And instead of an age you could even make the indication about what is potentially objectionable so that parents can choose when to allow their kids to see what - and adults can also choose to avoid certain things.

▲ 1dom 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I might be being overly cynical here, but I think part of the problem is parents expect to give their kids the internet so they don't have to spend so much time/attention with them.

I think this means any solution which involves active parent participation is going to get shunned by a vocal subset.

I'm in my mid 30's. When I was very young I remember my Dad semi-regularly having to email or even fax off permission slips to websites aimed at kids before they would create an account for me.

	▲	thewebguyd an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> any solution which involves active parent participation is going to get shunned by a vocal subset Then we certainly shouldn't be passing laws mandating age verification. If parents want to abdicate their responsibility over their children, it's not the role of government to enshrine that abdication into law and take over the duty of parenting from them. If regulation is to be had, then it should take the form of mandating websites and services provide privacy preserving tools for parents to use, if they want to use them. If they don't, that's on them. Everyone else needn't suffer because a subset of the population has chosen to offload their responsibility into the government and web services.
	▲	forshaper 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's what I see happening. None of this would be a big deal if parents were present, but we give our attention to work & entertainment, and find it easier to continue doing that if the kids are also being entertained instead of playing, which caused problems in the physical world.

▲ iamnothere 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly, without this you’re handing the power to decide what is “appropriate” to someone else.

▲ godelski 6 hours ago | parent [-]

  > you’re handing the power to

The user?

	▲	iamnothere 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I’m in favor of voluntarily giving the user (device owner) full control over what categories of content they want to allow. Age buckets don’t do that. (This includes giving the option for “everything is allowed” without any kind of verification. You bought it, you own it.)
	▲	johnnyanmac 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The server owner. If your parent won't curate the content, they will.

▲ LelouBil 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Force a PEGI-like system for every apps please.

It would be awesome.

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Marsymars 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The App/Play stores already basically have that, you can't submit apps without age ratings.

One spot where it's a bit weird is for utility apps that don't have any "mature" content but that obviously isn't intended for kids, so e.g. your tax prep app gets rated as "Ages 4+".

	▲	giantg2 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Is exposure to a tax app going to cause harm to a 5yo? This doesn't seem like a real problem.
	▲	LelouBil 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yes, that's why the system should be a bit different. It should indicate notable features that influence the rating, like PEGI includes "online content" "gambling" and so on

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dredmorbius 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

PEGI: Pan-European Game Information, a video game content rating system.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEGI>