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jmathai12/10/20256 repliesview on HN

It's very unfortunate. As a parent, I feel like it requires regulation at the national level because I can't win against Meta (FB, Insta), Google (Youtube), Snapchat and TikTok.


Replies

lisbbb12/10/2025

My son is 15. My talk to him went something like this: There's a lot of porn and nasty things that you can't unsee, so be careful what you look at. Also, those extortion gangs target teenage boys, so if some girl is suddenly hot for you online, come see me immediately so we can troll the ever loving fuck out of them. I think it went pretty well. We like doing things as a family, but more like the Addams family...

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rpdillon12/10/2025

Remarkably, Youtube's logged out experience will still be completely available to all age groups. And an a Australian HN user mentioned that one 14-year old had another (presumably older looking) 14-year old do the "video selfie" for her to verify her account on one the sites. So I'm not sure the fight will go away, but it may be slightly more tractable.

It will normalize people thinking that uploading their state-issued ID to whatever contractor is validating accounts is safe and normal.

makeitdouble12/10/2025

Most people probably agree something needs to be done at scale. Banning kids sounds neither effective nor long term beneficial though, and at the core of it seems to deflect from solving deeper issues.

It looks like they're "doing something" while nothing really changes or potentially gets worse. Trying to regulate Meta/YouTube from there has IMHO become harder, as kids are on paper supposed to be out of the picture.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS12/10/2025

Interesting, my experience is completely opposite; I'm not losing to them at all.

Honest conversations with your kids from an early age are key.

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seneca12/10/2025

> It's very unfortunate. As a parent, I feel like it requires regulation at the national level because I can't win against Meta (FB, Insta), Google (Youtube), Snapchat and TikTok.

Sorry, but this just isn't the case. I have children very much in the target age here, and they only have a passing understand of what social media even is due to us explaining how unhealthy it is to them.

It's unfortunate you feel incapable of achieving the same, but abdicating your responsibility as a parent to the state isn't the answer.

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dvngnt_12/10/2025

you could if you just whitelisted the apps you wanted your kids to use

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