Is there any Fediverse project aimed at creating a safe space for kids to interact within?
-
Features I can think of:
- a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
- no direct messaging,
- some kind of tool for moderators to efficiently review content,
- multi-layered access to an account to allow for parental control,
- time management tool that would not be based on the client, but with the session duration calculated through interactions.
Like others said, moderation is a headache, but really, why do you want one? Isn't it better kids stay off mobile screens? Like what's even a kids social media? YouTube kids? That's closer to an OTT platform than a social media.
Social media comes with a lot of sfw stuff kids shouldn't be accessing, like politics, ponzi schemes, hate speech.
And also then what are kids doing there? Posting selfies, stories, I don't think exposing yourself to others is a mentally healthy life for kids. There have been reports of teenagers getting into depression because of social media, just over this.
-
Features I can think of:
- a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
- no direct messaging,
- some kind of tool for moderators to efficiently review content,
- multi-layered access to an account to allow for parental control,
- time management tool that would not be based on the client, but with the session duration calculated through interactions.
Yeah but what do you want the kids to interact with? There's a lot of sfw stuff like politics and hate speech I don't want kids to be near of.
Kids having unsupervised access to internet is just a bad idea in my opinion, no matter safe you try to make it.
Also the moderation issue someone pointed here.
I like the parental control idea of yours, because of this reason. Atleast it helps to certain degree.
-
Question is, is there anyone that is even suggesting to build a moderation tool for, for example, Mastodon, aimed at this specific need?
Right now the moderation tools available appear to be on the level of "thog bang rock on other rock - make smaller rock, easy to eat" and efforts are primarily aimed at introducing Thog to the concept of fire so he can at least cook his rocks.
The few automoderators I've seen attempted have been "ban you over a couple downvotes" bad, so AI content moderation seems like it may be a bit ambitious right now. It's a good idea, but more work needs to be done before we're at the point it's feasible to start working on it. Like teaching Thog the concept of nuance, and getting him to stop trying to eat the keyboard.
-
Yeah but what do you want the kids to interact with? There's a lot of sfw stuff like politics and hate speech I don't want kids to be near of.
Kids having unsupervised access to internet is just a bad idea in my opinion, no matter safe you try to make it.
Also the moderation issue someone pointed here.
I like the parental control idea of yours, because of this reason. Atleast it helps to certain degree.
Raising children without involving them in politics is terribly cruel. Children are the future and will need to live in the world we create, so they're the most important people to involve in the political decision making process. Greta Thunberg knows that.
-
Raising children without involving them in politics is terribly cruel. Children are the future and will need to live in the world we create, so they're the most important people to involve in the political decision making process. Greta Thunberg knows that.
She’s not glued to tech bullshit and you don’t need tech bullshit to inform kids on politics
If anything, having kids sucked into online bullshit will dramatically reduce their political engagement and just turn them into another depressed and apathetic tech consumer
-
She’s not glued to tech bullshit and you don’t need tech bullshit to inform kids on politics
If anything, having kids sucked into online bullshit will dramatically reduce their political engagement and just turn them into another depressed and apathetic tech consumer
Issues surrounding queer rights are deeply political, and also very important to expose to developing minds. Young people need to know about gay, bi, ace, trans, nonbinary, and intersex identities so they can accept and advocate for themselves. Hiding information on gender dysphoria from teenagers who are going through puberty is abuse. And kids also need to be aware of the discrimination and legal challenges they can face as a queer person, so they can make an informed choice about whether and when to come out of the closet. They also need opportunities to advocate for themselves online and to comment on current events, so that their voices are heard by the people in power. We cannot let adults completely control the narrative on issues like puberty blockers, we need to hear from children who are living these stories.
