Comment by Ucalegon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ucalegon | Hacker News Reader

"Rep Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) announced the Parents Decide Act, bipartisan, commonsense legislation to strengthen online protections for children and give parents greater control over what their kids can access on phones, tablets, and other devices. Gottheimer’s new Parents Decide Act will:

- Require operating system developers like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages when setting up a new device, rather than relying on self-reported ages.

- Allow parents to set age-appropriate content controls from the start, including limiting access to social media, apps, and AI platforms. - Ensure that age and parental settings securely flow to apps and AI platforms, so content is tailored appropriately for children. - Prevent children from accessing harmful or explicit content—including inappropriate AI chatbot interactions—by creating a consistent, trusted standard across platforms."

This is the summary [0] from the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, who seem to be in support of the legislation. I get the feeling the definition of 'operating system' within the legislation isn't how many on HN, or in real life, would define what an OS is, since its implied to be aimed at mobile devices, but we shall see once the actual text is posted.

[0] https://www.benton.org/headlines/rep-gottheimer-announces-bi...

Seems like legislation should come after senators and members of congress directly call Tim Cook en masse to complain that:

1. Screen time reporting has been 100% broken for decades. Just does not work as advertised. False advertising is indeed illegal.

2. The parental controls are a joke. Can't block apps that were ever downloaded by a member of the household. Don't want the kid to have TikTok? You better not have downloaded it on any device ever.

I do not disagree that there is A LOT that Apple could, and should, be doing to enable parents. The problem that we have is, that if a vendor, like Apple, just decides to continue to have broken systems, there isn't a way to compel them to fix the problem outside of legislation. And, because most people in the House/Senate have a complete lack of technical literacy, we get situations where they define things poorly or special interests get to set those definitions in their favor/for ideological reasons, rather than to make good policy.

We agree that legislation won't work because legislators aren't competent.

But you claim that only legislation can force behavior, and I'm pretty sure that if a few senators just relayed their frustration with broken screen time reporting to Tim Cook personally we could get some results.

Calls don't have enforcement mechanisms/consequences needed to ensure compliance with the desired outcome. The whole point of government is not to ask nicely that something be done, it is to use the power of the state to ensure that something is done. Assuming that the state decides to actually enforce its laws, but that is an entirely different conversation.

You know it's bad when they call it the opposite of what it is.

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