Have you met some of these youth? They are never really stopped by restrictions. One person finds a way to bypass it and word spreads like wildfire.
We can change anything, and if it makes society a better place then we actually have a moral obligation to try.
Im also not asking for perfectly monitored total surveillance. Just some barriers for surface level use.
A kid can camp outside a liquor store, offering strangers money to buy them alcohol. But this is difficult, and has a chance of having them turned in.
In the same way an ID pop-up can be circumvented with savvy use of VPNs etc., but it will easily block many of the youngest and most vulnerable. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Realistically, a kid that wants to see some funky stuff is going to find a way. Not every website cares about these stupid laws.
Instead of policing everyone, risking security leaks, and deanonymizing users, the parents who want to stop their children from viewing naked humans should just put up block lists on their network. It would filter a lot more than just adding age verification to reddit.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Or even better, parents could have conversations about sex instead of letting the kids get sex ed from porn.
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Americans are scared of sex education. The schools could just continue teaching it, but a lot of people don’t like that.
SleepyPie@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Sure, we all have anecdotes of finding porn on the internet before it was reasonable. And everyone can eventually find ways around barriers. I also remember someone young googling terms and not realizing there was a setting blocking content. They had given up.
Barriers can meaningfully delay, giving young people more time to mature before they are exposed to this content. If every social media platform implemented this, it would have a significant impact. That’s why the porn industry lobbies so hard against these sorts of laws.
I think many underestimate how damaging porn use actually is, how toxic the industry is, and how much of the traffic is generated by the underaged.
TheFinn@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
I found porn in the woods my dude - friend’s houses, parent’s stashes. It’s always been available, although not so readily.
While I tried to prevent access for my own kids also, I accepted that after a certain age they’re going to be interested and be able to find it. Their mother and I had some tangential talks about it with them and let them know it’s not realistic at all. As far as I know, everyone turned out okay. Normal lives and relationships and all.
I’m not convinced that whatever they found as they were growing up was as harmful as you’re making it sound. You’re making a lot of bold, unsourced claims. Although now that I think about it, I don’t know how you can ethically do a lot of research on the topic.
I believe a bigger topic, and one that plays into what you’re concerned about, is early use (especially unmonitored) of any networked computing devices. Maybe make smart phones adult only like alcohol, tobacco, or guns. If the family chooses to have one on the home it’s up to the parents to make it safe.