The Dirty Secret Behind Porn Filtering Laws? Content Filtering Doesn’t Work.
from the religious-right's-nanny-state dept
A couple of years ago, Utah became the first state in the union to mandate that content filters be enabled on all mobile devices sold by manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Lenovo, or TCL. The measure was a hit among the anti-porn crowd because it created a precedent for other states which sought to curtail the viewership of otherwise legal, consensual, regulated pornography among minors. The Utah law, House Bill 72, was passed through a religious-conservative state legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox back in 2021. Since then, the law has sat dormant.
That’s because House Bill 72 states that the content filter mandates can’t enter into force until five states have similar laws in place. That means anti-porn activists in Utah are watching closely for other state legislators to fall for the fear that just because a thirteen-year-old has a cell phone, they’re all of a sudden going to look up hardcore porn rather than waste hundreds of dollars on Robux.
There’s a (super unsurprisingly) widely held belief that no kids under the age of 18 years should watch porn. But if some do, we, as a rational society, can adopt non-punitive measures to engage in education and prevention. But content filtering mandates don’t do that. At all..
Lawmakers in eight other states have proposed laws that require all mobile devices and tablets sold in a state to have the operating system’s built-in content filters enabled or, alternatively, an “anti-porn” filtering software pre-installed at the point of purchase. Based on model legislation proposed by advocates of the somewhat obnoxious National Center on Sexual Exploitation, the intent of the bills is to prevent minors from viewing age-restricted materials, like pornographic videos.
The intent may be commendable, but the outcome is a complete mess. First, there are clear constitutional issues. Second, such laws are nearly impossible to enforce. Last and most importantly, there is effectively no scientific or legal evidence that suggests online content filters actually work. Content filters appear to be inconsequential in whether minors view age-restricted content.
NBC News recently reported on the legislative drive in these eight states to implement laws that are similar to Utah House Bill 72. Lawmakers in Florida, South Carolina, Maryland, Tennessee, Iowa, Idaho, Texas, and Montana have introduced a variety of content filtering mandates with varying degrees of severity and punishment for manufacturers and users who fail to comply.
Out of the eight states, the bills in Montana and Idaho are the only ones to have seen some sort of traction to date. The Montana proposal highlights the lack of knowledge and concern when it comes to any sort of mandate on restricting protected forms of expression on the internet.
A cursory review of the language in the Montana bill, House Bill 349, depicts a regulatory scheme that would require an “electronic device” sold in Montana to be sold with an “obscenity filter” installed. The only means to disable the obscenity filter would be a passcode that is provided by the manufacturer to an adult or the parents.
According to the bill, an “obscenity filter” is defined as “software installed on an electronic device that is capable of preventing the electronic device from accessing or displaying obscenity… through the internet or any applications owned and controlled by the manufacturer and installed on the device.” Obscenity is defined based on existing Montana statute. And, it’s important to note the definition of “obscene” is quite a bit broader than federal law including a “description of normal ultimate sexual acts” that “appeals to the prurient interest in sex”
The obscenity filter requirement is defined to compel a device manufacturer to “manufacture an electronic device that, when activated in the state, automatically enables an obscenity filter that:
(1) prevents the user from accessing or downloading material that is obscene to minors on mobile data networks, applications owned and controlled by the manufacturer, and wired or wireless internet networks;
(2) notifies a user of the electronic device when the obscenity filter blocks the device from downloading an application or accessing a website;
(3) gives a user with a passcode the opportunity to unblock a filtered application or website; and
(4) reasonably precludes a user other than a user with a passcode the opportunity to deactivate, modify, or uninstall the obscenity filter.”
In order to remove the filter, the manufacturer must provide the code to disable the filter. Manufacturers cannot, per the bill, engage knowingly in “reckless disregard” of the law if a passcode is given to a minor or if a device is sold without the content filtering software installed at the point of sale. Violators of the law would face civil action and could be subject to a new tort or class action for violation of the law. By such a standard, this could lead device manufacturers to completely block the sale of their products in Montana due to the regulatory burden or completely change their marketing and sales approach at potentially great cost to not only the device maker, but to the retailers, cell phone service providers, ISPs, and consumers. Plus, this is a significant breach of the federal government’s supremacy over regulating interstate commerce between other U.S. states and foreign governments which have no such regulation in place. But, that would be the least of their concerns.
