On the matter of parenting, law is excess. Parents don’t require force to tend to the wellbeing of their children. It comes naturally.
What we all know intuitively about parenting has seemingly been forgotten by state legislators around the U.S. It’s vivified by the various “App Store Accountability Acts” working their way through state legislatures.
The Acts would mandate age verification and parental approval for minors under the age of 18 when it comes to the downloading or purchase of apps utilized by smartphone or computer users. The explosion of laws meant to protect minors from potentially harmful online content perhaps sounds noble at first glance, but with a second pass the laws read as superfluous. That is so because businesses, like parents, require no laws to look after the wellbeing of their customers. Precisely because they want to earn their loyalty, doing well by their customers comes naturally.
Considering protections for children, Apple already has a full suite of family-sharing features that put parents in control of how their kids interact with the internet. In other words, Apple is well ahead of lawmakers.
It’s already installed controls on its various devices that allow parents to block what they don’t want their children to access. The controls empower parents to limit downloads, along with purchases.
Regarding illicit content, parents can activate features that blur not just any nude photos sent to their children, but crucially the ones their children might send. Since the internet is “forever” in a very real sense, Apple is helping parents protect their children from the occasional downsides of the previous truth.
Regarding screentime, Apple has installed parental controls that make it possible for them to strictly limit how much time their kids are using Apple products. These controls include bedtime shutdown features so that parents can rest easy when their kids aren’t.
Arguably most important of all, Apple has made it simple for parents to create online accounts for their children. This means that parents are very much involved with what their children see, all the while knowing what they see when they’re not looking.
About what Apple has done well ahead of state legislators, the easy response might be that parents willing and eager to police online content seen, downloaded and purchased by their children are not the purpose of the legislation. Instead, the laws are being crafted to help the kids whose parents either aren’t presently vigilant about protecting their kids, don’t understand how to utilize the technology already in existence to protect their kids, or both. It all perhaps reads as noble at first glance, but it’s worse than superfluous. It’s quite dangerous.
Seriously, how harmful it will be if the passage of laws billed as protection for children (or the children not being parented enough) gives parents false comfort of the sort that results in them reducing their vigilance even a little or, in the case of seemingly indifferent parents, frees them to reduce their vigilance quite a lot. The various App Accountability Acts aren’t protecting children, rather they’re potentially fostering a false sense of parental security at a time when insecurity resulting in greater parental oversight is most needed.
The simple truth is that quality parental outcomes can’t be legislated, nor can they be forced. The good news is that parents don’t need a law to be good, watchful parents, and as the technology installed on Apple devices already makes abundantly plain, Apple similarly doesn’t need a law to help its customers protect their children.
