@futurebird Provide the tools to allow users or their parents to control access for particular devices. We have had the technology to remotely control access to devices for years, every company that provides devices has some security on them to monitor and control usage. If the government ensured that everyone had access to this technology in an easy to use form then it seems that would solve the problem.

I am not sure exactly what this would look like. My preferred solution would be a fork of a free OS like grapheneOS with a government curated allow list of sites, but pushing this problem to the network operators could be an easier solution, and allow the bill payer to choose the access levels of individual devices at the point of purchase.

@guitargabe @futurebird Um, no, that is absolutely wrong, abusive, and anti-child-safety.

@dalias @futurebird firmly disagree on all fronts. Don't throw out "abusive" so lightly, it wildly devalues the term.

@DavyJones @futurebird Fuck no, fuck off with this pro-child-abuse bs,

@guitargabe @futurebird If you want children not to have means to document abuse, not to have means to call for help, etc. that is a pro-abuse position.

@guitargabe

That camp that flooded had a "no phones" policy that played a role in their inability to evacuate. During several school shootings student phones were the *first* to get word to the police.

Phones have also helped students to expose abusive teachers.

But less dramatic: There aren't really pay-phones anymore. If a kid needs to text their parents I think they should be able to without someone hovering over their shoulder.

(As long as I don't see them during my lessons.)

@dalias @futurebird sounds like it's just a moral panic coming from the left rather than the right to me. I don't buy into moral panics, regardless of their origins. I do buy into classrooms where the teacher can manage a little teaching, which is a major problem with literally every middle and high school teacher I know here. If you wanna blow it up into a slippery slope of hypotheticals, go right ahead, but you're not going to convince me that in-class phone use is the solution to abusers.

@guitargabe @futurebird That word you're using. "Moral panic". I don't think it means what you think it means.

@futurebird Sorry but I have to disagree on that one. If you've ever seen a bunch of teenagers with phones you know that allowing that in a summer camp completely changes the entire social dynamics by, erm, taking away much of the "social" part

If you want to retain some way to text then maybe smart watches would be an option. But you have to eliminate access to social media if you want anything else to go on besides a couple of kids complaining every time you interrupt their Tiktok consumption

@futurebird Sorry but I have to disagree on that one. If you've ever seen a bunch of teenagers with phones you know that allowing that in a summer camp completely changes the entire social dynamics by, erm, taking away much of the "social" part

If you want to retain some way to text then maybe smart watches would be an option. But you have to eliminate access to social media if you want anything else to go on besides a couple of kids complaining every time you interrupt their Tiktok consumption

@archroadkill

I'm a teacher and I've taken kids on camping trips. They all had their phones. We told them that this was meant to be an offline time and their phones would need to stay in their bags.

I had to tell two students to put them away and threaten to take the phone of one who did it again. Some of them used their phones in their sleeping bags after lights out, but most didn't. I didn't bother to enforce that one since during the day they forget the phones even existed.

@archroadkill

I do think there can be something freeing and wonderful about "disconnecting" but I don't think one really feels it if someone else is forcing you to do it.

This trip was middle school. The seniors *decided* that they didn't want any phone use on their bus ride as we let them decide what rules they wanted for their class trip. (up to a point)

@dalias @futurebird I do understand the reluctance, there is at most a fine line between legitimate monitoring and control and spyware.

However there is a lot of stuff on the internet that is very very dark. I grew up being flamed and goatse'ed and I can see peoples desire to protect their children from that sort of experience. The only solution I can think of to control the sites children are allowed to access. One way to solve that problem is to not allow unsupervised access to the internet, like I used to not have unsupervised access to TV. That seems to be unacceptable to many, and the only other way I know how to do that is an allowlist, either on the device or on the network. I think I could set this up on a laptop, but most people could not and I do not know how I would do in on a google android phone so making this technology widely available and easy to use seems the obvious answer.

@DavyJones @futurebird I'm sorry but you are entirely full of shit if you think that "seeing goatse" is in any way comparable to the harm of young people being denied access to information about gender and sexual orientation, anything outside of neurotypical norms that authorities are imposing on them, etc.

@DavyJones @futurebird While it's not a very pleasant way for it to happen, seeing goatse teaches you that there are mean people out there who get a kick out of grossing you out. It doesn't help them take advantage of you or do any harm to you *unless* they can blackmail you that you'll get in trouble for looking at things you "weren't supposed to". Which is what you're advocating for - a regime that *does* put children at risk of harm.

@dalias @DavyJones

Until around age 13-15 kids should use internet protected with age-appropriate white lists IMO. School internet should have whitelists developed by teachers and with student input.

Younger kids under age 10 should use internet mostly with supervision.

Some parents will want to limit white lists to impose their values in various ways. Some of this is probably harmful. But I doubt that the internet rules are the greatest source of harm in those families.

@dalias @DavyJones

When you have a hight level of trust in your relationship with young people the appreciate this kind of protection ... it's not just that there are gross and scary things out there but for younger kids many things online aren't made for them and can be too difficult to use. So just like having a "children's section" in a library you curate content for them. It's a big responsibility and something I take very seriously.

@futurebird @DavyJones The "too difficult to use" aspect can be handled the same way it is in a library - you have a curated children's section, but you don't police young people browsing or checking out books from elsewhere in the library.

I don't see any way "age-appropriate white lists" can be viable. Certainly the people making them are not going to let anything obviously LGBTQ onto them, and kids who are not okay with the gender or gender expectations being imposed on them need access to comprehensive information on that stuff way before age 13-15.

@archroadkill

I'm a teacher and I've taken kids on camping trips. They all had their phones. We told them that this was meant to be an offline time and their phones would need to stay in their bags.

I had to tell two students to put them away and threaten to take the phone of one who did it again. Some of them used their phones in their sleeping bags after lights out, but most didn't. I didn't bother to enforce that one since during the day they forget the phones even existed.

@futurebird @archroadkill I am having a big ‘kids these days’ moment. I loved school camping trips. Mr. Davis, the physics teacher at my high school, led student backpacking trips to Yosemite—from Berkeley, CA—which are probably my fondest memories of high school. But nobody had a cell phone (even Mr. Davis, I think), and there wouldn’t even be an iPhone for another 7+ years.