[HN Gopher] Congress Wants to Hand Your Parenting to Big Tech
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       Congress Wants to Hand Your Parenting to Big Tech
        
       Author : hn_acker
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2026-01-17 21:54 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.eff.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.eff.org)
        
       | sdoering wrote:
       | I am always wondering, if initiatives like these are a way to get
       | a system in place that enables governments (by proxy of these
       | platforms) a way to ensure any online activity is tied to a
       | governmental id.
       | 
       | Because if you want to use these platforms this would mean you
       | would have to prove your age.
       | 
       | Then I ask myself if I am wearing my tinfoil hat?
       | 
       | Sadly, nowadays, I am just not sure anymore.
        
         | V__ wrote:
         | I am more and more sure that isn't the case. That would imply
         | long term planning, strategy and intelligence. Which is
         | obviously missing nowadays.
         | 
         | It's just bribery, sorry I mean lobbying. Push this through, we
         | make money and will fund your reelection.
        
         | analog31 wrote:
         | Let the industry regulate itself until people get angry enough.
         | Keep pumping out addictive, manipulative content that's
         | targeted at kids. Then we can see what the political reaction
         | will be. That's assuming the industry hasn't already blown its
         | chances.
        
       | notatoad wrote:
       | >Big Tech is somehow both the problem and the solution
       | 
       | not sure why they're framing this like it doesn't make sense. of
       | course the people who've created the problem would be in a
       | position to solve it.
        
       | altacc wrote:
       | The problem with "let the parents decide" is that so many parents
       | take the option of least resistance and currently that's a
       | terrible option. From what I see of my childrens' peers, it's not
       | parents are deciding to let their children run wild on social
       | media, it's that they don't even think about it, they just hand
       | over a phone or tablet, often with their own login, and don't
       | think much about it.
       | 
       | One way of solving this is if the default was everything locked
       | down, then effort needed to give the children anything, forcing
       | parents to consider each permission.
       | 
       | However I also see that parents are addicted to their devices and
       | social media, so don't see the problem.
        
         | ls612 wrote:
         | I'm still not convinced what is fundamentally different today
         | about social media compared to violent video games which were
         | the supposed evil my parents obsessed about when I was a kid.
         | This is just the "sex drugs and rock & roll" for the 21st
         | century's control freaks.
        
       | skybrian wrote:
       | If there were a store selling cigarettes to children, then
       | naturally you'd want the store to stop doing it. It's their
       | responsibility. But they do need information about who they're
       | serving. (Just enough information.)
       | 
       | Making a website adults-only should be as easy as setting a web
       | server's config parameter. The fact that the industry has taken
       | so long to come up with a decent Internet standard for this is
       | pretty ludicrous. It doesn't have to be perfect. Even just a
       | minimal implementation like requiring an "X-adult: yes" HTTP
       | header from the browser would work for a locked-down client like
       | an iPhone.
       | 
       | Sure, older kids will get around it but that's okay; they
       | probably learned something.
        
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       (page generated 2026-01-17 23:00 UTC)