Some Apple users say its parental controls aren't working properly. A CEO who has 4 kids called it 'frustrating.'
Some Apple users say its parental controls aren’t working properly. A CEO who has 4 kids called it ‘frustrating.’::Parents told The Wall Street Journal they have to continuously check their Screen Time settings to ensure their children’s usage is limited.
Don’t rely on Silicon Valley to babysit your child. All software has flaws, and a kid who wants to watch more YouTube videos will figure out a way because there’s probably a dozen videos out there detailing each bug.
V-Chips didn’t do shit in my era, and we found ways around Bess, so none of this surprises me.
How can the kid watch videos on how to watch more videos when they are blocked from watching videos?
“Hmm… I wonder if Mom’s password to unlock the iPad is the same as her pin code for… holy shit is she really this stupid!?”
Or if that’s not enough, here’s my lazy attempt to see what the options are: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZaMNsGSvRE
Imagine if I put more than 10 seconds of thought into this.
You probably don’t have kids so you don’t understand how valuable parental controls are. /s
There are a few parents in this thread showing their ignorance.
My kid doesnt have a smartphone. But he has access to our family pc, for gaming and music.
But no video. I blocked the browser and youtube completely
Do you have kids? I can tell you as a parent that parental controls are godsend.
If I were to try to do the same myself, it would be 10-15 arguments a day. When the software does it, there is no argument or very little. Sometimes they ask for more, and I can evaluate their case. Much better than chasing them around trying to tear the iPad out of their hands.
All that being said, I’ve had to use other 3rd party software because Apple’s parental controls are buggy and unreliable.
Software can be very helpful for all sorts of situations. However, that doesn’t mean you get to abdicate all responsibility.
The person you are responding to is simply noting that kids are not stupid and often find ways to get around parental controls. There are also ways for content to get around controls while complying with controls. It’s unfortunate Apple’s software is buggy, it should be better.
No one said using tools available makes someone a bad parent. They said only blindly using these tools without doing more makes a bad parent.
No idea how arguing with your kids every 10 minutes came up. Has nothing to do with anything anyone is saying so I’m assuming that is coming from a personal place. Perhaps you’ve over invested in tooling at the sake of healthy, non-confrontational conversation, I don’t know. No one brought this aspect up, but you.
My 5 year old is already sneaky enough that when I put him on starfall he will wait for me to get distracted and chnage tabs and type gibberish into search, or click the YouTube icon in chrome and do the same (which is more dangerous, YouTube has some really weird shit if you search special characters).
I alsready have dns controls on network etc and generally manage access by physically retaining control of a device. M
But as they get older adding some level of content filter that’s https aware may be needed.
Though as an IT admin I’ll try and rely on trust and communication over technology solutions. But still. Like borderline planning to dump them on their own vlan, with a Pi-hole and some extra filters, that also goes to Cisco umbrella and some sort of squid guard/sensei setup on my opnsense router or even websense or palo alto filter.
Yeah. I have been looking at cell providers parental controls. Wife and Inhave been on pay as you cell service for a long time but they generally have nothing. But ultimately anything I do on wifi we gotta apply to cell service at some point. So something like Sensei or zenarmor only goes so far. It’s fine to start for sure thiugh
May just go screentime and sensei and maybe an mdm when they get old enough. Definately don’t want those apps that snoop on text messages etc. I want to repeat their privacy and if it comes to needing to look at that I’ll physically take the phone or restore a backup.
I mean. I’m a admin by trade. Ran systems for a bank that had multiple cascading products.
It’s more philosophical choice. I can easily setup blockades they would be hard pressed to thwart even as a teen.
Part of me wants to challenge them like I was to bypass them. Part of me wants to teach them to be responsible and practice good secuirty on the net
Part of me wants to challenge them like I was to bypass them. Part of me wants to teach them to be responsible and practice good secuirty on the net
I feel exactly the same.
You’re going to need a more original/thoughtful response. I have kids and I think like this person. I don’t trust parental controls, kids and content creators know how to get around them. I, personally, think it is idiotic to assume parental controls do more than present a barrier to content, not usually a blocker.
What happens when your kids use other devices without parental controls at a friend’s house or school? Will your kids know about being responsible with content and how to navigate to safe spaces, or are they just going to go totally wild?