As it’s currently drafted, Montana House Bill 349 could morph into a de facto age verification mandate. Samir Jain, VP of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, pointed this out when he was asked about this particular language by NBC News, saying that such language could lead to device manufacturers collecting age and identity data from potential customers just to simply unlock the pre-installed content filter. This could require a form of government identification or a valid credit card number.
“There are no restrictions as such on how providers can then use this data for other purposes. So even the sort of age verification aspect of this, I think, both creates burdens and gives rise to privacy concerns,” Jain told. NBC News, adding that the policy structures in the Montana bill are simply “crude mandatory filtering.”
Crude, indeed.
Perhaps even more important than any of the above concerns: there’s no successful implementation of this sort of policy in the U.S. or Western Europe. Even if this whole scheme were to become law, the chances of it working as intended are quite slim, if not zero. In 2018, researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute found that content filters aren’t consistent and could lead to the “under-” and “over-blocking” of content that is either legitimately obscene to minors or is actually information dealing with health education, LGBTQ subject matter, or in dealing with adolescent romantic relationships. This research was conducted at a time when the United Kingdom was considering a national filter on porn.
“Although this position might make intuitive sense, there is little empirical evidence that Internet filters provide an effective means to limit children’s and adolescents’ exposure to online sexual material,” write the researchers, Oxford’s Victoria Nash and Andrew Przybylski. It’s wrongheaded to assume that a mandate on content filtering serves as a child protection measure.
Simply put: these porn filtering mandates won’t work. Instead, these proposals will serve as vehicles for special interest groups that want to censor forms of speech, pornographic or not, that they don’t like.
Michael McGrady is a journalist and commentator focusing on the tech side of the online porn business, among other things.
Filed Under: adult content, content moderation, filters, montana, porn filtering, spencer cox, utah
Comments on “The Dirty Secret Behind Porn Filtering Laws? Content Filtering Doesn’t Work.”
Keeping kids from dieing from firearms? Can’t do anything about it because it’s a breach of rights!
Keeping kids from looking at dicks and boobies? HOLY SHIT, THIS IS A NATIONAL CRISIS!! WE HAVE TO ACT NOW!
(Bonus points, this also affects classical art, because that’s all Classical Greek and Renaissance art is, just pure smut and has no place in society, right?)
Re:
btw, how does this affect computers and monitors?
they are, by definition, electronic devices. are PC and Monitors manufacturers going to have to have a profanity filter built in? What if you build your own PC? What if you use applications that are NOT websites (Mastodon for example, has NSFW pics that isn’t porn, mostly relating to food and cute furry animals.)
Re: Re:
M&M s are too sexy for the internet.
Re: Re: Re:
Erm, you have that backwards. Tucker was complaining the the “woke” changes meant that the green M&M was no longer sexy enough for his tastes.
Re: Re:
How it could be anything but Mastodon developers must use system-provided APIs to control all NSFW content?
It’s opensource project with no single universal client? Not a problem. ALL clients must support this if they want to be used in Montana.
Re:
Well, yeah, but its effects on sexuality are much more concerning. We need kids to be seeing more porn, not less, as long as it’s compatible with reasonable sexual practices. Especially with the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
That’s the real “dirty secret” here. Everyone knows porn filtering doesn’t work—that’s no secret—but some people still seem to think it’s “better than nothing”. It’s not; it’s worse, and like abstinence-only education, is only going to increase the number of people who are totally fucking clueless(ly) when it comes to sex.
Keeping this information from children does absolutely nothing to help them, and never has. It merely stops adults from feeling “icky” at the thought of children knowing about or doing certain things.
Re: Re:
“We need kids to be seeing more porn, not less, as long as it’s compatible with reasonable sexual practices. ”
Not sure I have seen “reasonable sexual practices” in porn.
Quality sex ed is needed for sure, not sure how far to take it.
Re: Re: Re:
I’m taking “reasonable” here to mostly mean stuff that’s not especially degrading. If it’s legal and the people seem to be enjoying themselves, what’s the problem? Even better if a condom’s used and the people are positioned for realistic enjoyment rather than camera-friendliness, but let’s not get too picky. (Of course, banning the “bad” stuff or trying to keep it away from kids won’t work. If people don’t want to see it, they have to stop paying others to create it.)
