Should we regulate the internet?

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869438#Comment_121869438

It's the blame game. Stop at source so it has nothing to do with Zuckerberg.

Im sure plenty of parents who let their children internet acess unrestricted newest person to blame for them been sh*t parents is Zuckerberg and next week it will be someone else.

I couldn't care less about Zuckerberg but blaming him is pathetic.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869420#Comment_121869420

I was never so technologically advanced as having access to blue movies Clo, had to make-do with my elder sisters Mills & Boon, or my elder brothers Viz collection that they both kept hidden from our parents, who limited our television consumption to news and current affairs programming (and even then they made liberal use of the off switch on the remote 😂).

That was only within the home. I grew up in the country, where there were many occasions I’d happen upon a discarded sodden copy of The Irish Sun newspaper and was overcome by the temptation to have a glance at page 3 while I imagined I was alone (being unaware of the reason for the pages being a bit… shticky, if you catch my drift? 😳).

As you say - as parents we can be as responsible as possible and hope it works out, and for the most part it does, which is why using extreme examples as the abuse, harassment and pornography available on the Internet as a reason to attempt to make the internet a walled garden for children is a futile exercise that offers the illusion of protecting children from harm, when it’s doing nothing of the sort. It just encourages them to want to investigate what’s so taboo about the things which they are forbidden to access, making the idea all that more appealing.

In terms of telling ISPs to lock down websites, well it’s not as though there isn’t precedent for it in terms of the agreement among Irish ISPs to attempt to restrict access to sites like thepiratebay and so on, not out of any concern for children’s welfare, but out of concern that they would be held liable for financial losses and penalties incurred by the the theft of intellectual property. A more recent example I suppose was their ability to restrict user’s ability to search for fake pornographic images of Taylor Swift, and their attempts to prevent them from being created in the first place -

American technology corporation Microsoft offers AI image creators called Microsoft Designer and Bing Image Creator, which employ censorship safeguards to prevent users from generating unsafe or objectionable content. Members of a Telegramgroup discussed ways to circumvent these censors to creative pornographic images of celebrities. Graphika, a disinformation research firm, traced the creation of the images back to a 4chan community.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_deepfake_pornography_controversy

Suggesting that if people can’t manage their children or look after them then they shouldn’t have had children in the first place is a complete abandonment of reality. Unlike your router or your ISP, or even the internet nanny software you imagined would do what you expect it to do - children do not come with a returns policy that allows parents to return them if they are not satisfied with the product, and they’re definitely not permitted to advertise them on websites selling pre-loved goods that failed to live up to expectations 🤨 😂

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869442#Comment_121869442

Apologies, I thought my answer would have been clear when I described myself earlier as generally liberal.

Of course I don't want books banned, if it's available in a public library it should be available online. My point about Edith Piaf is that schools are where a lot of children will meet this kind of literary content for the first time and it's a good place for it to happen.

I was a bookish and depressed teenager myself. I came across darker stuff and especially stuff around self harm that I found difficult. I'm so glad I went through that in a pre social media time where I could be the one to decide when to look at it and when I shouldn't.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869686#Comment_121869686

I'm so glad I went through that in a pre social media time where I could be the one to decide when to look at it and when I shouldn't.

You’re conveniently overlooking the fact that you were a child at the time, so it’s unlikely you were aware of adults making similar arguments as you do about children’s powerlessness to decide whether they do or don’t want to look at something potentially harmful, in an attempt to rid society of what they imagined were potentially harmful influences on children, people like Mary Whitehouse:

A hard-line social conservative, she was termed a reactionary by her socially liberal opponents. Her motivation derived from her Christian beliefs, her aversion to the rapid social and political changes in British society of the 1960s, and her work as a teacher of sex education

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Whitehouse

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869474#Comment_121869474

I do think there's legit criticisms in terms of moderation of abuse etc on all the major platforms. Targeted is particularly bad. Can't fathom what it's like being a teen being bullied online. So I'd place a level of blame on platforms for lack of safeguarding.

