> Sensible individual: getting tired of weird sex-negative teens blowing up at adults for talking about sex > Jackass: whErE are you talking about SEX that leads you to interacting with TEENAGERS
> James: presumably anywhere on the internet, which anyone with internet access and the knowledge to use it can go > Jackass: so you're putting the RESPONSIBILITY on CHILDREN to not enter adult spaces!!!
Good fucking grief. When I went into sex-related spaces on the internet, I knew exactly where I was going, had a good idea of what I was probably gonna see, and was certainly not some hapless little babbu to be coddled.
(Except that I never even considered offering up even the slightest hint of personal information, up to and including my real name, and it's distressingly common to do that these days, but that's another issue entirely.)
Unless you would feel comfortable setting your child loose to wander unsupervised in a physical space, able to navigate all the pitfalls and dangers, they should not be granted similar leeway in a digital space.
Therefore, by allowing a child unrestricted access to the internet, you are giving them the same freedom that many of us had in the physical world, as children: open the door, and let them roam.
Yeah, and, like... there are places where it's roughly okay for kids to be! I know that the vast majority of my time as a kid on the internet was spent on Neopets, Cartoon Network, and Nickoledeon's sites!
a place where it is completely reasonable for an adult to be and to have adult conversations, and which is it not illegal for kids to be, but also not really expected.
I feel like a lot of the people bitching about this stuff aren't actual parents tbh. The ones on tumblr complaining, I mean. Though with how people are I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised if I'm wrong.
I used to have to interact a lot with preteens and such for work and only about half of them were allowed on social media and the ones that were had it locked down pretty well. Privated and only allowed to have classmates and such as friends.
man, I feel like it was much easier to monitor what your kid was doing on the internet back in our day. And I mean that in the "all we had was one family computer in a public space" sense vs kids have their own phone and tablet and laptop which they don't let parents look at.
the phone/tablet/laptop thing definitely makes it trickier to monitor in the physical sense, but I think it's also easier to control now? Back in our day you had to worry about forums and privately run websites and being computer literate yourself to block stuff.
Now 90% of the "actually interacting with people" side of the internet is through a handful of major corporation sites with privacy settings and stuff.
Like, if a kid is savvy they can get around stuff, but if they're just a normal 12 year old browsing the web and posting selfies you can try to keep it locked down.
and before the internet kids would go find dirty magazines or eavesdrop on adults or whatever, none of this is new. The internet provides easier access but by now most parents of young people should really know enough to block certain sites or talk to their kids about internet safety.
i am so disturbed by the trend i've seen on tumblr specifically where literal children are leaving their actual age and a whole list of their triggers right on their info bar thingy
> Jackass: whErE are you talking about SEX that leads you to interacting with TEENAGERS
> Jackass: so you're putting the RESPONSIBILITY on CHILDREN to not enter adult spaces!!!
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