this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
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[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 3 points 2 days ago

as children defeat such weak measures all the time

It's actually not any weaker than the onerous privacy-invading options big tech is forcing on us regardless. It can be gotten around by accessing sites that don't enforce it, maybe. But a well-made parental control system could actually be far, far more effective. It could block installation of any app that doesn't comply, if the parents choose to enable that functionality. And compliant browsers could, if they wanted, rely on some other crowd-sourced list of sites to block access to sites that don't enforce it themselves.

Being based right in the user's operating system means that if it's well-designed, it maintains complete privacy and is as difficult to bypass as it's possible to devise. The only way I can think a well-designed system could be bypassed would be by the child installing their own separate partition or running a live-USB. There may even be ways that can be prevented; I'm not sure.

But frankly, at that point we're teaching the kids how to be comfortable doing things to take ownership of their own machines. And I see that as an absolute win.