However parents with kids who bully are doing an atrocious job. And that's always been the case unfortunately. They're generally not oblivious to the bullying.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869686#Comment_121869686

Book bannings are the effective same approach. So yep you're just as illiberal as those guys.

And you realize depending on who is in power at any given time, LGBT resources would absolutely fail to be whitelisted? Can you cite any group that favours your policy? And that's entirely ignoring the fact that China has failed to succeed with such policies so assuming it would somehow work elsewhere is bizarre

Manach

No, as it is too late. I've been online for decades and seen the Internet grow into a societal changing force that has transformed culture. To censor it now, as this is what regulation amounts to, freezes a range of a attitudes and polices of the chattering classes without any means to use the tropes of the Internet (memes etc) to mock and subvert said attitudes. Having done history, this regulation is the equivalent of printing press licenses that were introduced to prevent challenging the status quo.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869655#Comment_121869655

Great story, how is it anyway comparable to today's world?

From the UKs childrens commissioner report I shared earlier, 80% of young people have viewed violent pornography while 1 in 3

"have actively sought out depictions of sexual violence such as physical aggression, coercion and degradation."

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869871#Comment_121869871

I'm only proposing regulating it for children.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121871927#Comment_121871927

That's not what you proposed if you look back at your posts (more of you moving your goalposts) !

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121871927#Comment_121871927

That's not what your proposing though. You're proposing a whitelist that would impact everyone and that adults should only be able to access websites at designated locations. On top of that, it would absolutely block legitimate resources that children and teens should have access to. Cause there would absolutely be EU nations that would wish to block LGBT resources for example. It's just a poorly thought out idea that you think is genius.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121869769#Comment_121869769

Are you in favour of moderation or age restrictions? What if they're used against the LGBTQ community at some future point?

It's amazing how we've so quickly come to accept and even defend this extreme libertarian view that children should essentially be able access whatever they wish, and even have it presented to them by profit orientated algorithms.

From what I've about China's internet controls, they're actually quite different from this, and concerned as much, or more so with surveillance.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121871994#Comment_121871994

No adult is ultimately being restricted from accessing anything whatsoever.

Inconvenienced yes, restricted no.

If you actually look at the harm being done, I would think it a very small price.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872136#Comment_121872136

It's a restriction, particularly since there would be an additional cost to actually access the Internet outside of your home. Secondly, it would absolutely be abused to block completely Innocent material. You effectively want a totalitarian approach as a lazy solution. You can't turn back time on the Internet and disable it. No group advocates for such a solution and realistically, you seem to be the only person who thinks it's a good idea.

MegamanBoo

Interesting meta-analysis here comparing traditional to cyber bullying.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-022-02128-x

In short the outcomes are worse, specifically around mental health and self harm.

It seems kids facing traditional bullying now also typically suffer cyber bullying in addition, making it harder for them to develop coping skills and avoidance strategies.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872215#Comment_121872215

Does it recommend your stupid draconian proposal or why did you post it?

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872136#Comment_121872136

If the normal Internet cannot be accessed by adults except in certain locations then it is a restriction no matter what way you might consider it in your head. It isn't an inconvenience as in some cases it may mean that adults are unable to carry out their work duties.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872237#Comment_121872237

For the people here completely oblivious to the harm being done of course.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872353#Comment_121872353

Eh? You're not making sense.

Does the report you reference recommend restricting the internet to a defined whitelist and where "normal" internet access is only available in predefined public locations?

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872367#Comment_121872367

It doesn't, @MegamanBoo can you cite anywhere that advocates it as a public policy measure?

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121872367#Comment_121872367

I thought it clear why I posted it, to highlight the harm being done by unrestricted access for children. I take it you or @eightieschewbaccy didn't bother to read it so?

It doesn't mention my whitelisting approach. It's fairly novel so I wouldn't expect many welfare organisations would be aware of it.

