SUPERVISE
YOUR OWN
FUCKING
CHILDREN
Australia says platforms like Steam and Roblox have 'significant' child safety gaps
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Orwi@programming.dev to games@lemmy.world
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjvgygzzy6lro
Comments
wuffah@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
Bet these are the same people that put the pressure on the porn games a bit ago
Zahille7@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
From what I remember, I believe it was an Australian “moms group” that pulled that stunt.
ChocolateFrostedSugarBombs@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Collective Shout.
Fucking cunts and the payment processors that went along with their bullshit.
DudeImMacGyver@kbin.earth 2 weeks ago
Maybe you should try parenting???
SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Steam has good parental controls and if you actually parent your children you can notice if it isn’t quite set up correctly.
Baggie@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Oh fuck off. You can’t build a foolproof solution and you know it, you’re just asking for more power over our data and I’m so tired of it.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If people care so much about their children they should probably focus on actual problems that are threatening their entire futures…
I cared so much about my kids’ futures I didn’t even have any. It was the only way to ensure their happiness and safety.
creamfresh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Online spaces can be a threat to a child. You’d probably better understand if you were a parent.
Goforce5@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Shit dawg. Sounds like you probably shouldn’t let your kids online then.
Kaligalis@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not wrong. But the payment provider literally already has the age. Just force them to tell the shop whether the potential buyer is an adult or not. The solution is literally legally and technically trivial with basically no privacy impact.
So yeah, this is probably yet another case of not actually being about child safety at all.
Baggie@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
But then how would we spy on people? Think man, think!
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
People will do anything these days to avoid actually parenting.
skibidi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The audience for this isn’t even really parents of young children, it is mostly grandparents who vote as large blocs and are rather receptive to the ‘save the kids’ message in order to support whatever restrictions on technology they don’t understand anyway.
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
they’re not wrong, but cutting kids from the internet will do nothing to prevent their abuse, quite the contrary, because it will force kids to be even more dependent on the people who are most statistically likely to abuse them…
madmantis24@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Those people are also overwhelmingly in political power across the Western World right now
caseofthematts@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For anyone that doesn’t know, currently because of stuff like this, people in Australia can’t even access their Steam games that they’ve already bought unless they have a credit card, which I’ve learned most people over there don’t. Valve isn’t allowing the third-party ‘steal your data’ options like face scan and government ID, so Australian folk without a CC are out of luck.
Australians, please fight back against these anyi-privacy laws. If these are successful, they’ll come to other countries.
Solemarc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You are completely wrong.
Credit cards are very common here. Also, I don’t have a credit card and I haven’t lost access to any of my steam games.
I’ve played games like Wuthering Waves and VPN’d to America and the game has asked me to verify my age then I’ve disabled the VPN and started the game again and magically it’s not now.
blackbirdbiryani@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ll chime in to say that I’m an Australian and on the flipside I don’t know anyone with an actual credit card (not debit). So yeah you’re also making a sweeping generalisation.
Also none of my debit cards work around the steam requirements, it depends on which bank you’re with.
caseofthematts@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t know what to tell you, I got my information from an Australian, and everything I’ve seen online confirms this.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Total tangent here… austrailians don’t have credit cards? Tell me more, I am very curious.
dev_null@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Credit cards are mostly a US thing. Most other places you just use debit cards.
Credit cards are of course used worldwide but most people don’t own one and those who do use it rarely, since why would you borrow money to pay for something unless it’s an emergency or some big / long term thing (at which point an actual loan is probably better, so again CC not needed).
Dvixen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not in the same sense as North America. We have debit cards tied to bank accounts with a similar functionality as a credit card, but they often don’t work at a negative balance. No one I know has a debit card that functions the same as a North American credit card. (I’m a Canadian living in Australia.)
I have a MasterCard debit card, but it doesn’t work as an age verification for Steam.
caseofthematts@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m not an expert, I’m just being told this from an Australian. They do have credit cards, but it’s not as much a necessity to do things as it is in North America. So, from what I’m told, a lot of adults don’t have one.
VerdantTome@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Australians absolutely have credit cards. The previous poster seems to be getting their information from a single Aussie in some sort of echo chamber.
I couldn’t find numbers specifically for the percentage of people who have at least one card, but the total number of CC accounts indicates that it’s likely that almost every working adult has one. That being said, credit card usage is low compared to other countries, I suspect because the government made the banks get together and create a universal electronic payment network in the 1980s, and we’ve all been used to paying virtually anywhere with our regular ATM cards, direct from our normal bank accounts, for decades. Credit cards are primarily used for, y’know, credit, and not just everyday transactions.
Side note: I live overseas from where I grew up, and I frequently run into fellow (usually young) immigrants who will confidently tell the locals half-truths and outright falsehoods about their home countries based on their limited experience with the world. Living with one small group of people in one part of one town doesn’t give you a full understanding of everyone in your whole country.
