I suppose I would flip the question around - why should I have to do that, when content platforms could do it? It's just another administrative burden that gets foisted onto the plebs because large tech companies want to scale, but won't moderate content properly at that scale.
The content you do not want your child to interact with is your personal decision, and of course, varies from parent to parent. There is no permutation of acceptable administrative oversight to this issue I can imagine that would satisfy everyone reasonably, nor is there one that would not have chilling effects on free speech.
When it comes to content that is illegal specifically - that of course, should fall on tech companies to moderate. But that is the exception, in my view.
In short, your child's oversight is not one-size-fits-all - it is strictly your business, and perhaps your school's and childcare professionals'.
Yeah you can't monitor 100% of the time but like.. moderating your child's experiences is kind of part of the job isn't it?
Edit:
I'm not saying the tech companies have no responsibility at all here, but surely the parent is the final responsibility in these matters?
When I was a kid if I went over to a kid's house and their parents let us watch R rated movies or whatever, if my parents didn't like that they would talk to the parents. If that didn't change, I wasn't allowed to go over there anymore
Why not the same with YouTube? If YouTube won't change, isn't it your responsibility to remove access?
> Yeah you can't monitor 100% of the time but like.. moderating your child's experiences is kind of part of the job isn't it?
Is the subtext here "don't have children if you can't do the job"?
If it is, then it's valid to discuss the difficulty of predicting what exactly the job of parent involves when it can drastically change due to technology and social norms over the interval of 5-10-15 years between making the decision and executing the role.
This isn't a blanket statement to abdicate responsibility, nor a blank check for unlimited responsibility, but certain unanticipated challenges are expected and some grace must be given in light of a dynamic environment.
Responsibility is an abstract concept that we operationalize in order to make judgements and decisions. Like any operationalization problem, how can you be transparent around its construction?
> Is the subtext here "don't have children if you can't do the job
I was going more for "you made the choice to have a kid. You have the job whether you want it or not, so you better step up and do it"
But I suppose the corollary of that is what you said. I don't think it's very valuable to say that to someone who already made that choice though
Anyways, like I said, I don't think Tech companies have zero responsibility here, but the buck stops at the parents, period
This generations parents should not be trusting algorithms not to show their kids bad content any more than 90s parents trusted the teenagers at the movie rental place not to rent children R rated VHS tapes
Edit: Television was a highly regulated and curated feed of media, maybe parents got a bit too comfortable letting their children sit in front of that without concern. But treating on-demand internet content like Television is a mistake
And expecting "the algorithm" to deliver a similarly highly regulated and curated feed is also a mistake
Would it be fair for parents to say, "My throughput is capped and what was possible in the VHS and TV area exceeds my ability. However, if rather than being completely uncurated, social media systems participated in curating their content so that it had a minimum standard, much like TV did, I would have the bandwidth to responsibly curate the remainder for my kids"?