I’ve never seen anyone actually make a reasonable case for a person being harmed by seeing people naked and/or fornicating, whereas the harm from lack of information can be found in pretty much any community. It’s an exaggeration to suggest that this information should be pornographic, but only slightly (it’s something adolescents will seek out, whereas they most certainly don’t want to hear it from their parents or anything that seems too “educational”). The point is more that a society that freaks out about young people seeing it is fundamentally misguided, and apparently oblivious to the harm they’re inflicting.
Re: Re: Re:2
If that’s your point, it’s a pretty good one. If your point is that porn can be a good source of sex education for adolescents, which is what the rest of your comments seem to be saying, I think you’re way off base.
Re: Re: Re:3
No one has ever been harmed by being shown anal vore unbirth porn involving futanaris with three-foot horsecocks before having their heads chopped off as they ejaculate. Just look at Rule34. If anything we should have more of this content as a progressive, all-loving society.
Re: Re: Re:4
First of all, that’s questionable, and second, “porn doesn’t hurt anyone” is a very different claim than “porn is good sex ed for kids”. In other words, you’re moving the goalposts.
Research indicates something like 4-15% of internet content is porn. How much do you think would be enough?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201611/dueling-statistics-how-much-the-internet-is-porn
Re: Re: Re:5
I said no one has been harmed.
Even if kids see this content, what’s the harm? If anything it prepares them for a more inclusive world instead of being told lies that the straight conservative scum have been forcing down their throats.
Whatever it takes to make sure that all sexualities are equal.
Re: Re: Re:6
The original idea I was criticizing, and I don’t know if you’re the same AC who said it or not, is “We need kids to be seeing more porn, not less”.
The answer to that is both complicated and controversial, and not feasibly addressable in a comment forum. If you really want to know, search for “harms from pornography” and get ready for a lot of reading.
There is no amount of porn that will achieve that goal.
Re: Re: Re:7
In a nutshell, closeminded conservatives who aren’t capable of being fabulous are to blame.
No matter. Eventually their boomer lifespans will catch up to them.
Only because we haven’t tried enough.
We got stink, scat, guro, vore, etc. brought out into greater awareness. We got LGBT marriage approved when nobody believed we could.
True love will win.
Re: Re: You are the most worst profound person I've ever heard here lately in my life
If you had any Godly values which you’re probably not a Christian at all I can tell just by the way that you’re talking and the fruit of your words which thats really not my problem so I really don’t give a damn that’s the Lord’s problem and your problem in whatever you may choose or accept because you have a choice but I am a Christian and if you had any historical facts actually the Lord was the one that gave his people the ones that he chose which are Born Again Christians the ones that have accepted him by the revelation of who he is by him through the sead and spoken word. no condemnation on your part your day will come and if not I won’t see you in hell. Originally Christians were the founders and owners of the United States which Who We Now call the pilgrims and is why we have Thanksgiving but there’s a deeper meaning of what Thanksgiving really is and where it comes from than what this wold has come to believe and see today. They were the ones that actually come up with schools in the teachings of children and came up with the prison system to better them threw the truth in love of the word of God and guess what it produced happiness fulfillingness gentleness peace love joy prosperity wealth healing Better Lives and the list goes on but eventually for some reason mistakenly they gave it to the government that we have now and it’s just gradually got worse because it was handed over to the people that didnt have a heart for truth but a heart of gread and it started slowly corrupting our government which have evil intent because of the lies that have been stored up in their heart. they have excepted the evil and greed that they have for control those same people are now and have been for many generations teaching us and our children a certain way of life raising people up to believe and think a certain way by brain washing people because the evil that they stored up in their hearts and they don’t even know what’s good anymore and they’re manipulating passing it down from generation to generation slowly over time people dont know no damn better and because Americansand people in general are so gullible they believe everything they hear. why do you think there’s so many deaths and suicides murders mental issues rape perversions and so many many MANY other issues? Also including in our world and our planet is changing and has been changing for a long time for the worst not for good and I’m sorry it’s not caused by global warming because you know “scientists always have an explanation or so called proof” for everything they come up with but has anybody noticed that what they say always changes beacuse they discover new findings and people believe this shit…. im getting to my point…a lot of it comes from people getting manipulated by not knowing the truth and by being exposed to the things this world calls good now but its actually evil to the max.just by movies and tv we been raised on for years and the news is nothing but fear based and is a tactic.