to inappropriate material? Maybe lower 18+ content to 10+, as it currently is with > 50% of the children accessing the internet?
I've talked to some of these parents, and they use the same justification as they do for letting their elementary school children watch rated R horror movies, "I don't want to shelter them".
The internet shock sites existed back when I was a teenager. I was exposed to those things. It didn't damage me any, as far as I can tell. Not to mention there were always things like faces of death which I found to be far more disturbing than any internet shock content that I ran into in the 90s.
Neat anecdote, but it would be interesting to look at studies on how it impacts broader society when the majority of the population is exposed to this, and porn, starting pre-teen (see stats).
There is an obvious difference between few shock videos now and then on a PC at home and constant flood of all kinds of emotional manipulation from ads to propaganda only an arms reach away inside your pocket 24/7 which you also need to use to be part of society.
If you just watch kids using tiktok or even just browse it yourself the difference should be quite obvious. The internet of 2026 is not comparable with the 2000s.
I would also support this if there were a way to do it without privacy implications for actual adults. Unfortunately, there is not, and more unfortunately still, there is not widespread understanding of that fact. I think our industry owes more honesty to the public about the trade-offs.
There is. If we want parental behavior to change, the incentives have to change.
Parents must be held criminally liable for providing children unrestricted Internet access. Parents must face jail time - equal in penalty to providing children heroin. Criminal liability is table stakes for changing behavior.
This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't think we should be letting kids under 16 use social media, and the issue is a collective action problem that is best solved collectively (i.e. with government regulation).
But, I understand concerns raised by many, for example the EFF, that legislation banning children will have negative implications for online privacy. How do we "protect the kids", while also maintaining online privacy, which has been a fundamental part of the internet for a long time?
You have to pay an ISP which knows where you live to get internet. I think any potential age attestation stuff should happen at that level, with websites being able to query ISPs on whether a given ip address belongs to a child or not, and ISPs allowing customers to opt in to child-labeled ip addresses.
A wired connection to a house in the US usually only supports a single IP to be shared by everyone in the house. Kids also access the internet from more than their home (e.g. libraries), so this also runs into overlap elsewhere too.
not with ipv6
That's the unusual part (for wired connections in the US at least) and it's story isn't much better, it just didn't make much sense to detail its "why"s when the usual part (IPv4) already doesn't work for much simpler reasons.
Mobile phones rather famously tend not to be plugged into landlines.
This already exists more or less exactly as you describe. Family mobile phone plans offer the ability to designate a number as having parental restrictions, and the phone company will intercept DNS requests and substitute a version of Google with SafeSearch enabled and locked, provided by Google for this purpose along with a friendly message "your network operator has locked your safesearch settings etc etc". Don't let anyone tell you this isn't mainstream.
This is an incredible parental competence, awareness, and knowledge failure.
If you know a child in public school, ask them about what other kids watch on their phones at school.
It's a literal felony if you were to hand a kid a porno, gore/death videos, etc, but handing a kid a phone with unrestricted internet is completely fine for > 50% of parents [1]. And, the children of these failed parents go around the schools showing other children "shock" videos to get their reactions, like (an example I know) another child being murdered, on a gore website.
Seems like something has to change. Or, for those who think nothing has to change, should we stop pretending, and remove/lessen the existing laws around giving children access to inappropriate material? Maybe lower 18+ content to 10+, as it currently is with > 50% of the children accessing the internet?
I've talked to some of these parents, and they use the same justification as they do for letting their elementary school children watch rated R horror movies, "I don't want to shelter them".
[1] https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/press-release/abc-online...
The internet shock sites existed back when I was a teenager. I was exposed to those things. It didn't damage me any, as far as I can tell. Not to mention there were always things like faces of death which I found to be far more disturbing than any internet shock content that I ran into in the 90s.
Neat anecdote, but it would be interesting to look at studies on how it impacts broader society when the majority of the population is exposed to this, and porn, starting pre-teen (see stats).
There is an obvious difference between few shock videos now and then on a PC at home and constant flood of all kinds of emotional manipulation from ads to propaganda only an arms reach away inside your pocket 24/7 which you also need to use to be part of society.
If you just watch kids using tiktok or even just browse it yourself the difference should be quite obvious. The internet of 2026 is not comparable with the 2000s.
I would also support this if there were a way to do it without privacy implications for actual adults. Unfortunately, there is not, and more unfortunately still, there is not widespread understanding of that fact. I think our industry owes more honesty to the public about the trade-offs.
standardize parental controls on devices, have a new browser api to access that information. no privacy implications.
There is. If we want parental behavior to change, the incentives have to change.
Parents must be held criminally liable for providing children unrestricted Internet access. Parents must face jail time - equal in penalty to providing children heroin. Criminal liability is table stakes for changing behavior.
disappointing as it's just an attack on privacy while pretending to be for the "safety of the children"
A million tech bros just cried out in terror "my Lambo!"