Several of the laws TFA complains about are literally what you just asked for. Like the California and Illinois laws. They are literally that.
reply> If we must have something, I’m in favor of the OS-level flag where a parent can set the device as belonging to a minor and the apps and browser can receive the flag.
replyParental controls already exist. Lawmakers want to step in and parent peoples' kids for them by removing these freedoms from everyone.
It doesn't have to be sent anywhere, websites should send a flag when serving various types of content, so parental controls has the information it needs for filtering. Websites could still infer what's being filtered of course, but doing the decision on the client allows for much more granular/extensible categories of content, as well as allowlisting, time limits, etc. Some sites/proxies won't be marked properly, but 99% self-categorizing would help a lot, and it's not like making them do ID checks or attestation is easier than setting an HTTP header or something
replyFiltering on the app side is more flexible. A game that has some levels not suitable for children could when on a child's device still let them play most of the game.
replyjust add a flag to the OS
replyWhat a fucking stupid, impossible, idea.
Like, explain to me how you think this could be done meaningfully other than some setting that can just be arbitrarily flipped without adding massive complexity.
Why would you exclude the obvious implementation from consideration? You missed one point though: you have to be superuser to change the flag.
replyThis is literally already the law in California and Illinois.
How is it impossible?
The OS already advertises which codecs and cyphers it accepts. Is adding an age flag a bridge too far?
replyAnd arbitrarily changed? Can a regular user arbitrarily change the super user password?
What complexity do you imagine here? Put it behind ACLs or some other permissions scheme. I could almost believe you’re being sarcastic or trolling.
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