I’m gonna go on a limb here and say that I like this draft.
It’s an opt-in measure for parents with a one-click solution. Think ad blocker but for adult content.
Parents have to actively enable it. It’s on the device itself, not in the internet backbone. No censorship happening; government doesn’t even know whether parents use it.
Step 1. Force companies to develop the censorship/surveillant technology by passing a law to make it available. Claim its to 'save the children' and/or 'fight terrorism', whichever threat is currently the most scary.
Step 2. Make the use of the technology optional, and fairly non-intrusive to ease acceptance and normalization.
Step 3. Make the technology mandatory for certain groups/areas like all schools or certain businesses. Or for people who work for them. Also incremental changes are applied which makes the system a bit more restrictive, and bit more surveillant.
Step 4. Make the technology mandatory for everyone (except politicians and certain private persons like CEOs of big corps)
Step 5. Continue incremental changes until the system completely transfers all real power and control of the system from the individual to the corporation/state.
Sure you can. You can pass laws that require companies respect a 'do not track' setting in browsers and don't collect data or make you jump through 'accept cookies' hoops. You can make right to repair laws. You can pass laws that require interoperability like making phones use a standard cable (they did this and I think its great). You can pass laws making companies like MS at least make available a no-tracking, no subscription, no ads, no telemetry, no bloatware, no AI, no bullshit version of windows OS for regular individuals at reasonable cost. They can do stuff that like that.
Yeah, this is the right direction for moderation features in general assuming it's implemented offline on-device and works without contacting a remote server. It eliminates excuses to implement age verification online.
And it's correct in principle: each parent should be able to decide what their child sees, but not what anyone else's child sees. Parenting a child is the responsibility of that child's parents, but it is not the responsibility of governments or other people.
Though I do have some gripes with it being a mandate rather than a recommendation, it is a much better proposal than age verification or censoring the entire Internet.
We have mandates for all kinds of things, like movie ratings etc. I think it’s appropriate here. It just makes it easy.
I don’t understand the pushback from tech companies either; all OSes already have a kiosk mode (incl the major Linux DEs). Should be very low effort to implement.
The concern is that OSes which don't implement the feature will be outlawed.
Movie ratings don't outlaw movies and actually provides a good framework: instead of mandating that OSes implement this, publish a client-side filter spec that OS devs can choose to implement. And if they implement it, their OS gets a label like "PG-capable". Then make it illegal for minors to possess a non-PG-capable device.
Movie ratings are not mandatory, at least not in free countries. MPAA ratings like “R” and “PG” are a voluntary classification system and films are free to opt out, though many theater chains may be less likely to show your film. But small theaters and streaming platforms don’t usually care.
Authoritarian states like China and the UK do require classification/certification of films before release. Imagine requiring a painter to have their paintings reviewed by the state before exhibition!
- adding more rules creates more freedom. Imagine the US without a constitution. It’d be madness. In a lawless country, people would be less free to do things they actually want to do because they’re so occupied with just surviving.
Totally agree. But parent‘s point was formulated as such that rules are generally bad, and I wanted to point out that some rules are necessary, and sometimes you may even need to add some (and obv sometimes also remove some).
Frying the planet is bad. That said i don't see the reliance argument for uranium. There's a variety of existing sources on the planet and some we stopped mining. It's proportionally a super small financial element of the energy production process unlike with fossil fuels.
So in the case of let's say Putin's Russia you can avoid using their or let's say Kazakhstan's fuel and if you don't but don't take it's gas directly or via intermediaries like armenia then Russia still ends up in the financial shitter because their income from Rosatom/uranium one/... doesn't even compare.
It's almost inviting anti renewables arguments based on things like aluminium mostly being produced in china and russia or based on where the vast majority of panels are produced, etc.
The countries that comprise the EU had been among the biggest warmongers for centuries. The EU is the most successful peace project the continent has ever seen. And the reason for that is that every country refrained from trying to be a superpower on the continent.
The European mentality has real, tangible upsides for its continent. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well in a larger world where other actors don’t share the same experience and values.
Both points sound really weak I‘m afraid. From the perspective of a ruler of a country, both are much larger attack vectors for adversaries than opportunities for myself.
I see your point, but I think the anger comes from the fact that
1. the title was unneccessarily editorialized,
2. the word gamified is used wrong here, and
3. There was never any good reason to add the word gamified to the title, other than adding a buzzword.
The feedback people give is probably a bit harsh, but I find it understandable. If you don’t know what a term means, don’t use it - especially not if it’s completely unnecessary as in this case.
Well, on mobile the underlying operating system is moving so fast that companies must continue to update their apps or else they stop working. It's the absolute inverse situation to the backwards compatibility story of Windows. That kind of backwards compatibility is a wet dream for every mobile developer.
I don't believe this is generally true. I have automatic updates for apps disabled on both my Android phones and iOS devices, and regularly use some apps that were installed years ago.
There are obviously going to be some exceptions for apps that rely on specific types of system services, of course.
You're not the average user if you have auto updates disabled. Notice you also said "some" apps, well, most do need to keep up with OS updates or fall behind.
I did not claim to be the average user. Most of my apps do not get updated unless they rely on APIs that force them to update. Furthermore, I have several android apps I published over 15 years ago that still function without updates on the newest version of Android.
What updates do you think need to be made to not “fall behind”? There aren’t many other than things like integration with Google Play services or App Store subscription billing.
Frankly seems easier to solve to me than adblocking, and that’s already a solved problem.