So, yes, I do have kids and no I do not blindly trust parental controls of any sort. Just want you to pack up that argument right now. Real annoying when parents think they can discredit a viable view because the person they are talking to hasn’t had a crotch goblin.
Why does using parental controls mean that you can’t also educate your children about good practices on the internet?
It doesn’t? Literally everyone here is saying that you should do both. No one is saying that using parental controls is bad. They’re saying it is insufficient to solve the problem.
Why the assumption that anyone who does blindly trusts them and doesn’t attempt any other form of education?
There was no assumption here. Most of the thread is saying you should be a present parent and do both. I think if you are blindly trusting tools, you’re going to have a bad time. Further, if you want to shift your story to be that you do both education and parental controls, cool. So far you’ve said that you prefer using parental controls than “arguing with your kids every 10 minutes.” Regardless, you can do whatever you want as a parent.
I don’t understand this religious adherence to not using the tools that are available.
I don’t understand why you at all think that anyone is “religious” about not using parental controls. I’m actually wondering if you are reading the responses. Literally no one is saying “don’t use parental controls.” No one in this thread is suggesting what you are saying here. Again, they are suggesting that parental controls are insufficient and cannot make up for being a present parent. This is not hard to comprehend.
Again, this is a response on a thread about parental controls where the opening salvo was
Do some parenting? Not just leave them alone with gadgets if you don’t want them on them all day.
The clear implication being that if you are using parental controls, you aren’t doing parenting and leaving your kids alone with gadgets constantly
As for you, you are the one making the assumptions here. What does this look like to you? Because to me it looks lke a pretty damn big assumtion:
I, personally, think it is idiotic to assume parental controls do more than present a barrier to content, not usually a blocker.
And it’s literally you who is saying that someone who uses parental controls won’t educate their children in any other way:
What happens when your kids use other devices without parental controls at a friend’s house or school? Will your kids know about being responsible with content and how to navigate to safe spaces, or are they just going to go totally wild?
There’s no reasoning with you. You are interpreting my statements in the most black and white manner possible when they are explicitly meant to acknowledge nuance. Nothing I said precluded education. I have simply been saying that parental controls are insufficient. I still use them, they are a barrier, after all.
Let me give you an analogy along the lines of kids. I’m saying that the pullout method is insufficient. It’s flawed in many ways. Am I suggesting that you should forgo using any birth control because there are flaws with the pull out method? Fuck no. I’m sorry that you cannot see the nuance.
Just going to follow you through the thread to remind you that a person who doesn’t have kids isn’t immediately unknowledgeable about a subject. That’s some parent gatekeeping bullshit so that you, as a parent don’t have to think critically when being challenged.
Source: I have kids so apparently they that’s all that matters to you.
No one is suggesting it is black and white, but perhaps you. Everyone here is saying that one should not blindly trust parental controls. I don’t see anyone saying “do away with parental controls.”
I honestly think you are projecting some polarity on to people that doesn’t exist. Further, your response of “do you have kids?” Isn’t engaging in any meaningful conversation. You are simply seeking to discredit the person you are responding to without discussing any nuance whatsoever. I’m not sure how you think discrediting someone for purely not having kids is not black and white. You are literally saying if someone doesn’t have kids, their opinion and thoughts are irrelevant. That’s pretty black and white thinking if you ask me.
Now would be a good time to remind you that the comment that you are so vociferously defending is:
What a hassle. Might actually have to be a present parent in your child’s life.
The clear implication being that people who use parental controls are not present in their lives. This is the clearest indication of someone who has never tried to balance screen time with the needs of parenting, because anyone who had sincerely attempted to walk this line would know that it’s not as easy as just “being present”. There are plenty of cases where the kids need access to technology without it taking over their lives. I would posit that any parent who could take such a hot take seriously is probably a shit parent who never actually tried walking this fine line.
And if you think that someone who has 0 experience in something as difficult as parenting is equally qualified as someone with decades of experience, you must either not be a parent or be a terrible one. Because I’m a far better parent now than I was 20 years ago, and anyone who had gone through this without getting better probably was never trying very hard to begin with.
Actually, you have been all over this thread with the same commentary so it’s not just this thread that we are conversing. If you want to be a purist about it, I kind of agree with the comment. I see way, way too many parents who are not present and just hand their kids technology because it is easier. Are you telling me you do that think parents like that exist? I didn’t say you were that parent, no one did, but as a general comment, I agree with it.