I did find some research about my approach online which initially looks favourable, but the full content is paywalled so I won't be able to access it right now as I don't have college access on my phone.

I also found several references to how effective my approach is, and resistant to vpns etc, where used for censorship in Iran.

But I don't understand why you're so caught up on my one proposal? The main thing to be learned from this thread is that even on an anonymous forum, a lot of people favour far stronger approaches to online safety. I'd say that's a big change in the last few years and tells me that a) more people are aware of the harm being done b) people have lost faith in self regulation and softly, softly measures.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121871923#Comment_121871923

In today’s world? It’s comparable at any time in the history of civilisation in that there has never been a time when there weren’t adults using the idea of the potential corruption of children’s feeble minds to argue for greater restrictions on people’s freedoms based upon their own moral standards.

Take for instance your offering of the statistics from that news article from the UK you presented as evidence in support of your argument in favour of introducing greater restrictions on the content that is available on the internet. It lacks any sort of context or attempt to put it in perspective. It attempts to draw a direct causative link between children’s access to pornography and their behaviour outside of that context, ignoring all the other factors which are also influential in shaping children’s minds and their attitudes and behaviour towards others.

It amounts to nothing more than an attempt at scaremongering adults into submission in support of a bill which has since become law in the UK, and will do nothing whatsoever to address the issues it claims to wish to address. Frankly when I read the Guardian article you provided my immediate thought was “1 in 10? They were a bit slow on the uptake!”, but then I remembered that it’s an entirely reasonable figure given that two-thirds of the world’s school-age children have no access to the internet at home:

https://www.unicef.org.uk/press-releases/two-thirds-of-the-worlds-school-age-children-have-no-internet-access-at-home-new-unicef-itu-report-says/

And in the UK, there’s that 1 in 10 figure again of school-age children who have no access to the internet at home. The figures for Ireland are even worse (and the lack of infrastructure was massively exposed during lockdowns when children were unable to attend school remotely), with over a third of parents reporting that their children were unable to complete their homework due to slow or no broadband at home:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/broadband-children-education-pure-telecom-ireland

And no, contrary to your assertion in your opening post that parents aren’t bothered or don’t care or aren’t actively monitoring their children’s internet access, the opposite is true for the most part:

• 69% of children use connected devices daily, and just under two-thirds (62%) are online for 1 to 3 hours per day.
• 57% of parents frequently restrict their children’s online access, such as turning off internet connections or restricting websites.
• 8 in 10 state they are anxious about their child meeting strangers online and 66% are worried about exposure to explicit content.
• Almost half (45%) of the Irish public have fallen victim to a virus on their device in the past year, with a further 36% experiencing two to three virus attacks in the last 12 months.
• Research study conducted for the launch of Vodafone Secure Net, a new digital protection product available in-and-out of the home with parental tools to help manage time spent online, safely.

https://www.ispcc.ie/88-of-irish-parents-worry-about-the-content-their-children-could-see-online

Being aware of all of that, is why I’m at a loss as to what exactly you hope to accomplish by introducing ineffective measures to restrict children’s access to the internet, or to create a walled garden is the more likely outcome, that wouldn’t be long becoming infested with perverts in much the same manner as online spaces aimed at children became increasingly popular with adults who sought out children for the purposes of exploitation. It was like shooting fish in a barrel for them, whereas now it’s considerably more difficult for those sorts of perverts who target children, or for children who target children online and offline. All you’d be doing is giving perverts a playground of their own and giving children no means of protection, while giving parents the false confidence of an illusion that their children are being protected by legislation (which in reality is doing nothing of the sort).