-
Issues surrounding queer rights are deeply political, and also very important to expose to developing minds. Young people need to know about gay, bi, ace, trans, nonbinary, and intersex identities so they can accept and advocate for themselves. Hiding information on gender dysphoria from teenagers who are going through puberty is abuse. And kids also need to be aware of the discrimination and legal challenges they can face as a queer person, so they can make an informed choice about whether and when to come out of the closet. They also need opportunities to advocate for themselves online and to comment on current events, so that their voices are heard by the people in power. We cannot let adults completely control the narrative on issues like puberty blockers, we need to hear from children who are living these stories.
I’m not sure any of those things require social media services
Especially when irl social media services for kids mostly result in interpersonal abuses and right wing fomentation (look into the discord child sex abuse and terrorism problems)
Open access to quality information does not need to be intertwined with public social media and everything we’re seeing technology do to children is harmful
-
Features I can think of:
- a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
- no direct messaging,
- some kind of tool for moderators to efficiently review content,
- multi-layered access to an account to allow for parental control,
- time management tool that would not be based on the client, but with the session duration calculated through interactions.
I don't think that what you are envisioning and the fediverse are necessarily a good fit. The fediverse is potentially able to network with every other instance operating on the same protocol. With every instance you add more potential to have bad actors within reach.
a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
There is no tool that can automatically remove everything. There is also the Scunthorpe problem. And there aren't enough moderators in the world to do this job safely for children that don't also expect remuneration for their services. And then you need to add in the cross cultural differences in what constitutes NSF anything. Maybe in a few years you can train a model to do a decent job with this.
The protocol can probably be adapted to fit most of your requirements. But the fediverse is held together by donations, sweat, and duct tape. It's having a hard enough time attracting adults; I don't think a kids version is in the works. Plus, there are now real legal hurdles like in Australia.
Personally, I wouldn't want my kids to social network until they are 15-16. Before that I'd try to keep them in services and settings where I'm the moderator. And only after having not only the birds and the bees talk but also the know about grooming, no nudes, and no bullying talks you can slowly release them into the wild. And at that age they will not want to sit at the kids table any more.
-
Raising children without involving them in politics is terribly cruel. Children are the future and will need to live in the world we create, so they're the most important people to involve in the political decision making process. Greta Thunberg knows that.
That only sounds good until you realise this political exposure is also the reason children are going the andrew tate route. It's easier to influence children than it is to adults, and my point still stands, neither of these things must be shown to children without adult supervision atleast.
-
Features I can think of:
- a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
- no direct messaging,
- some kind of tool for moderators to efficiently review content,
- multi-layered access to an account to allow for parental control,
- time management tool that would not be based on the client, but with the session duration calculated through interactions.
Kids should NOT be on social media.
-
I’m not sure any of those things require social media services
Especially when irl social media services for kids mostly result in interpersonal abuses and right wing fomentation (look into the discord child sex abuse and terrorism problems)
Open access to quality information does not need to be intertwined with public social media and everything we’re seeing technology do to children is harmful
We're seeing technology do a lot of great things for kids. We're seeing puberty blockers and vaccines save lives. We're seeing kids with no adults they can trust find community on the internet. We're seeing kids spread a message of hope and resilience and care for the environment across the world. We're seeing renewable energy heat their homes and feed them. We're seeing electric wheelchairs gives kids with no legs mobility. We're seeing assistive speech devices give kids with auditory deficits a voice. We're using cochlear implants and eyeglasses to let kids see and hear.
Technology is so great for kids. I would not want to raise a child without modern technology. Hell, without modern antibiotics and disinfectants and vaccines, it's even odds they die before their first birthday.
-
Question is, is there anyone that is even suggesting to build a moderation tool for, for example, Mastodon, aimed at this specific need?
I'm not talking about usability, just about the foundation. Besides what others already said about why it's not a good idea to answer your specific question regarij moderation tooling is:
Your requirements are incompatible with decentralization. Every moderation tool will have to use the network itself which means a moderation event has a significant delay in which the content has a "head start".
There is no way to have an instant kill switch for content or a centralized gated release of content.
And at the end everyone can spin up an instance and decide on moderation, after all - and decide on the moderation rules there. This will cause an even bigger delay until the malicious instance is blacklisted by others.