(people do stupid shit and make bad discussions alot of times when they are in fear because fear is torment …which is also controle and the governments guidelines to what they forcing teachers what they can or cant teach and do in schools and even colleges are being lead and forced to teach things or they could get fired or put in jail. and a lot of that is because the government has an intent and now what they’re putting in schools about sex is evil to the max. I understand and i 100% believe that children need to be educated properly. Sex is between a married man and a woman for a reason not just have sex with anybody or whoever at a young age which causes STDs emotional dependent because there becomes a tie between two people when they have sex and when they separate it’s like a piece of paper that’s glued together that gets torn apart that’s why people are heartbroken or in denial to cover the pain they move on to the next it’s not puppy love. Yes I believe 100% that we should teach our children and teach kids about certain categories of sex because sex is very important in a marriage and in a relationship and they need to be prepared for that and I believe it’s on the top three most important things in a relationship.it’s a healthy thing, its a good thing in its proper context it’s created for us as a gift but its been used in many improper ways. It can cause a lot of damages to people’s minds heart emotions and cause confusion and it causes many many divorces and marital issues very few people even make it anymore because of what they’ve been taught about sex and porn is okay along side with other things I’m not mentionong but all porn does is intraps people making them addicted to something causing a strong hold on them. I don’t care what it is nothing is supposed to have so much power and controle over someone to where they cant controle themselves. Porn is actually made and used to control people keep them in bondage which goes back to the beginning of what I was talking about. Im 32 years old I’m an adult and I don’t think sex is Icky at all.my husband and I have amazing sex life and we talk to my son my stepson about sex but we also teach him values and morals in that because one day he’s going to become a man and one day he’s going to have a wife and possibly children and from what we teach him about sex it’s to respect his wife sexually and emotionally spiritually and as his bride. To bring them together as one and not look at her as a piece of meet to just please his and to be an example of Christ to her and his children that he may one day have and love for who she is and see her for who she is and not these pornstars that that are disrespeting themselves that most women can’t live up to because really it’s fake like give me a break all that is is lust not love and people like you are agreeing and speaking out against teaching people especially children lust not love guess what lust don’t last that’s why marriages aren’t lasting and has so many issues because really people aren’t being taught true love. Our flesh changes! people grow old and things change people and life dont ever stay the same… there are seasons in everything nothing stays the same except Gods word he is the same yesterday today and forever. marriage isn’t always roses and butterflies and when you’re shown and taught love and not lusting over your flesh you stay joined together and strong but when it’s lust it’s another way to tear people a part because it wont last because of what its built off of it’s another form of bringing this country and people down by teaching people from childhood how not to controle themselves to whats right and make them believe they are something that they are not and wasnt created for because were being taught to give in to every feeling and emotions aand letting shit have controle over us so it actually makes week people.you apparently don’t understand that and I pray for you and I pray for others that read this and even myself for wisdom. You don’t have to agree with me and your title to your own opinion but that doesn’t mean your opinion is accurate or right. And your terms saying as long as it’s compatible with renewable sexual practice just tells me another scientist just using people as guinea pigs and you’re actually hurting people if people want to put this on their phone and on their gadgets which actually you’re wrong there are some that actually are pretty decent then it’s not your place nor any of your damn business to tell people how to raise their children or their family.
Re:
Some school teacher or administrator recently lost their job because they took their students (or allowed) to see the Statue of David… this was in Florida
Re: Re:
Ahh yes. Reminds me of a conversation I had with some visitors from Europe I was conversing with way back when America was reeling from seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show…
‘Americans seem to have zero ability to distinguish nudity from pornography’
Porn and teenagers, especially teenage boys, is a dreadful mix, and does a lot of harm.
I agree that education for all genders on the way porn distorts sexual interactions and perceptions is much more important. It’s just too damn late to get the porn off the internet, and if you make it ‘forbidden fruit’, it’s much more likely to pique teenage attention. Showing it for what it mostly is, which is artificial and dull and unsatisfying emotionally, and explaining that, would work much better
Re:
Having been one at a prior time in my life, ‘teenage boys’ full stop is a dreadful mix.
Underage people either find porn yucky and move on, or have a growing interest in sex and sexuality, and need the guidance of adults. Trying to stop the accessing porn when they want to is impossible. Heck, it didn’t work when I was in school, and porn was limited to top shelf magazines. (The VHS/Betamax wars were fought during my college years).
How much are laws like this driven by people without children and those who are scared of talking to their children about sex?