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Roblox is an actively predatory marketplace for parent’s credit details.
Jolteon@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Nonsense. There’s plenty of credit cards stolen that don’t belong to the kids’ parents.
ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
If I steal your credit card, you’re my surrogate parent now. Thank you, daddy. 🫡
IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This is being said in a world where parents just give their kids tablets so they can keep quiet/busy. IMO the real danger is kids having “smart” tech at a young age. I almost think it’s borderline child abuse to get them hooked on tech that early on.
fonix232@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
I fully concur that the onus is on the parents first, not the platforms.
However I also think that there should be proper tools made available for parents to simplify managing what their kids can access.
No, not the Orwellian surveillance crap most politicians try to push. Those don't help.
But having a proper parental control system that has pre-made filters and is straightforward to use would get us ahead quite a lot.
About ten years ago I had to be the "parent" for my youngest brother on a number of platforms because our parents speak no English and parental controls were all... only in English.
Just last year I did the same for my nieces. And let me tell you... in ten years there was exactly zero progress made in parental control systems at Google, Microsoft and Apple. No ways to make it easier to control what your kids can access, no improvements in UX, it's still a hidden, tucked away, third or fourth thought menu.
Maybe start focusing on that instead of trying to use your incompetence to strongarm governments into handing you even more data? Just an idea.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
In my age it was the TV. So not really much changed. We had this discussions decades ago.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah but research shows that even TV isn’t great for young kids. Especially if it isn’t supervised and time limited.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I gotta be honest, I understand this position. I have a real difficult kid. We’re working on building trust, but it’s a process. The fact of the matter is that he seeks out inappropriate content and he can’t seem to help himself, just too impulsive.
There’s a reason for these behaviors, and like I said, we’re working on it. But in the mean time, we’ve had to completely lock down all technology in the house. And most of it is complete garbage when it comes to parental controls. Stay away from Roku for instance, that device is fucking horrible, just the worst.
Anyway, the thing is, sometimes parental controls are in fact necessary, but as long as they exist, things are fine. Steam for instance has a great system, you can control what aspects of steam a kid has access to, multiplayer functionality, the store, online content, etc. a all that can be switched on or off. And for games you can use their general rating system (which is imperfect) or you can manually whitelist individual games. Finally, you can lock it all behind a simple pin code. Honestly, this is how all such platforms should work, it’s manageable.
I don’t think there’s really any legitimate reason to complain about the systems steam currently has in place.
Roblox on the other hand… That’s a shitshow. We don’t touch Roblox.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
These people are NOT talking about parental control, they are talking about taking control over what children have access to regardless of what specific parents think. If your child were less impulsive, as most children are, you wouldn’t have to be that restrictive - some common sense rules and limits would probably suffice, and these things are important to both build trust and develop responsibility in most children.
But they want to do the same with children online as they did with public spaces starting decades ago - taking away the possibility of experiencing the world on their own terms in adequate environments for those children who are capable of it. They are already taking away their communication channels on a large scale in addition to deanonymizing their citizens on the internet, and now they are still pushing for more.
The parental controls on Steam are absolutely fine, and there’s even the possibility of setting the account into offline mode or needing approval for every single login on the parents phone if they want to. Roblox… is a completely different can of worms, and i would never allow my child a roblox account, because normalizing what is going on there is a very bad idea.
Don’t let yourself get fooled. They want to decide how much you can trust your children, regardless of how good a parent you are or how well behaved you child is.
OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
They want the government to raise their children. Not parents. Goodness me, that would be silly.
I_Jedi@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Agreed! The solution is so very simple. All Australia needs to do is assign one jack booted thug to each child in the country, with orders to hold the kid’s head underwater for a few seconds if the thug thinks the kid is visiting Steam or Roblox. If the parents object, hold their heads underwater too. As a bonus, the kids will learn to fear opposing the Australian government. It couldn’t be easier.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Does she even know what she is talking about? Steam isn’t allowed to be used and registered by childs (note, “Subscriber” in this context means Steam user account): store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
You may not become a Subscriber if you are under the age of 13. Steam is not intended for children under 13 and Valve will not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. Additional age restrictions may apply in your country.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Oh it just occurred to me why Minecraft and Roblox aren’t on Steam (besides the 30% price cut). They can’t, because the games allow children to login and play, while this is not allowed in Steam.
Hermit_Lailoken@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The infamous nanny state.
Boooo
spacegoat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Australia is pathetic when it comes to freedom of speech. The media censorship is outrageous, meanwhile the far right has captured journalism
Baggie@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I was going to argue but actually yeah that’s about right. That’s a real shame.
spacegoat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You have my sympathies. My country is worse, I’m sure.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
As an Australian I can only agree, I don’t want it as insane as the US but we’re only getting worse and worse.
