How to make the internet safe for kids

[andrewducker]

One of things that intermittently annoys me about the way politicians approach the internet is that some of them seem to think that we ought to censor the whole internet so that it's suitable for children.

Google, here, are taking the right approach. Wall off bits of the internet, make _them_ safe for children, and then white-list sites into it.

By creating child-friendly versions of YouTube, etc. they're creating a safe space, and not encroaching on anyone else's rights to make videos that aren't suitable for kids.

I don't really understand why this hasn't caught on much before.

Comments

[matgb]

Netflix does the same, same basic principle, these shows/films are suitable for all ages thus a child account can use it unsupervised.

I have a child login on my account, but discussed it with H and her Mum and decided not to bother with it, she can access the full account because she doesn't want to watch 'adult' stuff but does want to watch silly spaceship dramas and similar. Then, she's 11 going on 25 now.

But yeah, make stuff safe for kids and whitelist, so parents that want a "safe" internet can give their kid one. Parents that want to put the effort in to teach their kids safety techniques can of course give their kid unsupervised internet and not worry about it, which we managed to do when she was 4 but, y'know, apparently we're the weird ones.

[rmc28]

I do actually like the idea of a walled-garden YouTube etc, just to take some of the stress off. I'll never forget the time C was randomly browsing rollercoaster videos, links therefrom, and ended up on a live shark-attack video. I have never moved across the room that fast ...

We do also teach the kids safety rules as best we can, and pay attention to their emotional states, and I try to be a safe person they can come to if something distresses them. Even U-rated stuff can give a surprise upset because of context. That said, it is nice to be able to think "at least there won't be any human gore on this Thomas DVD even if there is mild peril and shocking sexism".

[wychwood]

It reminds me of the old circular argument about comics - "everyone knows that comics are for children", so Sandman gets filed in the children's library, and then someone throws a fit because it's totally inappropriate for under-tens...

There are a huge number of things that are inappropriate for small children but should not therefore be banned from existence!

[chess]

People have tried this a lot before - NetNanny, kid-focussed sites that link to other kid-focussed sites - but no-one has had the reach (and willingness to give stuff away without direct payment) of Google before, so all those individual walled silos have competed against each other and none of them has had sufficient reach to take off.