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marcus_holmestoday at 6:23 AM1 replyview on HN

Thanks for the response. Couple of points:

- The line between "general purpose computer" and "not that" is weird. Android is an implementation of Linux, after all. Probably the best example is a Steam Deck. It's just Arch Linux, you can get to a desktop on it no problem, and you get sudo access and can install whatever you like on it. Are you saying that Responsible Parents should not get their kids a Steam Deck?

- And that raises the point of how responsible are we making parents for technical decisions that they do not necessarily have the knowledge to implement? If a child works out how to circumvent the age restriction and look at boobies (or whatever) and an authority finds out, are the parents liable? Are they likely to be prosecuted? Isn't this just adding more burden and bureaucracy to the job of parenting?


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AnthonyMousetoday at 6:38 AM

> Are you saying that Responsible Parents should not get their kids a Steam Deck?

I'm saying Authoritarian Parents should not get their kids a Steam Deck. If the kid can run arbitrary code then they can get a VPN and access websites hosted in Eastern Europe and then any of this is moot because there is no law you can impose on Facebook to do anything about it.

> If a child works out how to circumvent the age restriction and look at boobies (or whatever) and an authority finds out, are the parents liable?

No, because the parents rather than the "authorities" (who TF is that anyway?) should be the ones in charge of the decision whether the kid can look at boobies to begin with.

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