TIL: Parental controls aren't for parents – Beast Hacker

Comments

• jaselle@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Parental Controls being hard/impossible to configure is something that needs to be resolved, lest we continue to get people advocating for website-side age-verification.

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• TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Parental Controls are a marketing gimmick.

  Did you know that you can’t stop strangers on Roblox from sending your kid friend requests? And you can’t delete them from your child’s account. Just block them entirely.

  On PlayStation you can’t approve communication features with just friends. If you have it turned on so they can chat in game with their cousin, then strangers can send unsolicited voice calls to them.

  Children should not be on internet connected devices unless you are willing to monitor their usage 100% of the time or are willing to hope and pray you’ve taught them enough about the danger and risks (and even if you have, they aren’t developed enough to understand them anyway)

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  • melfie@lemy.lol ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My policy is all child devices are blocked from internet access in the firewall except during specific times when I unblock it and am actively looking over their shoulder. Otherwise, it’s curated content on Jellyfin, including a library of downloaded videos from YouTube as well as other self-hosted stuff.

    If a game or app requires internet access, too bad. I won’t even play games on my own devices that require a connection for that matter.

    I have considered setting up a proxy server for my older child with specific domains allowlisted.

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  • RaoulDook@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    There’s certainly more to it than just a gimmick. One of the most important things is web filtering for content, which is a useful parental control because children should not be exposed to porn, graphic violence, and other types of mentally harmful content. Controls may not be able to stop everything but they can definitely hinder and slow down the process at least.

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    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      This.

      I’m really tired of people letting perfect behaviour the enemy of good.

      I’m very well aware that parental controls aren’t a 100% foolproof protection for my daughters, but that certainly doesn’t make them useless.

      Based on that mentality we may as well not ban murder, because some people break the law anyway. We may as well not have vaccines, because no vaccine is 100% effective for all people. It’s so brain-dead.

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    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      To be more clear, I mean when parental controls are added to an app they are almost always half baked and inserted as a marketing gimmick.

      As a whole parental controls are definitely important for parents to utilize to the best of their abilities, it’s just hard to actually implement them on the application level as opposed to the network or device level.

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    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Executing them effectively is extraordinarily difficult though. They are a gimmick in the sens most of the time they give a false sense of security. Trying to get the working in a way that allows kids to use devices effectively but blocks what you want them to block is a very hard line to walk. When you finally feel like you are close there’s a new app or something changes and it’s like you are starting all over again. Apple perhaps has the most usable and consistent ecosystem for this, but it’s still not all that good and the cost of the relative simplicity is a lack of granular control when you want it.

      I’m not claiming to have the answer, but I can understand why people are scared and frustrated with the current state of parental controls.

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• sbv@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Dude is right: parental controls suck. I suspect that’s because they kind of take a back seat in most purchasing decisions. Of the various platforms I’ve enabled parental controls on (Apple, Nintendo, Android, Xbox, Epic, Roblox), I’ve found Epic’s to be the most straightforward.

  It’d be nice if there was a mandated API that any kid-platform had to support, and a nice simple app to control it.

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  • lepinkainen@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Fortnite is a massive cash cow, they’re protecting their investment with robust parental tools

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    • Railcar8095@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      “Do it well, get profit” sounds like a sound business strategy. In hope Microsoft/EA/Nestlé/Monsanto/Apple/Google/499 other F500… Would follow that

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  • TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Epic’s is probably the best because it’s the only one that has an easy “block everything but online play” button and lets you whitelist experiences with a parental pin

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  • zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Sony is a fucking nightmare

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• sfxrlz@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Well there wouldn’t be reasons to constantly scream >what about the children< while trying to push surveillance if that shit worked correctly.

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• pastermil@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Damn dude, what a shit show

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• BroBot9000@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  They do this to obfuscate and to control people. They want you to not read the terms of service and to give them unfettered access to your personal information and that of your children by making it difficult to understand and make the appropriate choices.

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  • homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s not even that.

    There’s enough complexity around just one component to prevent what should be obvious.

    What I know is this. My son just wants to play video games and talk to his friends. I just want to keep him safe. Somewhere between those two things, I’m supposed to become an expert in the convoluted parental control schemes of Gabb, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Xbox, while a stranger’s Christmas morning texts sit in my son’s phone history.

    He can do both, just not at the same time. Or, bring back the LAN party. Those are the choices. Otherwise, yeah skeezy predators and nazi porn await. As if it wasn’t super obvious.

    This guy, who is clearly more savvy than your average bear, is just discovering all the marketing hype about protecting children is bullshit. Wait til he finds out about protecting the earth.

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    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It really shouldn’t be that hard to make a “block all” system. And then whitelist things you want to allow on a piece meal basis. The reason such a system doesn’t exist is because it would hurt engagement and monetization numbers and these corporations won’t stop until every man woman and child has been exploited

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    • tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yeah, the son wants to communicate with his friends and he wants his son to be offline? Does he read the stuff he writes??

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