By not having this law and doing it client side. My opinion is the law is bad.

This law might have never come up if we had better parental controls at every level of the software and hardware stack.

I'm a parent I have parent controls setup on my child's devices but it's very hard to dial it in properly and cover all the bases. It should be far more straight forward to manage than it is now.

I'm obviously pretty tech savvy and I would say 99% of parents are not going to get this right.

I can’t speak for PCs or Android devices. But iOS devices already have parental controls built in as do Macs

iOS parental controls are awful. The only way to get any decent control for my concerns that the moment is using the downtime features all day long. Effectively I've told iOS that he should be in bed for 23 hours and 55 minutes a day. It's ridiculous and extremely limiting.

Microsoft's parental controls are sort of ok. I also have separate control software for Windows and I have controls at the router. Of course, none of things can talk to each other to create a coordinated plan (say giving X number of screen time hours per day).

iOS controls effectively block adult sites and you can manually add sites to block and not allow apps being installed without your permission. What else do you need?

Some control over when certain apps can be used.

That has nothing to do with “protecting the children” from sites you don’t want them to see or apps you don’t want them to use at all.

But does have everything to do with parental controls.

Besides the easiest way to know what you kid is doing online is to watch them -- much easier to do if I control when they use it.

A solution to these issues is for the child to not have the device in the first place. A desktop computer in a central place with eye on it can go a long way in managing online activities.

As a parent, as a former child, as someone that grew up with computers in places just like you describe, let me say, in my personal and professional experience… lol

You’re right about parental controls, especially apple ScreenTime. I’ve used computers almost my entire life, I even work for Apple, and I still resorted to calling tech support about it. As far as I can tell, they don’t actually do anything useful, and instead just get in the way.

I do disagree that a technical solution could have avoided laws like Texas. It’s not about “protecting the children”. It’s never about the children. It’s just censorship. It’s just easier to go after a porn site than it is a library.