this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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I'm confused, are you saying that it was the 11 year old girl's personal responsibility to avoid being the victim of sexual abuse? Or are you saying that it was her parents' responsibility to be monitoring her technology use 24/7?
Neither seems right to me...
If it's harder to find, then fewer children stumble upon it and get preyed upon, which is a good thing.
Dunno about parent commenter, but that is exactly what I am saying. The parent is responsible for the minor child's safety. That would include not giving her unmonitored unrestricted internet access until she reaches an age when she can safely use it. That is literally what parental controls are there for.
To make an analogy- The kid here was playing in the street and got hit by a drunk driver. The solution to that isn't to put Ford out of business for making the truck, or to put fences on every sidewalk. The solution is throw the drunk driver in jail and remind parents not to let their kids play in the street.
100% monitoring and control doesn't exist. Your children will find a loophole to access unrestricted internet, it's what they do.
Similarly, children will play in the street sometimes despite their parents' best efforts to keep them in. (And yes, I would penalize Ford for building the trucks that have exploded in size and are more likely to kill children, but that's a separate discussion.)
I get what you're saying, I just think it's wrong to say "parental responsibility" and dust off your hands like you solved the problem. A parent cannot exert their influence 24/7, they cannot be protecting their child 24/7. And that means that we need to rely on society to establish safer norms, safer streets, etc, so that there's a "soft landing" when kids inevitably rebel, or when the parent is in the shower for 15 minutes.
And it's your job as a parent to ensure that they are equipped with good decision making skills so if/when they do encounter the 'big world' that they don't fall for predators or scams.
It's not our job as society to grind down all the sharp edges of the world, especially when adults enjoy those sharp edges. It's our job as society to create defined and expected levels of risk and enforce them. For example, we make drivers generally responsible for watching where they're going, and we make crosswalks that are 'guaranteed safe' places to cross the street. So if you're willing to take risks you can cross wherever, and if you want to be sure you're safe there's a crosswalk. The level of risk is your choice.
The thing with the Internet is that it's there for everyone. You can't establish 'safer streets, soft landings' on the Internet without restricting what consenting adults can get. And there's currently no technology to verify someone's age without seriously invading their privacy.
Filtering Internet is and should be a client side problem. Had this parent installed one of the numerous Internet filtering products produced for this exact purpose, the did wouldn't have gotten groomed/abducted. Had this parent had a conversation with their kid about bad people online and offline, the kid would have told the rapist to fuck off and closed Omegle. There's several things that the parent could and should have done which fall under the realm of basic expectations of parents, and they didn't. That left their daughter open to being exploited by an awful person. NONE of that is Omegle's fault.
But switching gears- you talk about soft landings. What do you think should be the answer here? Do you think a site like Omegle shouldn't be allowed to exist? Where do you feel the responsibility of the parent and the site and society lies?
My point is that the safety of that 11 year old is no more Omegles responsibility than it is a bar’s responsibility to prevent the drunk from drinking.
If the answer to children getting into things that they shouldn’t is not allowing those things to exist then that is not a workable or desirable solution in the long term.
Children aren't supposed to play 18+ rated games. But few of them did so, we're shutting down all games👌