Much like the same false confidence my parents had in their ability to control their children’s exposure to that which they regarded as immoral, dangerous and having the potential to corrupt our fragile minds. There was more smut that had the potential to corrupt an innocent mind in the works of Shakespeare ffs 😂

https://archive.ph/MLQGA

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121873094#Comment_121873094

I'd view prohibition as a pretty good example of what this kind of thing would do. Drive problematic aspects of the Internet further underground and like you said, it will give the creeps new ways to groom and whatever else.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121871927#Comment_121871927

How do you propose to distinguish between children and adults online?

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121873707#Comment_121873707

Certainly a valid point and a factor to be wary of.

As it stands this type of solution would be far safer from that type of side effect, than say home parental controls, as it doesn't allow VPN or darknet access.

While I wouldn't agree with the reasons behind Iran's use of a system like this, it is very robust and it seems several international hacker groups have failed to circumvent it.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121874324#Comment_121874324

In the more severe version of this solution I've presented the internet would be restricted by default, with adults able to visit age verified internet cafes to use the full version.

Probably a more realistic aspiration for now would be for the state, or ideally the EU, to develop a network like this and mandate it be available without additional cost from all ISPs.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121875047#Comment_121875047

Okay so your first version is a huge joke.

For your second version, it's not a network issue. It's an authentication issue. How do you ensure that the person holding the phone is an adult?

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121875375#Comment_121875375

How do you ensure that the person holding the phone is an adult?

From what I understand of Megaman’s ideas - that isn’t an issue for the ISP, it’s an issue for the adult - that they have to provide identifying evidence to be able to make use of the federally provided network. All adults will be regarded as children by default, and it will be the responsibility of the individual to prove otherwise.

I don’t know where Megaman gets the notion that their ideas are working in countries like China and Iran, probably from the Chinese and Iranian Governments respectively, but it’s not a great selling point - “I want us to be more like China and Iran”, said no Western Democracy ever, and the few countries which have tried to implement similar regulations, similarly haven’t been able to regulate people’s internet access and usage to the degree that they wish to, in order to protect children of course. That small price to pay to protect children from harm comes at the cost of even greater long term harm for society as a whole. The ‘small price for protection’ argument just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/2/24/iran-unveils-plan-for-tighter-internet-rules-to-promote-local-platforms

https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3008274/chinese-parents-who-fear-they-have-lost-their-children-internet

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121875614#Comment_121875614

Which raises questions of;

• What evidence of adulthood will be provided?
• Who will process and validate this evidence?
• What information will be retained, and by who, for how long?

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121873094#Comment_121873094

Thanks for that post it's very useful in highlighting the kind of extreme libertarian approach that's actually become normalised in defending a free internet, albeit for most people through hopelessness at the fallacy that 'nothing can be done'

I don't know if you read that article correctly but it actually referred to one in ten children aged 8 or under being exposed to pornography online.

For an adult to show pornography to an eight year old like that is child abuse and would have them placed on a register. Seemingly it's fine for an algorithm to do it.

You look then for 'causative' evidence. For a start, causative evidence is rarely found in social research as it requires isolating the variables. In this case that would involve deliberately exposing children to pornography, which no researcher ever would do for obvious reasons.

I did offer a meta analysis showing the increased harm of online bullying in comparison to traditional bullying which you conveniently chose to ignore.

Instead you offered what could most kindly be described as pseudo-intellectual waffle about the history of outrage and smut in Shakespeare. I don't see how you even imagine that as relevant given the actual evidence of harm here.

newmember2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121876459#Comment_121876459

Basically you'll get and are getting, plenty of adults who really couldn't give a fk how children are been harmed and "shur there's nothing we can do about it!". Rather than ridiculing your solution, we'd all be better served if those responding could think of a better solution - because there has to be one. According to one poster, there's no actual problem because he managed his teenagers just grand. 🙄

Do we just let this damaging effect on children (and society in general) remain unchecked?

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121876681#Comment_121876681

Attempts so far to bring any sort of control on the type of content delivered to children online have been terribly weak.

