Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Parental controls aren't for parents

beasthacker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 476 posts

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#131

Post by Wowfunhappy »

floundy wrote: post #93
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #19

The issues with the Nintendo Switch are, I think, just Nintendo being perennially bad at anything involving the internet. Remember Friend Codes? They've definitely gotten better, but they're still kind of living in 2008. I'm not sure why a company full of software engineers can't figure this out. I do find it odd there's no option to outright disable the internet (except for software updates). Perhaps the best soluti…

Nintendo really has no incentive to improve. They make money hand over fist selling half-baked titles to their combined market of actual undiscerning children, and rabid fanboy manchildren who will praise any first party Nintendo title as a 10/10 every single time.

...I mean. I would argue the reason they make money hand over fist is because (most!) of their games aren't half baked, at all.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#132

Post by rolymath »

whythough1234 wrote: post #6
GaryBluto wrote: post #2

It says, on the Gabb app directory the author linked, "Communication with Strangers" in a warning bubble directly below the "GroupMe" listing title. Not to forget the giant box saying "However, some apps allow user-shared content or access to mature material. Apps enabling contact with strangers also pose risks. Families should discuss app usage regularly." right below the app search bar. Regarding the games console,…

Beasthacker is a hilarious identity to assume for someone so keen on using tech that does the parenting for them.

Hardly a comment worth singing up to HN to post.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#133

Post by Ukv »

vorpalhex wrote: post #51
hnlmorg wrote: post #26

I really want to sympathise with the author but this feels more like a one-sided rant piece than a constructive article. For example, in one paragraph they complain that “I don’t want my son to get online” then literally the following paragraph they complain that they need a Switch Online membership to get their son online. If you want your Nintendo Switch to “behave like a Gameboy” then don’t get the online membersh…

The issue is that the kid wants to play a game with his friends. So that is "online" in the sense that it uses the internet.. but it isn't the same as a web browser, or an open store of every online app. I run game servers for my nephew. I know he only adds his friends and I can keep a loose eye on them. I don't care if his friends talk about boobs or make penis jokes (they're 14), I only care that there aren't any p…

> The issue is that the kid wants to play a game with his friends [...] This is a clear and meaningful distinction and it doesn't sound supported.

Clear how it could restrict to friends-only when connecting directly to another Nintendo Switch user, but a bit murky how it'd make that determination in cases like Minecraft where the client is connecting to a cross-platform user-hosted game server that is not associated with any Nintendo/Microsoft account.

Could work if you have the parents manually whitelist specific server IPs, as they could with router/firewall, though not sure if "could you whitelist 209.216.230.207 please?" would present a meaningful choice in most cases.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#134

Post by michaelmrose »

mjg2 wrote: post #114
fn-mote wrote: post #63

Dear All, As you post, please be clear what age range child you are discussing. There are a lot of posts here advocating strategies that make sense for a 10 year old but are ridiculous for a 15 year old. Remember: once the children have friends with unrestricted cell phones (essentially all 14+ year olds in the us), there are many many more options for them to go online. Also, I got my start as a “hacker” gaming, che…

With due respect, this comment conveys a position of privilege and surviver's bias. I, like you, eschewed online rules as a minor and I luckily benefitted from this time in my expertise. I was lucky. I didn't run into predators when using TF2, Runescape, or MySpace, but that doesn't mean the threat wasn't validated on with persons (children at the time) that fell through the cracks. The story outlined, one of a child…

If your kid lies you might not get a truthful answer to that question in person or online.

You are actually expecting a lot from devices that you never had in the real world in the first place in order to mitigate a risk that is very scary but less likely to kill them than drugs and alcohol, swimming, bad driving, biking, getting hit by a car whilst walking, getting shot, or suicide.

People are freaking out over stranger danger not because it is by the numbers prevalent but because they feel like they can control it then find out the controls suck.

What if I started Bikesafe an always online dash cam / coach for your rider where AI would identify unsafe behaviour and coach your kid and virtually eliminate bike deaths. Would you feel more safe?

What if you read again and again that it didn't work because of how many accidents are caused by drivers or momentary mistakes.

Would you feel only as unsafe as before or worse?

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#135

Post by gbear605 »

mothballed wrote: post #103
GaryBluto wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so bizarre to me that in "The Land of the Free", 18 year olds, who are considered old enough to go to war, are not allowed to drink. Especially because this isn't some archaic law from the 18th or 19th centuries but instead from 1984 and only came about after the federal government withheld funds to force the states' hands over a period of 4 years.

It's not a federal law, you can buy and drink alcohol at 18 in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico for instance, so definitely possible to drinking at 18 legally in the USA. I don't know if there is a federal drinking age but it's definitely not above 18. Also in I want to say about half the states (could be wrong here, but at least a few), it is legal to drink well below 18 in a private home. ------------- Example, w…

It’s essentially a federal law - if a state wants to get full federal funding for highways, they have to have a law restricting alcohol purchase and public consumption to 21+. It’s from the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#136

Post by cindyllm »

squigz wrote: post #96
immibis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet whenever the idea of changing this stuff at a societal level comes up, HN is filled with thought-deleting cries of "parents just need to be more responsible"

Usually when those discussions come up, there are plenty of people recognizing both that 1) parents do need to be more responsible, but also that 2) we need sane parental control systems. What we don't need is more bandaids that make it appear as if something is being done.

[dead]

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#137

Post by krapp »

logicchains wrote: post #130
TimTheTinker wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans have trouble understanding in part because social trust is still high in many parts of Europe due to regional monoculturalism.

[flagged]

Why did you edit out the part about being "as racist as they come?"

Come now, stand behind your principles.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#138

Post by throwway120385 »

LanceH wrote: post #112
sneak wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a 15 year old warrant a mobile phone, much less an unrestricted one?

By high school there is definitely an expectation that everyone has a phone. They will literally miss out on a normal method of communication between friends and classmates. They miss out on the social group and then fade away from it and just become "that one guy in our class." The last time I mentioned this several people argued that, "true friends would stick together" or some such. Well, if you already have those…

This is just generally true even as an adult. A lot of social events used to start out on text threads in the early 2000's and then moved on to Facebook Calendar by the mid 2000's and then Instagram and I don't even know how it would work now. But if you wanted to be in any particular social group you probably had to deal with the icky features of all of these social media apps just to do that. We needed a public square for our little villages everywhere and instead we got a man screaming at clouds and occasionally handing out invitations.

Re: Parental controls aren't for parents

#140

Post by throwway120385 »

mothballed wrote: post #82
mjg2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Parents in the 21st century need to realize the call is coming from inside the house: it's their obligation to protect their child. Unsupervised usage without full due-diligence will lead to incidents like what the blog author describes. The dilemma of online protection is a false crisis because parents would rather let their children play with fire than nurture their babies.

It's the parents obligation to educate their child. It's the child's obligation to use that education wisely. There were no trackers on cars when I started driving at 15 so my parents drove with me for a few months and after that I was on my own. There were no gun laws against kids having guns when I was 7 so my dad showed me how to use one safely and after that I was set loose upon the countryside armed on my own. T…

I would add that it's society's responsibility to handle a child's transgressions with grace and humility, and to try to remember what it means to be "tried as an adult." Forgiveness isn't easy.
Post reply on HN