Fastest way to make something more attractive to kids??
Try to ban it.
Its a tit.
It will not warp your child forever if they see one, heck a few of them actually spent lots of time suck on one when they were younger.
My son saw a penis on a statue!!
And? Hes got one in his pants.
Perhaps giving up the puritanical insanity is the way to go. To teach kids consent, to teach kids they can say no to icky things. To teach kids that yes you can get pregnant from having sex 1 time even if you didn’t enjoy it.
Look at the cast of characters in charge of the nation, this is the result of generations of parents trying to stop porn… you want that for your kids?
Re:
That’s why I’m lobbying my congressman to introduce legislation mandating the application of opaque disks around the necks of all children so that they can’t look down and be traumatised by their own naked bodies.
Doesnt this mean that a minor buying a computer/laptop/smartphone/tablet and then installing any linux distro, including things link Debian, or LineageOS would be illegal. Since it’s on an electronic device, and being root would let them… not have the filter.
Re:
Will that be the excuse Microsoft need to force machines being locked to windows via secure boot?
Re:
I think you’re misinterpreting that. The mere ability to install any unapproved software would be illegal, and the age of the buyer irrelevant. Even devices formerly shipped without software would, presumably, have to ship with a non-removable filter.
Re:
Well, shit.
This implies the Steam Deck is now illegal.
The relevant Montana statute defines obscenity in terms of “perverted sexual acts” or “patently offensive” other stuff. There is, however, no definition of either “perverted” or “patently offensive,” neither of which have a established commonly understood or legal meaning. On that basis, everything and nothing is prohibited. From my selfish perspective, almost everything uttered by a MAGA Republican is patently offensive, but I’m sure everything uttered by any liberal or any moderate conservative is patently offensive in Montana. Just another silly attempt to ignore the First Amendment and waste more taxpayer dollars.
Re:
“There is, however, no definition of either “perverted” or “patently offensive,” neither of which have a established commonly understood or legal meaning.”
I will know it when I see it.
(1) prevents the user from accessing or downloading material that is obscene to minors on mobile data networks, applications owned and controlled by the manufacturer, and wired or wireless internet networks;
I am pretty sure the material would not be seen as obscene to most minors. Their repressed parent… yeah. The minors, no.
Re:
Now, let those parents see Techdirt.
Mike is now considered obscene, due to him repeatedly showing good sense, discrediting the “conservative” lies being fed to red states, and uh, actually standing up for their rights when they so happily chuck theirs away for stupid herd mentality.
Ah yes, that 10 year old idea of forcing on-device porn filter
This garbage
Tumblr have shown examples of why porn filters fail. I can imagine the device having that does the same.
have you ever heard of "PARENTAL controls"
I never seen a child ask a random stranger rather than a parent just to be able to view content.
Manufactures shouldn’t be conscripted to do a parent’s job of filtering porn, that is certainly placing one’s responsibility on sombody else.
Re:
Whoa right there!
You want these parents to be responsible for their own children? The ones that they freely chose to create?
No sir-eee!
I was just watching this video being reminded of its existence and hoping for a time to post this.
https://youtu.be/CcZdwX4noCE
Tom Scott, Penistone, and the Scunthorpe problem.
The scunthorpe problem has not been solved. Porn filters can not work until it has been.
Re:
…and it never will be solved.
If somehow the naughty word contained within Scunthorpe is completely eradicated without any collateral damage, nothing will fundamentally change. Teens are more than capable of using euphemisms, inventing words or applying obscene new definitions to otherwise innocuous words, some of those eventually becoming obscene in the same way as the c word, or just use different methods of communicating ideas. Think, the aubergine/eggplant emoji having become phallic in meaning, whereas originally it was just one in a series of vegetable images. If you were successful, you’d just be back to square one with a new set of words that might be far harder to effectively filter.
The bottom line with any kind of filtering is that you’re always going to be playing catch-up with people motivated to bypass those filters. There’s better ways to deal with any issue than playing an endless game of whack a mole to try and hide it.
Re: Re:
and then there is Newfoundland with it’s town of Dildo
oh look, i wrote that
Since I’ve already brought up the 2018 tumblr NSFW ban once… I’m just gonna point to the controversy (and absolute meme) of one of the things that was specially banned.
“Female-Presenting Nipples”
Even without the algorithm problems (which included flagging art that tumblr itself provided as safe examples), the wording made the rule extremely vague and problematic from a user standpoint.
