22 Democrats Sponsor a Bill That Could Censor Abortion Info From the Internet::The Kids Online Safety Act is “a blank check” for Republican AGs to “intimidate any way they can,” a digital civil liberties advocate told Jezebel.
Absolutely not. Free access to the Internet and a public library as a kid was crucial to my development. I was raised by a bunch of strict Christians who tried to stop us from reading Harry Potter, for Pete’s sake (it had witchcraft in it). I am completely against any censoring of information in the name of ‘protecting’ children from ‘harmful’ information. You know what I did as a kid when I came across something I was uncomfortable with? I put it down and found something else to read. Kids are fully capable of making that call themselves. I’m not sure why everyone acts like they can’t.
Children are not mature enough to determine what they should have access to. Your parents kept you away from blatant racism. Children should not have access to ISIS videos. That sort of thing will screw them up for life.
A parent’s job is not to shield children from life. It’s to prepare them for life. You shouldn’t try to keep them from ever falling over. You just need to be there to pick them back up afterward. The more you let them engage with the world, with your support, the more mature they will become. Maturity isn’t something you magically acquire, it’s the direct result of confronting difficult things.
Part of being responsible means preventing children from doing things that will kill them or fuck them for life. Teenagers, especially boys, have a very bad tendency to seek out shock content. Facebook moderators literally have PTSD from seeing terrorism and CSAM.
Children need to be protected from certain things and anyone who doesn’t realize that is still a petulant child because they were given common sense restrictions by their parents.
