You went to a school where they had no controls over what you could and couldn't access?

My school was blocking harmful content on their computers when i was there in the mid to late 2000s.

When i got home i had something called CyberSitter on my computer in my room that sent logs of all my internet usage as reports to my dad.

It took me until 16 when i went out and bought my own computer with my own money before i had "unfettered" access to the internet.

Were these tools impenetrable fortresses? no, of course not. but they were a damn sight better than the ISP level blocks and legislating the "good" companies out of existence that the UK (and others) Government is currently engaged in.

Not that any of this is really about "protecting kids" anyway

By talking to your fucking kids lmao

Like, have a conversation with them. Treat them like a person, a real human being, with thoughts and feelings and basic decision making capabilities, instead of treating them like a wild animal that needs to be leashed.

Everyone immediately thinks "it's impossible for parents to be aware of and block everything they don't want their kids to look at on the Internet!". But maybe the first step should just be talking to your kids about what you do/do not want then looking at on the Internet, and trusting that they'll heed your warnings. Tight fisted control over what your kids can/can't see on the Internet should be the last resort.

Devices given to children can be configured to restrict access to unwanted things. Obviously, school networks already are.

The only uncontrollable thing would be kids seeing things via friends with less observant parents, but that is not a new thing.

No, it's the not the same but there are options you're ignoring.

We don't need to kid-proof all of society. Adults deserve things like freedom and privacy and to not be treated like children.

And how do you , practically, do that?

By paying attention to your child.

Before the internet, parents could exert control by knowing where their children were physically going and who they were talking to over the phone.

Yes, by paying attention to their children.

Even in the '90s and 2000s, parents could control a child’s Internet use by limiting time on the family computer.

Yep, by paying attention to when the kid was on the computer and what they were doing on there.

Nowadays? Just about every child has a tablet or phone. Even the ones who don’t have devices at home, or have their device use monitored at home, have access to school devices.

If you give a child a tablet or phone, you should probably pay attention to what they are doing with it. You wouldn't just give them a full tool box to play with unsupervised.

Exerting control over a child’s online activity now means monitoring everything they do on every device they have access to, including during the eight hours per day or so that they’re on devices for school work

Yep, by paying attention to the kid.

No parent has time for that.

Bullshit. You need to pay attention to your kids, that's a basic fucking part of parenting.

And if the child is deliberately trying to hide some kind of illicit online activity, monitoring becomes an order of magnitude more difficult

Maybe you should pay attention to your kid and not let them have unsupervised access to the whole Internet until they are ready for it?

because, again, children have access to their own devices, school devices, their friends’ devices, library devices, and dozens of other devices a parent may not even know about and has no ability to monitor.

Actually, you do have an ability to monitor who your kid spends time with, and when. It's called parenting.

I'm frankly horrified by the increasing requirements for real identity verification but let’s not pretend being a parent is the same as it was in the '70s.

Let's not pretend that phones and the Internet only started existing in 2026 too. I was a child in the 90's, during the real "Wild West" days of the internet. If anything, parents have more tools and controls over what their child can access in 2026 than they did in 2000. There weren't "child" cellphone controls when I got my first phone. My dad didn't give me one until I both needed it, and was mature enough to have it. The parental controls on my old Window 2000 machine were laughably easy to defeat. Do you know what kept me out of trouble though? My dad paid attention to when I used the computer, what I was doing on there, and how much I was doing it.

Either parent your kid, or don't, but it is not my job to make sure your kid is coddled on the internet.

You dont give children tablets and phone, full stop.