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Honestly curious what people think: how can parents keep their children safe on the internet?
This is many questions, but the more interesting to me aspects are:
as technology exists now, what can a parent do to both provide their child access to the internet while not being negligent to their safety
what could technology do or change to make things safer for kids, and also give parents some peace of mind that this is the case?
As a parent, it's a seemingly impossible task to balance both letting her have some freedom and keeping her safe. (Typing that out, that's just an evergreen problem beyond technology, but let's focus).
Everything politicians and corporations have done has at best done nothing, and at worst has made it easier for children to be harmed.
But that doesn't mean there's nothing to be done, right? One is going to appeal to idiots who think they need to protect their kids from catching trans, and the later isn't going to risk profit.
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@gintoxicating@transister.social I talk to my sons, let them come to me with anything they've found and are curious or worried about. Tell them there's bad people and awful ideologies, explain to them that they need to watch themselves and not trust people blindly, and try my best to maintain a safe space at home where they can talk to me/my wife about anything.
My eldest is gonna route around any network blocks or parental controls I put into place anyway, and all those do is show him I don't trust him.
So far so good. It's definitely a lot though.
@gintoxicating teach them the dangers and how to recognize and avoid them (opposite of what my parents did by just not allowing me on it at all so i had no idea how to be safe when i did find my way there), have a relationship of trust where they won’t have to keep everything secret, don’t abuse or neglect them so they won’t be the absolute perfect target for every sort of threat. I don’t think anything can be done on the technological end when this is a social problem.
@gintoxicating I think it comes down to education. As a queer person and the parent of a queer person, I don’t believe that blocking information helps - I talked to my young person about what was out there and what to avoid, and they seemed to understand and respect what I was saying.
As far as I know. I also respected their privacy.