Look dude, I get it, your an IT professional and parental controls are right up your ally. It is one way to approach the problem, but it is not the only way. Everyone is simply saying it’s an insufficient approach to handling the whole situation due to the complexities you acknowledge.
If you ask me, you took a random internet comment way too personally. It wasn’t directed at you, but you clearly interpreted it that way. There absolutely are plenty of parents who are not present. The comment was directed at them. If you are not that, go ahead and walk away from the snarky internet comment.
Of course you’re a better parent with experience. No one suggested otherwise. You’re not a brain surgeon though and I’m not going to pat you on the back for procreating and figuring out how to raise your kids. You really want people to praise you for doing a basic human function. When your kid wins a Nobel prize, maybe I’ll pat you on the back. I’m going to assume that like most of us, you’re average, you’re kids are average and that’s all cool. Not going to pat you on the back for existing.
No one is suggesting it is black and white, but perhaps you. Everyone here is saying that one should not blindly trust parental controls. I don’t see anyone saying “do away with parental controls.”
I honestly think you are projecting some polarity on to people that doesn’t exist. Further, your response of “do you have kids?” Isn’t engaging in any meaningful conversation. You are simply seeking to discredit the person you are responding to without discussing any nuance whatsoever. I’m not sure how you think discrediting someone for purely not having kids is not black and white. You are literally saying if someone doesn’t have kids, their opinion and thoughts are irrelevant. That’s pretty black and white thinking if you ask me.
It sounds like you think that know a lot about me. Please tell me more.
It’s definitely not a self report to be defensive when no one said anything specifically about you before losing your shit and taking things personally.
and this is why I’ll always choose Google over Apple. Despite Google’s flaws of surrepticiously killing their products. At least they don’t have these ridiculous walled garden that Apple has. See, for example, Google’s parental control app/solution: families.google/familylink/
Anyway, small side rant. I am a big big big advocate of parent’s doing their job as parents of setting up parental controls on devices their kids have access to. It is SO MUCH of a better option than the government requiring us adults to give up our privacy to verify that we are indeed adults to see adult content. Like, yes, I do want to see adult content. But hell no there’s no way in hell I’m violating my privacy with privacy invasive big brothery bullshit.
“Help keep your family safer online”
So you rather let Google track your whole family? You can’t say you care for privacy while using Google services, it’s a contradiction.
And their walled garden is even trying to DRM the web.
I can’t hold others who shill for Google in good faith, not after what the business has been doing for years, and especially recently. They’re several orders of magnitude worse than Apple at this point.
Blind faith in a monopoly who controls the ads on almost half of all Internet websites, 70% of the browser market (and the phone OS market for that matter), basically the entirety of online video sharing, etc… is precisely why Google is able to force anti-web bullshit like attestation-based DRM. And there’s nothing we can do about it; their engineers doubled down on WEI and liken us to criminals.
I have three kids. I am very present. I work from home and I’m constantly monitoring what they are using . Parental controls are a nightmare.
There are apps that are rated as ages 4+ but they have chat features.
There are apps you’ve ok’d them to use but requires the parents PIN every time they open it.
Screen limits randomly reset themselves. A lot of times that means you have allowed something that limit blocked and now you have to ok it again.
Imagine being out with three friends and you need to know everything they are doing on their phone and have to enter a password on it every 15 min.
Another annoying thing is if you approve an app from the App Store once, it’s approved for install forever.
Going off what you had mentioned about apps with chat features, we’ve run into times where we’ll approve the app thinking it’s fine, but then our kid finds out they can chat with random strangers and divulge personal information. At that point we delete the app, but they can reinstall it whenever they want. 😬
Yup. Not to mention we have a Roku, iPhone, Chromebook, and Switch we have to manage, with three kids profiles on each.
Another thing, I have a 13 year old and a lot of apps (like YouTube) have little kid and adult.
When I was a kid and had cable there were lots of content edited for mass consumption. You could turn on TBS and watch an R movie edited down to somewhere between PG and PG-13. No one is editing down all this content now.
I mean, it’s still a somewhat useful headline, though.
It tells us “a person who’s specialized in coordinating work from other people and isn’t good with technology can’t use this feature”
So, we need to make the feature simpler, or not bother with it
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