This is a really disturbing trend in tech and it seems to be that the teams making the decisions aren’t considering that features like this absolutely can and will be misused. Like, ask five transgender adults and you will get at least 2 horror stories about abusive parents.
and this has been pointed out to these companies by activist groups. It’s been pointed out to MS, it’s been pointed out to Apple. I really really really hope that Android doesn’t implement policies like this. There’s an ethical duty to consider that these features can be misused.
Everybody gets and understands the worst case scenarios that these type of policies are envisioned for, so it seems like a common sense argument. But if we look a little deeper, consider who is most likely to abuse these policies, it becomes clear there are issues.
There are concrete, solid steps tech companies could take to protect kids on the internet. IE; YouTube could crack down on the huge "disturbing kids videos" trend. There are ways tech could help kids trapped in dysfunctional families or with transphobic or homophobic parents.
But giving the option for adults to blanketly control all aspects of their kids use of technology, cannot be done without hurting kids. Because you assume all adults will do the right thing. But not all will. When implementing these policies, tech companies have to plan for this.
I don't know what the correct solution is here. I really don't. I know if I was a parent I would want some way to make sure my kids weren't visiting sites that could hurt them or pose a danger to them. But I also know some parents can&will use tools like this to abuse their kids
And it's disturbing and bad that tech companies aren't acknowledging that and are not engaging with the very real reality of these tools being abused to hurt kids and are instead just hoping that all parents do the right thing and use them properly. That's not the solution either
