Online threats to children are real, but the headlong pursuit of age verification that we’re seeing around the world is unacceptable in its approach and far too broad in scope — and we simply can’t afford to get this wrong.
To be clear, parents’ concerns are valid and sincere. Few people would argue that kids should have unfettered access to adult material, to self-harm how-tos, to social media platforms that manipulate them and expose them to abuse.
But it’s the very depth of those worries that is being cynically exploited. Age verification as is currently being proposed in country after country would mean the death of anonymity online.
And we know exactly who stands to gain: The same tech giants who built the privacy nightmare that the internet is today.
Man, parents not wanting anything to do with their kids’ upbringing will believe anything, huh. They’d rather offload any and all responsibilities to automation than spend one minute teaching kids how to protect themselves.
Then again, they probably don’t know, either.
It seems like a pretty common thing for people to expect that the luxuries of modern technology include not having to do anything you don’t want to, including being present for your own life.
People make self-destructive choices every day. (insert “always have been” 🌏🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀)
I think you’re correct in both aspects for sure. Parents are certainly less involved, for the most part, in informing their kids of literally anything. It is much easier to ‘offload any and all responsibilities’ as you put it. iPad kids are a good example of this. Handing a 2yr old a video device and walking away is not parenting. This is an issue with many many topics from internet safety, to general life things, to talks about their bodies. Parents do not want to parent.
I’d also agree, largely, the parents just don’t know, or care. Privacy is, unfortunately, a niche thing to know and care about.