State Attorneys General Ask Snap and TikTok To Give Parents More Control Over Apps (nytimes.com) 9
A group of attorneys general have asked Snap and TikTok to work more closely with parental control apps and to apply more scrutiny to inappropriate content on their platforms, the latest salvo in a growing fight over child protection between governments and social media companies. From a report: Attorneys general from 43 states and territories said in a letter to executives at the two apps that they were worried the companies were "not taking appropriate steps to allow parents to protect their kids on your platforms." Specifically, the officials said that Snap, which makes the Snapchat app, and TikTok should work more closely with third-party parental control services.
Some people have raised concerns that third-party parental controls surveil young people but do little to actually stop them from encountering harmful content. The attorneys general said in the letter, organized by the National Association of Attorneys General, that they were not endorsing a particular parental control product. They also called on the companies to tighten their own parental supervision tools and to do a better job of weeding out content that might be harmful to children. Concerns that popular social media platforms can expose children to posts that are sexualized, hurt their body image or are violent have escalated in recent years. State attorneys general are currently investigating whether Facebook, owned by Meta, and TikTok, part of the Chinese conglomerate ByteDance, have put young people in harm's way. President Biden also called for new online privacy rules for children in his State of the Union speech earlier this month.
Some people have raised concerns that third-party parental controls surveil young people but do little to actually stop them from encountering harmful content. The attorneys general said in the letter, organized by the National Association of Attorneys General, that they were not endorsing a particular parental control product. They also called on the companies to tighten their own parental supervision tools and to do a better job of weeding out content that might be harmful to children. Concerns that popular social media platforms can expose children to posts that are sexualized, hurt their body image or are violent have escalated in recent years. State attorneys general are currently investigating whether Facebook, owned by Meta, and TikTok, part of the Chinese conglomerate ByteDance, have put young people in harm's way. President Biden also called for new online privacy rules for children in his State of the Union speech earlier this month.
unclear (Score:1)
And whose definition of what's harmful, obscene, etc. should be used?
The parental controls are in the OS, stupid (Score:1)
If you don't want your kids on SnapTwiTok, use the phone's parental controls and block 'em. These idiot lawmakers need to be slapped with a clue-by-four.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Down voted because parental responsibility is no longer a thing? This isn't the 70s and 80s, where you could just plop your kid in front of a TV and be assured they'd not see any nipples or anything. This is the friggin' internet, where there's a lot more than nipples to be viewed. Take responsibility for your spawn and control with they do.
Oh, wait. This is the 21st century. Any personal responsibility is so last century, and everything needs to be handled by someone else, even raising your own kids.
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to sound extra out of touch, prefix with "the". SnapTwiTock, meh. Damn kids internetting on the SnapTwiTock. Now that's Abe Simpson level.
Harmful content? (Score:2)
If you don't want kids to encounter harmful content, better make sure they never see https://russoldat.info./ [russoldat.info.] Wouldn't want all those kids in Russia seeing pictures of their dead father/uncle/brother/whatever.
Use the controls you have (Score:2)
I have complete control over my children's' use of Snap and TikTok; with the help of device level parental controls, they simply don't have accounts and don't have them installed on any of their devices. Likewise for Facebook, Twitter and most anything else that resembles social media; I honestly just don't think there is any good reason for these apps to be distracting my kids. (I don't even need those distractions in my own life, so why on earth would I let my kids get drowned by them?)
Minecraft, on the o