I think a lot of older people especially are just clueless to the harm being done. Improved speeds and bandwidth, targeting tech, smart phones ubiquity etc have really changed the landscape over the last 10 years or so. Thankfully, as the evidence get stronger and stronger and people are becoming more aware, it does seem far more people are demanding something be done.

I've proposed a quite severe measure here, but I think something with that sort of impact is required.

What might be a better starting point would be for the state or EU to work with ISPs to provide a restricted safe version alongside the full version. I think the vast majority of parents and public spaces would chose the safe version. For those that don't I think the type of social and legal pressures we already have would push those reluctant towards a safer version. Sadly there'll always be extreme parents who'll provide harmful content to children but from a public health approach I think this would be a great start.

Some posters have pointed to articles on China, Iran etc finding flaws in their systems but these are actually referring to different approaches. The measure I'm suggesting to be used is quite difficult to circumvent.

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/xmdm5p/iranian_here_responding_to_the_signal_post/

It looks promising that a state, or the EU, could use something along these lines to build a limited child safe version of the internet, providing access to netflix, approved social media sites, educational resources, online banking, school and work logins etc. This functionality would still provide enough functionality for most needs of other family members.

MegamanBoo

I couldn't bring myself to read beyond the introductory section of the report behind this news article.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41139007.html

I can't think of any other example where this kind of harm would be allowed happen to children and society would generally react in such a blasé manner. I don't think banning smart phones in schools goes nearly far enough but I can' believe our government rejected even these proposals. I do think the tide is starting to turn though.

o1s1n

Don't a lot of phone networks have adult content switched off by default actually? (and you've to contact them proving you're 18+ to get the restriction lifted?)

That's a fairly straightforward solution on a phone by phone basis. Just make it blanked switched off for all phone networks and you need contact them to have adult contact activated. (or perhaps it could be switched on at point of purchase if you're over 18)

aidanodr

The OP should surely have said - Should we regulate SOCIAL MEDIA as distinct from the internet? Soc media needs the internet so it can function. I think most issues with "the internet" are in fact with a subset of the internet called SOCIAL MEDIA?

Also drags in the Q - should kids under a certain age have a smartphone pretty much unpoliced? Especially when now you could provide a kid with a regular phone that just does texts and calls for contact purposes? Now then, I have opened up another can of worms :D

With respect to social media - Yes that needs far more regulation and brought in under same rules that is applied to other media

o1s1n

I (begrudgingly) opened a Facebook account again just to access some niche groups and couldn't believe the way some of the folks were talking to each other and the content being posted. It's quite jarring when you're away from it for a few years and spend most of your time on sites like boards. Definitely needs more moderation/content control.

CalamariFritti

deleted

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121879441#Comment_121879441

I think the problem with social media, is that I'm not sure moderation and content control can ever fit in the business model.

The operating principle is essentially to have a huge number of users, each of whom will cost them very little to provide a service for.

The advertising they use then will cover that cost plus bring in a little bit more. It becomes very profitable at gigantic scale.

I just can't see how it can be profitable if they have to pay enough moderators. Advertising just won't cover that cost. They keep promising AI and automated solutions but they just don't work well enough. In the meantime the rest of the world is left dealing with the harm their doing.

I think it has to happen very soon that they're made legally accountable for that harm.

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121879441#Comment_121879441

I run a large Face book Group ( cork in the 80s ) with 16,000 members now. Started it in 2014. Up to maybe 2 years ago it was easy enough and straight forward to manage and moderate it. Then Facebook completely changed the way this is done for owners, favouring Visitors who can now comment without joining OR perspective members sort of allowed join but you can only allow / disallow there ability to join AFTER they make there first comment.

Some were saying as a Group admin / creator and with you having made all the effort to build the group - that you were now getting more power over facebook than facebook themselves so they tried to even the pitch and introduce such things as above.

They are also using AI now to "help" you moderate.

