[ocharles]

This keeps getting parroted but it's flawed/overly idealistic/frankly naive. An awful of children are, unfortunately, poorly parented. This is not a new phenomenon, nor something we seem to be improving. OTOH, exposure to extreme material for young children is increasing, and has consequences beyond that child. Exposure to extreme pornography leads to a warped view of sex which affects everyone this child might have sexual encounters with. Exposure to extreme violent material leads to the murder of other innocent children.

I don't know where I stand on this legislation - my gut is that it's too heavy handed and will miss the mark. But I think we need to stop saying this falls solely on parents. The internet is far too big, and parenting is far too varied for this to work. I wish it would, but it won't. There simply aren't enough parents that care enough.

[computegabe]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think it's a terrible thing, but in this case, I think doing nothing is better than doing something. The unintended consequences far outweighs the benefits. The kids that want to find extreme stuff will find it anyway, regardless of regulation.

[xg15]

"But the unintended consequences" has been the standard response of tech startups to any kind of regulation, since they were started being regulated. At some point, it stops being believable.