The County of Los Angeles filed suit today against social media gaming platform Roblox alleging that the platform failed to protect children from predatory behavior. The lawsuit alleges that while Roblox markets itself as a safe digital space for creativity, it is in reality an unsafe online environment that has become a breeding ground for predators.
As much as I think this is all terrible and that Roblox SHOULD answer for some of this shit, the fact of the matter is, PARENTS ARE NOT TEACHING KIDS HOW TO BE SAFE IN THE INTERNET. They just throw a fucking tablet or phone or console or PC screen in front of their eyes and refuse to do ANYTHING resembling parenting, and when their kid inevitably gets groomed they blame the platform and ask for daddy government to do their parenting for them and ask for things like age verification, which at least on Discord is literally being used to profile people criticizing the Trump administration and ICE.
Set parental controls, teach kids to not trust strangers and give them basic internet safety tips, and none of this shit will ever happen. Don’t sign away the rights of other adults because you’re a terrible fucking parent.
Facts. Feels good to subsidize parents and have their shitty kids be the reasons to take my rights.
Which rights?
The rights they are trying to take so their children can be safe on the Internet as they vote for a PDF in droves.
Social media has muddied the water since I was a kid but I was raw dogging the Internet mostly unsupervised since I was in 5th grade and ran into all sorts of shit. Knowing not to give up any personal information about myself was all I really needed to feel safe. It was never something I even considered doing. I still don’t have any social media with my identity other than a very outdated and minimal LinkedIn. Not sure how a kid could take that advice seriously from their parents who’ve been blasting anything and everything about them all over social media since they were born though.
Unfortunately, it always has been like this for everything
[Sad astronaut gun meme]
This is what they are suing about.
What rights do you think are being “signed away” in this lawsuit about Roblox not providing functional parental controls and moderation?
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is actually happening here.
Probably talking about invasive shit like what discord just did.
Which they are already doing in the shittiest way possible, and is only a small part of the problem the lawsuit notes.
Which is why I’ve been asking, they can’t answer because they dont know what they are talking about, they are concerned about a single (almost tangential) element of the problem - which Roblox already is doing, and only because they keep getting sued for catering to predators.
Yeah, agree with everything you said. I let my kids play Roblox. I play with them sometimes, been playing some silly Shawarma game, it freaks them out.
So far, the biggest thing we talk about is this desire of every game to enter your wallet, and I tell them that a game shouldn’t be asking you for money, and now they both get annoyed at games that ask for money. I like to think I’ve created a safe environment for them to play in, and when the environment becomes something else, they ask me about it.
So mainly right now the worst that happens is the game is bullshit and they get mad, and I say hey, this game is bullshit (in more PG language), and we move on.
I firmly believe that prohibition just leads to curiosity. I think it’s impossible to insulate them from shit these days, so I’ll be part of their exposure, and hopefully I can help them learn.
Parents’ refusal to parent is why regulation is essential.
You’re not allowed to take someone else’s rights because someone else is a fucking irresponsible idiot. That’s not how this works.
People made that exact same argument over seat belt laws. The only difference now is that the car crashes are happening digitally.
Seat belts are different because if someone is in a car is not wearing one and carrying passengers, that person will become a 200 pound pinball in case of a crash and crush everyone else to death. Do YOU want to sign away your ability to criticize Trump and ICE because some dipshit parent didn’t do what they’re supposed to fucking do and got their kid groomed?
Spoken like someone who hasn’t read up on how social media algorithms work, nor their effects on people’s cognitive abilities. Have you seen the photos of parents with their dead kids at the various court hearings lately?
Slippery slope fallacy. We use ID to regulate all manner of things here in the US, and I’m still able to obtain them. And yes, given the gravity of the harm being caused to young people by social media, I’m happy to provide my ID in order to lock them out of it until they’re adults, at least until a better and easier solution to the problem materializes.
Evidence?
That’s unrealistic. Teach kids about predators, and teach them about consent and bodily autonomy.