Online Safety Act – shutdowns and site blocks

>>azalem+(OP)
What's frustrating me about this is that theoretically this list should include every MUD and BBS, if they don't want to get in trouble. It's a horrible law, which forces people into the pockets of the largest sites which can afford to do the age verification.

Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.

>>b800h+W5
> Speaking as a Brit, I wish Wikipedia would just go black for the UK. That might focus some minds.

Likewise. People (organisations/companies), as far as possible, shouldn't be pandering to this stuff, it's not the answer, it doesn't help them or us.

>>cs02rm+B7
What is the answer?

>>dabeee+Vf
To online safety for children? The same as offline safety; parenting and education. There's not much money in those though.

https://x.com/moo9000/status/1950866445186818209

>>cs02rm+eh
Making content restrictions easier for parents to implement would help a ton — like being able to block all sites in a browser and create a whitelist of the ones kids are allowed to access. Similar whitelisting should be available and easy to implement for YouTube and social media. Having to individually block each site/video/profile you don’t want your kid to access is a futile game of whack a mole.

>>baubin+Yi
A more sensible approach to this law would be to require adult sites to include a clear marker in either an HTTP header or an HTML meta tag. For example:

This would allow locally run browser content blockers to automatically detect such sites without blocking them individually, and it would be trivial for site operators to implement. Since it would be mandated by law, sites that refuse to comply could be subject to legal action.

Of course, this would still rely on parents taking the basic step of setting up a content blocker before allowing their children unrestricted internet access.

>>kivle+zq
You can do something like this currently with schema.org metadata:

    {
      "@context": "https://schema.org",
      "@type": "WebPage",
      "contentRating": "18+",
      "isFamilyFriendly": false,
      "audience": {
        "@type": "PeopleAudience",
        "suggestedMinAge": 18,
        "requiredMinAge": 18
      },
    }

- https://schema.org/WebPage

- https://schema.org/PeopleAudience

- https://schema.org/AdultOrientedEnumeration

zlacker