cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37122335
- Sexual extortion, or ‘sextortion’ scams against children and young people on the rise, with ‘hideous and callous cruelty’ used to blackmail victims.
- Boys still at particular risk as numbers surge – making up 97% of confirmed sextortion cases seen by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
- UK’s Report Remove service, run jointly by Childline and the IWF, sees significant rise in children self-reporting nude or sexual imagery which may have got out of control online.
Online safety act really does it job euh? /s
awful act poorly written, thought through (!) and then implemented
We have to look at hardware-level solutions like VOOP, which can block the sending of nudes (for example) entirely.
I’ll go against the grain on this one, I actually think something akin to this is the right approach.
“Protect the children” will have to go somewhere, it’s not going to just die. Getting kids devices, with locked down access is better than the ridiculous changes to the internet that are being planned.
This might not be the right implementation, but I think the idea is along the right lines… or at least, the least worst option.
Though this solution also seems to be very flawed, doesn’t it? You basically trust another company to manage your child’s smartphone and granting it full access to it. Furthermore, that doesn’t stop predators, as they could still arrange meetups with their unknowing victims. And even if it captures text messages, kids would be discouraged to use their phone due to their fear of their parents disproving of their friends or their communication to them. Instead, they’d more likely learn the use of “burner phones” by getting a factory-reset phone and using that one instead.
It’s the sort of ham-fisted attempt expected by parents that blame their kids for their mistakes instead of their parenting.