Before all of this when you had better control as admin groups were generally choosen to be public, but now post New Rulz from Facebook many are gone CLOSED in order to have better control re visitor access etc. Going closed can have an impact on membership numbers via the way FB handle this

"A Group can be more private than a Page because the creator has the option to make it closed. When a group is closed, only those invited to the Group can see the content and information shared within it.

all information is shared only with those within the group once it's made closed. Others will still be able to see that the group exists, but they won't be able to see its members or any posts or information within the closed Group unless they are invited."

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121879379#Comment_121879379

Great in principle and I wasn't aware of this, but I'd imagine a VPN gets around it very easily.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121880611#Comment_121880611

It's incredibly naive to assume that any system designed to filter Internet content won't be bypassed. They all are.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121880912#Comment_121880912

With a whitelisting system you essentially can't connect with anything other than what's approved.

There are workarounds but none that could ever be widely available.

There are other challenges but security wise it's very strong.

The only other option I'd see is to make big-tech legally liable. I'd see a risk that this would in effect become more restrictive than a two-tier approach.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121881174#Comment_121881174

I'll be diplomatic about this while removing the profanities: What do you know about Technology, the Internet and Security?

Your whitelisting "idea" is rubbish.

Your whitelisting "idea" is fundamentally insecure.

You couldn't quantify the number of websites that would have to be whitelisted and didn't even have a clue about the number of websites on the Internet. The 100K websites seems to be an Anglo-Irish Bank number.

You simply haven't a clue about the difficulties of creating and maintaining such a list and then getting people to use it.

Coming up with a compromise for it isn't something like hacking Sky. Even that took less than ten seconds. It took longer to write down the details of that hack than it did to formulate it. Your whitelisting idea is broken to such an extent that it doesn't need to be compromised. A child could see the obvious flaws with your scheme and bypass it.

You don't write like someone with a STEM background and don't display any knowledge or understanding of the issues of whitelists, blacklists, the Internet, and Technology in general. As for Security, your whitelist "idea" would make things much more unsafe for children because it would create a desire to bypass your nanny-state restrictions.

Nobody on this thread with a clue about reality has agreed with your whitelist "idea". To people who work with Technology and the Intenet, words like "security", "algorithms" and "Internet" aren't buzzwords for some click and drool merchant "technology journalist" to use like they have a clue (they generally don't). They have real meanings and large areas of study supporting them. Idiocy like your whitelist, much like GDPR, would make the Internet more unsafe for everyone. And Big-Tech already operates in a very complex legal framework and it has clearly defined liabilities such as those in the Digital Services Act.

Regards...jmcc

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884234#Comment_121884234

Thanks jmcc

Maybe you might try contribute something instead and tell me what you think it's fundamentally insecure?

It looks to me that your stuck on this idea of quantifying the number of websites on the internet. Why would this idea need to do that? It's an allow list!

I gave an estimate figure on how many sites would need to be whitelisted of 100k to allow for basic internet functionality. That's all this has to be. I think your trying to compare it to something that it's not.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884377#Comment_121884377

I get the impression jmcc would come from the same standpoint as myself in that it's up to parents to police their children's internet usage (and it's not up to the rest of the world to do it for them).

Limiting websites people have access to as ISP level won't stop the damage you are concerned about if you still allow children access to social media. So I don't really get what that achieves.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884445#Comment_121884445

Good idea: Teaching kids about the dangers of drugs.

Bad idea: Teaching kids about the dangers of drugs, while doing nothing about the candy flavoured ketamine in school vending machines.

Having a two tiered internet would allow for social media sites which don't ensure child safety to be switched off. In practice I would imagine they could offer a limited version with some functionality disabled on the child friendly tier.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884949#Comment_121884949

Except in the drugs case, prohibition is largely ineffective.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884377#Comment_121884377

So let's say you allow a 100k websites. Each site can have potentially millions of pages. On top of that, they often have dynamic content. Some have private messaging functionality, most support video and not all are necessarily visible to all users. Already even within that grouping of pages, you have plenty of ways for dodgy content that can make it up. You can say that it can be policed but drug or alcohol prohibition hasn't worked so why should this. Make something harder to access, drives it underground.

