Comment by _wmd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _wmd | Hacker News Reader

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> Firstly, kids on YouTube were NOT impacted by this

Unfortunately this is inaccurate. There are billions of daily adolescent YouTube users, some of whom entering puberty that were exposed and continue to be exposed to the recommendation algorithm that created this mess in the first place, and for periods running into hours every evening.

At such an early stage in development, it is absolutely the company's duty of care to ensure that a 5 year old is not being sent up a gradient of a recommendation system that is encouraging them (with the help of the comments just removed) to view people of their own age in a sexual manner. Not only were children impacted by this, but the mechanism that enables it remains active to this day.

I agree with the idea of allowing children outside, but as per my reply to your previous comment, not if that means spending all day in the back yard of the village creepy old man. Balance is required in every situation, and denial of the kind your comment is riddled with accomplishes nothing.

>Unfortunately this is inaccurate. There are billions of daily adolescent YouTube users, some of whom entering puberty that were exposed and continue to be exposed to the recommendation algorithm that created this mess in the first place, and for periods running into hours every evening.

You are talking about a different issue.

>At such an early stage in development, it is absolutely the company's duty of care to ensure that a 5 year old is not being sent up a gradient of a recommendation system that is encouraging them (with the help of the comments just removed) to view people of their own age in a sexual manner.

Why would it be the company's duty of care and not the parent's? The parent should be the one that controls what the child consumes, not some nameless company or the government.

>I agree with the idea of allowing children outside, but as per my reply to your previous comment, not if that means spending all day in the back yard of the village creepy old man.

Again, this should be done by the parent, not by a faceless corporation or the government. It is the parent's job to deal with this.

> Why would it be the company's duty of care and not the parent

It is the company's duty of care for the same reason that

- it is the city's duty of care if the child goes outside and falls down an unmaintained manhole

- it is the school's duty of care if a fire extinguisher malfunctions and kills the child

- it is the driver's duty of care if the child crosses the road and gets struck on a green crossing

In all these cases, the entities assume a certain privilege to operate due to the trust placed in them that enables the freedom for the child to go outside whatsoever. If that duty does not exist, then there is no trust the child can safely leave home unattended. In effect what you're arguing for is total control from the parent -- a much worse outcome for a child than self-moderation on behalf of the trusted entities they would otherwise have had the freedom to interact with.

> The parent should be the one that controls what the child consumes, not some nameless company or the government.

The ways in which people access community-created content (or commentary) have changed substantially enough that I don't believe this is true any longer. Content providers now bear a portion of this responsibility in addition to child-rearers. That is ethically much more sticky, I'll admit, but I also think that moral imperative does not automatically follow the path of greatest simplicity.

> Why would it be the company's duty of care and not the parent's?

It is the company's duty of care for the same reason that

- it is the city's duty of care if the child goes outside and falls down an unmaintained manhole

- it is the school's duty of care if a fire extinguisher malfunctions and kills the child

- it is the driver's duty of care if the child crosses the road and gets struck on a green crossing

In all these cases, the entities assume a certain privilege to operate due to the trust placed in them that enables the freedom for the child to go outside whatsoever. If that duty does not exist, then there is no trust the child can safely leave home unattended. In effect what you're arguing for is total control from the parent -- a much worse outcome for a child than self-moderation on behalf of the trusted entities they would otherwise have had the freedom to interact with.

>that enables the freedom for the child to go outside whatsoever

But this is not comparable to "going outside" at all. This is "seeking out and going onto private property and seeing stuff you shouldn't". The logic that a company is comparable to public spaces doesn't hold water. YouTube is not a public space any more than Pornhub or 4chan is. If 4chan wanted to cater to 10 year olds (yes yes I know) then the way to do so would clearly not be to remove content not suitable to kids but to create a separate place for those kids.

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