alt Hacker NewsExactly. We've completely lost (actually never had it) any social responsibility on the part of the social media/tech companies. Before we had the internet and all these apps and devices, parents looked after what their kids did but could also pretty much rely on other businesses to not do things like sell their kids cigarettes or pornography, let them in to R-rated movies, or expose them to other age-inappropriate stuff. Did it happen? Yes here and there but it wasn't easy for most kids.
Parents just want to be able to designate a device as belonging to a child---one setting---and have that respected. Not to have to dig into the settings of every account, service, app, and website and figure out how to set it in age-restricted mode (if that's even possible).
The tech companies have made this way too difficult and now they are facing the consequences of their shameful neglect by having to deal with all these new laws (which they will probably ignore, with no consequences, but we'll see).
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> Parents just want to be able to designate a device as belonging to a child---one setting---and have that respected.
The problem here is, what does that actually do?
If you say the device is for kids, can the kids then see content related to firearms? What if the parents are Republicans and don't want that censored for their kids? Also, what does it even mean? Does a YouTube video on firearm safety get blocked because it contains firearms? Should "kids" be able to view sex education content?
If nobody agrees what should be blocked then the reason they don't have a setting is that nobody knows how to implement it.
It's understandable that parents are upset, but tech companies are not the ones harmed by these laws. When we've outlawed privacy, it will be the public who suffers.