Implying that the “childrens” websites of the early 00’s weren’t fraught with sexual innuendo and swearing, and home to predators of all kinds. Neopets, Club Penguin, Habbo, RuneScape, IMVU. I don’t think this poster is remembering them the way that they were.

I will say that growing up with these sites, and exposure to some of these things, I have become a savvier citizen of the internet. I understand wanting to protect kids, but they have to get out there on the real Internet someday, and losing all your rare painted neopets to a scammer makes you real unlikely to give your details to someone claiming to be your bank.

Just like irl spaces for kids and teens have died out, too.

No money? No exist.

Club Penguin goated in child safety. I remember certain servers limiting online speech to pre-selected options off a menu.

Have you not seen the internet? So many spaces aren’t even safe for adults. The scams are out of control.

Go on, tell me the last time you didnt have to say “DONT CLICK THAT LINK MOM” just to be sure they don’t click a very obvious scam. Or have a long conversation about VPNs prior to handling identity online. Or describe AI hacks to someone.

And here you talk like it’s so very easy to make it safe for children.

don't forget prime which is an energy drink whose ads target primary school kids

PBS Kids is a thing and has been for a long time

I was recently at a Hacker Festival in the Netherlands, and one of the things that I found neat was that there were plenty of kids there. There were activities on the timetable for kids, as well as spaces that were dedicatedly for kids. However, the event didn't feel like it was at all diluted for the sake of families — areas and activities intended more for adults still existed, as well as a general expectation for adults to be responsible and courteous when engaging in adult-only activities (such as drinking alcohol).

It felt like a cool model of coexistence that we don't get exposed to as much as we should in The Real World (TM). Whilst this openness towards the kids is partly for the parents, it's also cool for the kids who want to take part. For example, I remember that during a soldering workshop, I got talking to a boy sitting at my table — I think he was age 10-12ish. Whilst there was some level of me having to be mindful to be speaking with him in an appropriate way, this didn't prevent me from engaging with him as a peer; we had an earnest conversation about projects, and the usefulness of concrete goals; hobby burnout; and how much ambition is useful when you're learning a new skill. I wish I had more opportunities to hang out with kids in a capacity where I'm not actively in a mentoring role

I think kids should be exiled to kids only places. But the issue is, a few adults sneak in, and no adults guarding? R.I.P kids.

We constantly seem to forget we need safe spaces for new people and soft entries for them to into fandoms, careers, and our world in general.

Im so tired of people acting like kids and people in general need to already be invested and fully formed adults in mind so that they can already be talked to and sold to like everyone else.

Currently? I feel like it was years ago that Roblox's controversies came to the fore.

I believe this is from a combination of factors, including the lack of revenue streams from young site visitors and the necessary protections and moderation being expensive to create and maintain. It sucks, but with the modern Internet it won't exist for long if there's no money to be made.

Neopets still exists and is great though

I ain't buying this internet ID propaganda

I still play Neopets every day. It's been excellent for my mental health and it's the most wholesome community I've ever been a part of.

There used to be an all-Flash site called "poisson rouge" when my kid was a toddler, and it was absolutely awesome. Hundreds of educational games, bright, fun, animated...

Edit: was nostalgic, looked it up - seems they relaunched at some point! https://www.poissonrouge.com/play/

Any space made for kids on the internet sooner or later will be bought up by some capital investment firm, and it will always end the same: enshittified

Now, if my email enshittifies, I'll get pissed, but I'll live.

If a kids space enshittifies, you get Roblox with the pedos which -arguably- is much worse than enshittified email.

This is the main reason I don't use tiktok, ever since its inception: It was meant as a space for young people and I don't want to be one of the jerks who intrudes on that.

Yeah, there's privacy concerns and brainrot pearl-clutching and all of that, but while those are legitimate, my number one reason for not using it has always been that I believe there should be spaces for young people online that adults don't mess around or intrude in.

Concerns with Roblox are not new. For years there have been allegations and lawsuits around the exploitation of children developing effectively for free so the company can make bank. There's even been investigative journalism programs and articles about it.

Roblox exploits children.

bring back miiverse

Isn’t this just called online video games? Basically what Neopets was.

Scratch was the social media site I grew up on. It's still around.

That's because kids should be outside running around and having life experiences that teach them the things they need to be well-rounded adults. Make spaces for that. Dicking around on the internet achieves nothing.