-
That only sounds good until you realise this political exposure is also the reason children are going the andrew tate route. It's easier to influence children than it is to adults, and my point still stands, neither of these things must be shown to children without adult supervision atleast.
The only reason the human species evolved language is for political organisation. Kids need politics to thrive. We have examples of kids who were raised without politics like Genie and they were severely intellectually stunted. Politics is as fundamental to the human condition as breathing.
-
We're seeing technology do a lot of great things for kids. We're seeing puberty blockers and vaccines save lives. We're seeing kids with no adults they can trust find community on the internet. We're seeing kids spread a message of hope and resilience and care for the environment across the world. We're seeing renewable energy heat their homes and feed them. We're seeing electric wheelchairs gives kids with no legs mobility. We're seeing assistive speech devices give kids with auditory deficits a voice. We're using cochlear implants and eyeglasses to let kids see and hear.
Technology is so great for kids. I would not want to raise a child without modern technology. Hell, without modern antibiotics and disinfectants and vaccines, it's even odds they die before their first birthday.
I should have been more specific but I meant social media connectivity technologies
We don’t need public social media for kids for any of those other things
-
Features I can think of:
- a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,
- no direct messaging,
- some kind of tool for moderators to efficiently review content,
- multi-layered access to an account to allow for parental control,
- time management tool that would not be based on the client, but with the session duration calculated through interactions.
Absolutely not. Kids should be kept away from social media as it exists now. Frankly, kids need to be supervised on the Internet as a whole, because there's so much dangerous shit out there to hurt them.
-
I should have been more specific but I meant social media connectivity technologies
We don’t need public social media for kids for any of those other things
Ah, well... No. I can understand how that opinion makes sense from a cishet perspective, but the internet has been a game changer for queer people. You do not want a generation of kids in conservative areas having nobody to talk to.
And when it comes to otherkin and plural kids, forget it. Social media bans are already scarring people and reifying traumas. We have a soaring rate of youth suicidality here in Australia https://www.suicidepreventionaust.org/reckless-haste-rushed-legislation-on-social-media-ban-risks-harm-to-young-australians/
-
Ah, well... No. I can understand how that opinion makes sense from a cishet perspective, but the internet has been a game changer for queer people. You do not want a generation of kids in conservative areas having nobody to talk to.
And when it comes to otherkin and plural kids, forget it. Social media bans are already scarring people and reifying traumas. We have a soaring rate of youth suicidality here in Australia https://www.suicidepreventionaust.org/reckless-haste-rushed-legislation-on-social-media-ban-risks-harm-to-young-australians/
I’m not cishet but your problem is not social media bans its the already existent homophobic violence present in society
Enabling private communications and making true knowledge available through technology are not the same things as just letting kids post things to the public internet via systems literally invented and designed to be addictive and profit off social harm
Edit; the best analogy I’ve seen is it’s like selling kids open source range free cigarettes. Cigarettes are simply bad and almost all social media is too and it’s even worse for children
-
I’m not cishet but your problem is not social media bans its the already existent homophobic violence present in society
Enabling private communications and making true knowledge available through technology are not the same things as just letting kids post things to the public internet via systems literally invented and designed to be addictive and profit off social harm
Edit; the best analogy I’ve seen is it’s like selling kids open source range free cigarettes. Cigarettes are simply bad and almost all social media is too and it’s even worse for children
Nobody can solve homophobia overnight but people can make safe communities for queer kids on the internet. And that's a good thing. We need to look after the next generation. We need to show up for them if their parents won't.
The AIDS crisis caused a generation of queer people to grow up without their community elders. We're still feeling the ramifications of that in the community. I don't want a repeat of that. The kids need online role models.
-
as it exists now. ... need to be supervised.
Good thing he's asking for exactly that.
-
Question is, is there anyone that is even suggesting to build a moderation tool for, for example, Mastodon, aimed at this specific need?
Moderation is the wrong answer. White listing is the right answer.
