> I could understand it until age 10 perhaps but at some point you want your kids to be independent.

There's surveillance (parental supervision) and then there's "surveillance" (corporate psycos / overbearing governments).

You want your kids to learn independence in a gradual and some what safe / controlled way (not too safe of course). There are still some things I don't want them exposed to at age 10. Unfortunately unsupervised internet isn't the best option here. Outsourcing it to tech is a really bad choice for sure. You need to be present as a parent to help them navigate and answer questions. If you aren't, then some youtuber (or worse) will do it for you. There's also an argument that being present as a parent has become harder than ever on average for economic reasons (double income, wage stagnation, inflation, etc.), and also the problem that many parents have no clue how to navigate the internet responsibly themselves.

I agree completely, but blocking access is something different than surveilling their every click. At some point children will look at content the parents don't approve off and for many that can be important. You probably just have to remind yourself of your own childhood. Perhaps a few years longer than 10 stronger supervision is needed, granted, but at some point children profit from a little distance from their parents.

Absolutely. Best we can do is try to gradually prepare them for the horrific (/s) things they will be exposed to. I constantly worry they are too isolated from danger these days to be honest (compared to my childhood).

What about reducing the amount of horrific things that occur?

I try to.

Does posting this vague (pithy?) comment result in a reduction of horrific things occurring?

No, I'm offering an alternative solution that would have a greater impact on the good

i still tend to believe that the only lesson kids learn from content filters is how to bypass the content filter. electronic s̶u̶r̶v̶e̶i̶l̶l̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶ supervision seems like it will yield a similar result. kids are going to see and experience the things you don't think they are prepared for and my personal anecdata suggests that they will survive. you cannot force them to be safe but you can be the one place they can always turn to when they do wish to seek safety.

I think maybe you've misunderstood the comment/situation a bit.

There's definitely things on the internet parents don't want them to access - this is normal, we don't want them going on there.

This 'surveillance' can be problematic but it's not 'dystopian'.

The 'dystopian surveillance' is for the more serious issues, people getting flagged for this or that etc..

'Age appropriate content' is fine, but nuanced.

'Surveilling everyone' is bad.

Blocking something is very different than looking up what they click. After 12-14 it can very well get dystopian in my opinion. Kids have and need to have secrets from their parents at that point.

You also don't want moral busybodies at school make mountains out of molehills to make it more traumatic than the content they perhaps consumed and wasn't age appropriate. A while ago parents were oblivious to what content their children consume and didn't even have blocks. The children survived too although a bit more engagement might indeed be sensible.

As I said, it was criticism of surveillance, not blocking content or in general curating content for very young children.