Algorithms are not a good porn filter… but it’s even worst when the criteria it’s looking for is so ill defined.
Re:
That’s about as well as it can be defined, probably.
They state “female presenting” because for whatever reasons society has deemed a topless man to be acceptable in public but not a topless woman, yet all genders have nipples. They state “nipples” instead of “breasts” because for some reason it seems to be more acceptable for mostly bare breasts with the nipples covered (such as with pasties or a very skimpy bikini top) to be seen than it is to see a naked breast.
Until prudes have some consistency with what they allow, I’m guessing that this definition is the closest to accurate that they can use.
This is not about filtering "porn"
This is just another attempt by the homophobic and transphobic USA to drive LGBTQ people even further out of sight. I guarantee you if this legislation is ever implemented the vast majority of content that will be blocked will be LGBTQ resources.
Re:
Exactly.
The good news is that at least one member of the LGBT community had the right idea of what to do with close-minded institutions, poisoning our children with their imaginary sky friend filth.
how about we just don't give small children cell phones with internet access?
here’s a crazy thought,
how about we simply don’t give young children cell phones with internet access?
I would think that would be a much simpler thing to implement than some sort of half-baked content filtering regime.
I can think of no reason that a kid under say 15 needs an internet enabled cell phone. We’ve gone though all of human history without the need and I don’t see why that has to change now.
As an added benefit, school teachers everywhere will rejoice.
Re:
Because the alternative is having to talk to the little bastards, if my stepsister is anything to go by
You are ALL missing the point
Mr. McGrady wrote a good article, and many of the comments are good also, BUT they ALL miss the point.
The only reason for all this censorship BS is to get votes, nothing more.
Discussing it on the basis of feasibility or necessity, is a distraction that plays into the censor’s hands.
It gives the censors “home field advantage”.
Instead, it should be called out for what it is, cheap and effective lying.
Call out the lying censors. Don’t be drawn into their BS arguments.
Try to show the sheep that they are being conned. (hopeless, I know)
Re: strange....
Does that mean that you are in favor of prepubescent children having unrestricted access to violent content and hard core pornographic content?
Seems like an odd hill to choose to die upon….
Re: Re:
The hill to die on is: I wish politicians would spend as much time trying to keep guns out of kid’s hands as they do trying to keep porn out of kid’s hands.
Is porn bad for kids? It depends how old they are and what the definition of porn is.
Are guns bad for kids? Well, I heard on the news that gun violence is now the leading cause of death among children.
When was the last time you heard someone doing something really bad after viewing porn?
But it’s much easier to score political points by going after porn, especially if most people already understand that filters don’t work.
But it’s a lot harder to stop the sale if guns because of lobbyists and people who think gun rights are more important than child getting shot every few weeks.
"Electronic device" means a tablet or a smart phone.
So computers, smart tvs, watches, etc. are exempt.
Perhaps a system that declares the age range for the user could be a better approach than a content-filter or mandatory age verification. This could be done by sending an optional http header with each http request. The header could be called ‘age-range’ and have values ranging from 0 through 9 that signifies the general age range of the user.
The first half of the ranges would just follow general school levels:
0 – Before Preschool
1 – Preschool
2 – Elementary
3 – Middle School
4 – High School
When a site receives a http request from a user with an age range below the acceptable value, the site could respond by sending a special status code (e.g. 318) and a link to a more age appropriate site. Upon receiving the response, the user’s browser could redirect to the offered site or to a pre-configured site. The system could apply site wide, so a user attempting to access an inappropriate image directly to avoid a site’s age check would still be blocked.
This system seems like a much smaller burden on a web site compared to mandatory age verification and a smaller burden on device manufacturers compared to content-filtering. For parents already using parental control settings, the system could be applied using a simple slider in the settings that selects from different grade levels.
The other half of the age ranges could be used by adults for custom settings on websites:
– for Twitter, the custom range could be used to inform Twitter that it should just remove all messages tagged “sensitive” instead of given the option to unhide it.
– it could be used to signal to advertisers that the user does not want to receive certain types of advertisement.
– if a site would block on any value of age-range, a user can apply the settings so they would never visit the site (even accidentally).
Re:
Your idea runs into the very same problems that filters are known to experience.
Re:
Big porn already tried that.
Kids just lied about their ages.