It's not Australia saying it, it's a specific person, though.

Bet these are the same people that put the pressure on the porn games a bit ago

FUCKING

SUPERVISE

YOUR OWN

CHILDREN

The gap is parents supervising their children if anything.

Not wrong. But the payment provider literally already has the age. Just force them to tell the shop whether the potential buyer is an adult or not. The solution is literally legally and technically trivial with basically no privacy impact.

So yeah, this is probably yet another case of not actually being about child safety at all.

Maybe you should try parenting???

Also: Little kids aren't even allowed to use Steam, check the TOS. If parents abandon their responsibilities to their own children, that's hardly Steam's fault.

Does Australia not have parents?

Oh fuck off. You can't build a foolproof solution and you know it, you're just asking for more power over our data and I'm so tired of it.

This is being said in a world where parents just give their kids tablets so they can keep quiet/busy. IMO the real danger is kids having "smart" tech at a young age. I almost think it's borderline child abuse to get them hooked on tech that early on.

Agreed! The solution is so very simple. All Australia needs to do is assign one jack booted thug to each child in the country, with orders to hold the kid's head underwater for a few seconds if the thug thinks the kid is visiting Steam or Roblox. If the parents object, hold their heads underwater too. As a bonus, the kids will learn to fear opposing the Australian government. It couldn't be easier.

They want the government to raise their children. Not parents. Goodness me, that would be silly.

Roblox is an actively predatory marketplace for parent's credit details.

I bet she used the internet as a girl when it was 100x less 'safe.'

Now wants to pull the ladder up behind her.

People will do anything these days to avoid actually parenting.

...well if we're going to legislate something out of gaming 'fOr tHe kIDs' let's start with the slot machine bullshit and other gambling mechanics seem in things like loot boxes.

At the very least, the presence of that stuff should be an automatic Adult rating. With less predatory (but still predatory) things like subscriptions being rated as Mature.

Guessing that's not what the dickhead in the article is talking about, but I'm not gonna bother reading another rant from some pearl-clutching cunt imagining a bunch of fake problems caused by video games.

If people care so much about their children they should probably focus on actual problems that are threatening their entire futures…

I cared so much about my kids’ futures I didn’t even have any. It was the only way to ensure their happiness and safety.

they're not wrong, but cutting kids from the internet will do nothing to prevent their abuse, quite the contrary, because it will force kids to be even more dependent on the people who are most statistically likely to abuse them...

For anyone that doesn't know, currently because of stuff like this, people in Australia can't even access their Steam games that they've already bought unless they have a credit card, which I've learned most people over there don't. Valve isn't allowing the third-party 'steal your data' options like face scan and government ID, so Australian folk without a CC are out of luck.

Australians, please fight back against these anti-privacy laws. If these are successful, they'll come to other countries.

I gotta be honest, I understand this position. I have a real difficult kid. We're working on building trust, but it's a process. The fact of the matter is that he seeks out inappropriate content and he can't seem to help himself, just too impulsive.

There's a reason for these behaviors, and like I said, we're working on it. But in the mean time, we've had to completely lock down all technology in the house. And most of it is complete garbage when it comes to parental controls. Stay away from Roku for instance, that device is fucking horrible, just the worst.

Anyway, the thing is, sometimes parental controls are in fact necessary, but as long as they exist, things are fine. Steam for instance has a great system, you can control what aspects of steam a kid has access to, multiplayer functionality, the store, online content, etc. a all that can be switched on or off. And for games you can use their general rating system (which is imperfect) or you can manually whitelist individual games. Finally, you can lock it all behind a simple pin code. Honestly, this is how all such platforms should work, it's manageable.

I don't think there's really any legitimate reason to complain about the systems steam currently has in place.

Roblox on the other hand... That's a shitshow. We don't touch Roblox. And it probably shouldn't be allowed to operate the way it does.

Does she even know what she is talking about? Steam isn't allowed to be used and registered by childs (note, "Subscriber" in this context means Steam user account): https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

You may not become a Subscriber if you are under the age of 13. Steam is not intended for children under 13 and Valve will not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. Additional age restrictions may apply in your country.

The infamous nanny state.

Boooo

Roblox has significant parental control gaps. You can say that parents should just not let their children play Roblox but that really isn’t fair for the child.

To be honest, most platforms should be banned for children because they are all predatory. Anyone who has seen a mobile ad or seen the subscription pricing for most children’s apps would agree. A quality app for children is the exception.

Personally if I were in charge I would hold Google and Apple accountable for the trash advertised on their platforms. It’s not ok.