Item — HN Reader

I recently put some thought into what I would have done if I had encountered "parental controls" to use the Internet when I first encountered it as a young teen in 1992. I would have made it my personal mission in life to circumvent everything and anything possible. I feel fortunate that no such controls existed and the adults in my life knew significantly less about the technology than I did.

Was I exposed to some clearly adult content? Yes. But I didn't find it particularly compelling, the video games I could download and other things I could explore were more interesting.

It is also concerning to me that gen-alpha (or whatever the age bracket is called) people are increasingly being pushed into walled garden, app-based social media platforms instead of actually learning what the Internet really is, and what it's capable of.

4 comments

My dad added parental controls to our PC sometime around 1997. It also had Eudora installed, which my dad used for email. Poking around, I found the ini file that had the ciphertext of the password for the email server. On a whim, I made another account in Eudora and put the ciphertext in as my password. In the ini, the plaintext of the password came out; I guess Eudora used some symmetric rot16 or xor like cipher! The same password worked to unlock parental controls, which had taken me just about a week to circumvent.

Agreed. I was a middle-schooler in the 2000's, had my own PC in my own bedroom, we had broadband access and I, of course, was exposed to porn while I was trying to download cracks and keygens on Astalavista and other such sites. Mislabelled files on eMule too. Links to porn also were readily shared on IRC channels. But yeah, I can't say it had a damaging effect on me.

It was a mix of being afraid of getting a virus from a porn site, knowing that porn wasn't for my age, and late-night FTA TV airing softcore anyways.

My parents told me to be responsible and kind of explained the dangers of the world the best way they could, and it was expected that I'd be grounded and lose computer access if they found me on a porn site. I preferred playing games. I definitely encountered some dark places on the clearnet (and on the darknet as well) and promptly GTFO.

At the school's computer lab they had plenty of content control which I had the most fun trying to bypass them. For what reason? Just so I could.

You see how that isn't nearly as bad as the current state of society though.

Eh, the ugly side of humanity was just a click away on the darknet, and I got my share of bait and switch beheading videos on IRC chats.

It was always there, society hasn’t changed. This shit wasn’t monetized back then though.

As usual it seems education is the only long-term solution. Forcibly keeping people out just makes them want it more.

I have a feeling we had a similar experience growing up. I generally agree, but also, we got QAnon/Alex Jones and such which have quite directly screwed up my country. So I don’t know, my opinion is often contradictory and fluid. I don’t know where I stand anymore. I believe in an “open internet,” but also, there’s people like Andrew Tate who have ruined the minds of people I care about.

We can debate if these systems and people existed before (they did), but the reach and scale is different now. My most controversial opinion these days is that not everyone should be allowed to upload to YouTube if it’s public facing. We need basic screening and filtering.

One personal observation, the early commercial internet as it was transitioning from universities/research labs/certain high-tech firms into a mass market thing with millions of users, it had its share of nutjobs and crazy as well. But it was boutique, hand crafted , personal level crazy and it was for the most part disregarded because none of the whackjobs could collect a sufficient following or megaphone to spread their message.

For instance in about 1994 I remember coming across a set of textfiles that were some lengthy manifesto about how the US government had supposedly manufactured AIDS in a lab somewhere. But it never got any traction.

Now we have the unfortunate venn diagram overlap between something like a Tate and a major social media platform, and he can get his message out to millions of angry, horny, unemployed young men...

> For instance in about 1994 I remember coming across a set of textfiles that were some lengthy manifesto about how the US government had supposedly manufactured AIDS in a lab somewhere. But it never got any traction.

There was a BBS in my area that ran on a small bank of 14.4 USR modems that had a gold mine of content like that. It was such a fun time.

> how the US government had supposedly manufactured AIDS in a lab somewhere

This was Soviet (now Russian) disinformation. The tactic is to make people (especially Americans) distrust the American government. Like claiming that the crack epidemic was caused by CIA inventing/smuggling the drugs in. Sure, Oliver North & Reagan's Iran-Contra affair did this to fund Ronnie's illegal and private war in Nicaragua. The CIA gets all the money they want from a willing, subservient Congress - they don't need to smuggle drugs. Congress specifically outlawed supplying weapons to the Contras, so the administration had to resort to illegal means, like selling weapons to Iran and smuggling drugs to finance that war.

This is the same sort of disinformation as saying COVID was manufactured in a Chinese labs, somewhere in Wuhan.

Yeah, I used to read this stuff when I was younger and more gullible.

> We need basic screening and filtering.

Based on whose values and criteria? Yours?

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

I didn’t say I had a solution or that it was well thought out. I’ve been very open that my opinion is not super consistent/is even contradictory. I don’t know the answer. But what we are doing isn’t working. I’m very conflicted on this subject, I’m just sharing my feelings and trying to spur dialogue, not plant a flag and die on the hill of “lock it down.”

I am sick and tired of the argument that porn shouldn't be kept from kids because what if someone thinks it's healthy for kids to watch porn (and for all I know it might be, since I haven't sent the scientific evidence).

If some parent thinks that's healthy they can just enter the child's age as 18.

That wasn't the argument.

Here are the specific examples listed in the comment I responded to:

> QAnon

> Alex Jones

> Andrew Tate

Clearly your argument applies to sexual content as well. Unless you’re willing to state right here that you’re ok with restricting that information?

It has nothing to do with the content being restricted and everything to do with who is deciding what to restrict for whom.

Parents deciding to block sexual material in the context of their family is absolutely fine. It is proportional, it hurts no one and it is a perfect example of individuals and family units exercising their own autonomy and freedom.

The government deciding to regulate the flow of information for the entire nation is deeply alarming, for it is a sure sign of tyranny no matter what it is they're restricting. They always prepare the terrain first, they always go after the objectionable material, they always have good intentions, they always claim it's to protect kids. Suddenly, industrial grade surveillance and repression systems have been implemented, and citizens will be proved fools for trusting their governments with that much irresistible power.

In which decade did “the kids” in your country have “good ideas”

> "...not everyone should be allowed to upload to YouTube if it’s public facing..."

You still fantasize about building mechanisms for restricting information as if the very people you oppose won't use it on you when they get into power; no, as if the very people you oppose aren't _currently_ ascendant or even in office and would delightedly use it against you right this moment. Madness.

When you build a high tech muzzle, remember that it will fit onto your head just as well as it fits those you built it for.

> You still fantasize about building mechanisms for restricting information as if the very people you oppose won't use it on you when they get into power

That is a wild misinterpretation of what I said and in no way reflects my opinion.