This is also ignoring that half the Internet pulls content from multiple sources that are often dynamic.

But sure, you'll just say it'll work.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121885108#Comment_121885108

I'd agree prohibition is ineffective for adults when it comes to drugs. I'd also say most proponents of decriminalisation would advocate for strict controls around supply to children.

Thank you for bringing some actual discussion around the practicalities of implementing something like this. I'm not adamant that it would work, but it does appear that it would be resistant to vpn bypassing.

I don't think the amount of pages within a site would be an issue, once they are served from the same IP, or at least routed through the same IP.

What would be far more difficult would be the dynamic content, especially links and media. Most websites now will use CDNs to host images etc and these would be shared between desirable and undesirable sites. I think that's where this would only be possible through an entity like the EU, so that sites would be incentivised to tailor content, providing fallback for image sources etc.

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121885282#Comment_121885282

You'd have to prevent any kind of user content which is basically what the Internet has been since year one. So nope, it's not achievable.

Im against any sort of simplistic blame-the-parents responses but this one issue is different, no amount of tech can fix this as a workaround will always be found.

Therefore it needs a combination of making it as legally difficult as possible for someone under 15 to have a smartphone along with compulsory parenting courses for parents who buy or facilitate access to smartphones, smartphones for those under 15 should be banned on school grounds as well.

It is not a perfect solution but it would make having a smartphone more difficult for early teens and offer cultural and moral support to parents.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884377#Comment_121884377

It is a fundamentally insecure idea because most people have an inbuilt desire to bypass limitations. Children also have this need to explore to a greater level than adults. Therefore it is better to teach children the difference between right and wrong rather than simply saying, as you seem to be, this is wrong because you said so.

Your 100K figure is not based on any data or evidence. You don't understand the number of websites on the Internet. You don't understand how people use websites. Above all you don't understand that over 5 Million gTLD (.COM/NET/ORG etc) domain names are deleted each month and approximately 5.66 Million more are registered in the gTLDs. With .COM, approximately 30% of these new sites will have developed websites. That's at a global level. There are also the country code domain names like .ie or .uk and they also have large numbers of new and deleted domain names each month. This is the reality of the Internet. It is not some unchanging monolith where websites are created and operate for the rest of time. This year's webscape is different to last year's webscape and much different to the webscape of ten years ago.

Someone has to create this whitelist of websites, select and approve websites and deleted websites that are no longer valid. People don't scale well horizontally so more than one person might be required to do this effectively. Then there's dealing with complaints from website owners that your whitelist has excluded.

Creating and maintaining a 100K list of websites even for one country is a difficult task because websites and their domain names get deleted and new domain names and websites appear every day. Without maintaining it, the list would become stale. Then there is the problem of compromised websites. What may have been a clean website when added to your list could get compromised and used to drop malware on a visitor's computer via their browser or worse. That is another thing that you'd have to continually check.

If the whitelist is published the domain name of every website on that list will be tracked to see if it is deleted. If a domain name on your whitelist is deleted then it will be reregistered in milliseconds and either put on sale or used to serve pay per click advertising to a guaranteed audience. And that's if the new registrant has relatively good intentions. A registrant with bad intentions, and there are lots of them, will weaponise it for malware delivery or phishing. Did you know about this?

That 100K whitelist might make sense to you but you don't know how many people will use this whitelist and whether all the websites they commonly use will be included. There are also countries outside of Ireland so each country will need its own whitelist for your censorship model, and it is a censorship model, to be effective. It is also goes against freedom of expression That's important. Take a look at Article 10 in the legislation below:

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2014/act/25/schedule/3/enacted/en/html

Your estimate is based on nothing! No research. No data. Nothing! There's an idea called Hitchens' Razor that states that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. It applies to your whitelist.

Regards...jmcc