Murse@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
…well if we’re going to legislate something out of gaming ‘fOr tHe kIDs’ let’s start with the slot machine bullshit and other gambling mechanics seem in things like loot boxes.
At the very least, the presence of that stuff should be an automatic Adult rating. With less predatory (but still predatory) things like subscriptions being rated as Mature.
Guessing that’s not what the dickhead in the article is talking about, but I’m not gonna bother reading another rant from some pearl-clutching cunt imagining a bunch of fake problems caused by video games.
chunes@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I bet she used the internet as a girl when it was 100x less ‘safe.’
Now wants to pull the ladder up behind her.
Beacon@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
Look at her picture, based on her apparent age i doubt that's correct
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
The article also says:
After graduating from university in the early 1990s
Yeah. Out of touch old person not getting how important the Internet is for young people and their happiness and social development. Can we get people like that out of positions of power finally please?
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Roblox has significant parental control gaps. You can say that parents should just not let their children play Roblox but that really isn’t fair for the child.
To be honest, most platforms should be banned for children because they are all predatory. Anyone who has seen a mobile ad or seen the subscription pricing for most children’s apps would agree. A quality app for children is the exception.
Personally if I were in charge I would hold Google and Apple accountable for the trash advertised on their platforms. It’s not ok.
badgermurphy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
[deleted]Chozo@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
I mean, child mortality from plastic bag suffocation dropped after they started printing those warnings so I'm not sure why that'd be something to fear.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Okay so… all the people who are saying “supervise your kid”. Keep in mind that a lot of parents aren’t tech savvy. So often they don’t know the difference from a basic single player no online game and something where you interact with strangers. And the parental controls on every system are different. So it ends up being an all or nothing choice for these parents.
Add to that, kids these days socialize online a lot. My teen plays lots of teamwork games with her irl friends. And that is great for the development of social skills.
I happen to work from home, and in tech, so I am usually in the same room on a computer. Easy supervision. But other parents don’t have it so easy.
boonhet@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Ah fair enough then, let’s instead have invasive ID checks on every single online thing so nobody can have privacy online.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Id checks don’t do anything. They are a joke to fake. I was just responding to all the people who think it’s so easy to “just supervise” your kids. They probably don’t have kids.
scutiger@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Keep in mind that a lot of parents aren’t tech savvy
This is a choice that they make. Just like they choose to have children, they could choose to educate themselves on how better to supervise them. But they don’t want to, because it’s easier to blame externalities.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah. No. Not everyone has the ability to be tech savvy.
On top of that, the controls are very weak. I’m very tech savvy, and there are things I can’t stop my kids from doing on their devices. Mainly because the device maker isn’t incentivized to make it possible for the control software to stop those things. It always sounds good on paper, but when you try to actually use it, you find out how bad it really is. Plus, each game has it’s own set of controls, and then each device…
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s fucking 2026. Not tech savvy? That’s on them.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You do realize plenty of them were born and raised without the internet, right? There is a big difference between people raised with the internet and those not. Plus, parental controls are not even an after thought for must companies. They are a “we need something to claim we have parental controls”. Most of them just plain suck. Then you have different controls for different games, and different devices… even the tech savvy struggle. Plus the controls often have easy workarounds.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Keep in mind that a lot of parents aren’t tech savvy.
not a valid excuse. low-tech solutions can work just as well as high-tech ones.
- sit with your child when they use the PC
- no phone unless you are with them
- explain to them why this is nonnegotiable, just don’t say “because I told you so”
I recently gave my eldest a laptop with steam installed. I was able to set play schedules, time limits, and even shared specific games from my own library. all other access is locked down. except chat, because there weren’t any controls for it (from what I saw). so, I added myself to their list and had a “chat” session with them to show them how it worked.
I then explained to them how dangerous this can be and how some people online might want to hurt them. so the rule is, don’t talk to anyone unless you know them IRL and to come to me if anyone chats with them first.
low-tech solution and it builds trust with minimal risk.
Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Are you expecting parents ro tag along when their kid geso over to a friends house as a low tech solution?
And you highlighted that chat didn’t have any controls… but now imagine a parent who doesn’t even know what steam is. They likely also don’t know it even has a chat feature.
Then let’s add that many middle schoolers and up are handed a chromebook at school that they get to take home. And it’s protections are pretty weak. But the kid needs it to do homework. So you are saying that parents should be sitting with them every second they are on any device. Sorry son, you can’t do your homework right now because I have to make dinner. That’s unreasonable.
I don’t understand why some of you want to give corporations a pass, and put all the blame on the parents.
ms_lane@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yankee go home.
zlatko@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
It’s not Australia saying it, it’s a specific person, though.
CameronDev@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Who is american…