Top Russian Net Official Says Children Under 10 Shouldn't Go Online -- At All
from the changing-perceptions-of-reality dept
As Techdirt readers know only too well, doing things "for the children" is a perfect excuse to pass all kinds of ridiculous laws that would otherwise be thrown out without a thought. For example, back in 2013, we wrote about attempts to pass legislation in Russia that would ban swearing on the Internet. It was framed as an amendment to an existing law called "On the Protection of Children" that introduced a blacklist designed to block access to information on drugs, suicide and child pornography. Now the head of Roskomnadzor, the body that oversees website-blocking in Russia, has a bold proposal for protecting children from all the Internet's possible harms. It takes the "for the children" logic to its logical conclusion, as TorrentFreak explains:
In a Q&A session with AIF.ru, Alexander Zharov spoke on a number of issues, including online safety, especially for children. Naturally, kids need to be protected but the Rozcomnadzor chief has some quite radical ideas when it comes to them using the Internet.
"I believe that a child under 10-years-old should not go online. To use [the Internet] actively they need to start even later than that," Zharov said.
He went on to say:
"Some parents are proud of the fact that their three-year-old kid can deftly control a tablet and use it to watch cartoons. It is nothing good, in my opinion. A small child will begin to consider the virtual world part of the real world, and it changes their perception of reality."
This is presumably just Zharov's personal opinion, not a foreshadowing of official policy -- it's hard to believe the view that children under 10 years old should stay off the Net would ever be enshrined in a law. Then again, given some of the things that Russian officials have been suggesting, such as disconnecting Russia from the global Internet, you never know. And once people start invoking "for the children," common sense tends to go straight out of the window.
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...which obviously places children who have never been exposed to the internet before at a major disadvantage compared to children whose parents taught them how to use it correctly and responsibly. Even if Russia was able to somehow restrict everybody in their country so that they have all never seen the internet before the age of 10, that just places them at a disadvantage to other nations.
Just one of many reason why, while presumably honestly held and logical to a certain degree, this official's words are misguided.
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A small child will begin to consider the virtual world part of the real world, and it changes their perception of reality
And this is the current generational gap. To the older generation there is the real world and the virtual world, and they are separate and distinct and one is more important than the other. To the younger, there is just the world and sometime you interact with it virtually and sometimes you don't and increasingly you interact with it both virtually and not at the same time and in the end it doesn't matter all that much which one is which.
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I remember something about this
In the 1990s and aughts, children who played violent video games couldn't determine fantasy from reality. And they were fueling our epidemic of rampage killings.
Also kids watching violent cartoons in the late 20th century (e.g. Drip-along Daffy or all of the Wile E. Coyote / Road-Runner series) couldn't tell fantasy from reality either. All that violence by children involving guns and explosives was probably suppressed by a conspiracy of news agencies.
Nor could women reading saucy romance novels in the 18th century, which spurned a plague of barnyard adultery. I'm not sure on what previous centuries chose to blame their wayward women and debauched societies. But apparently enough women could read at all, that it was epidemic.
Oh, and bicycles cause lesbianism.
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Re: I remember something about this
The correct answer is chess.
That game was a waste of intellectual power and a burden on society.
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Yup.
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That's why they call it
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Oh come on...
Lets not beat around the bush, common sense leaves well BEFORE the invocation of "for the children".
We should all classify the phrase "for the children" as admitted proof that someone is forcing their beliefs on others.
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Re: Oh come on...
Sometimes that's a good thing. For example, some people believe that child pornography should be banned and force their belief on those who do not. "For the children."
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Re: Re: Oh come on...
Banning CP is obvious for a safe and proper society, not JUST "for the children".
"For the Children" is nothing but psychological warfare used to imply that anyone not signing up for your draconian bullshit is actually all for the wrong thing. People that have to do this to advance their position are up to no good. 100% of the time!
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Re: Re: Re: Oh come on...
If it's not "for the children" it's "because _______," usually terrorism. I have no time for boogeyman politics. The minute one invokes the boogeyman as a rationale by demonising the opposition instead of challenging them, one loses the right to be taken seriously.
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Re: Re: Re: Oh come on...
If it's not "for the children" it's "because _______," usually terrorism. I have no time for boogeyman politics. The minute one invokes the boogeyman as a rationale by demonising the opposition instead of challenging them, one loses the right to be taken seriously.
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General government quote
'Yeah, messes up with our own conditioning(education), control and manipulation.......how dare ye'
Politicunt translation
'For the children'
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As in any decent country, this is great. You're entitled to your opinion and should be free to express it. The luddite should be as free to express his opinion as the digital native.
However, if you're going to start passing laws, you need to have evidence that shows that not only is your opinion true, but that the remedy for the problem you're looking at is both effective and not worse than the original issue. Order studies, gather evidence and present it with a chance for others to contradict or disprove your claims.
The problem isn't politicians having silly opinions, it's when they try to impose policy based on nonsense. A person can have all sorts of dumb ideas, so long as they ensure that the laws they impose on others have the weight of evidence. This should be the case no matter which nation you represent.
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And that kids should be protected when beginning to use the web. In this case I agree with his comments, but in the context of who it is saying it and his role in censorship, they deserve to be taken with a large dose of sceptical caution.
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I agree children shouldn't be exposed to TV too early. There are many other skills and neurological stages of development which benefit from interaction with the real world. The TV world isn't 'real', in the sense that our brains don't respond to it the same way.
I agree children shouldn't be exposed to books too early. There are many other skills and neurological stages of development which benefit from interaction with the real world. The written world isn't 'real', in the sense that our brains don't respond to it the same way.
I agree children shouldn't be exposed to comics too early. There are many other skills and neurological stages of development which benefit from interaction with the real world. The drawn world isn't 'real', in the sense that our brains don't respond to it the same way.
There's plenty of ways to rewrite this to apply to most traditional media. The real issue isn't whether or not children are exposed to a particular media, it's whether their parents are using it as a substitute babysitter or whether they're restricting them to short, supervised sessions. But, the same has been true of most media in the past as well. I'd personally argue that exposure to the internet and tablets is less problematic than sitting them in front of the TV, since at least they're interacting and learning, even if others would prefer they learn from playing outside.
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Burden of proof
Saying "go find it yourself" doesn't meet the burden of proof on the person making a claim.
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The tone suggests that Nik is the former, so hopefully he'll furnish the rest of us with some citations when he realises that making every reader of this site research his claims for him isn't the best method to have a good conversation.
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Otherwise, you end up going down the rabbit hole of "I'm right, you're wrong, just read the research". Then, when people do that and find different research and/or reach different conclusions the dishonest tend to just go "you're doing it wrong" without ever being willing to discuss or provide the "real" citations.
In other words "Google it" is a very poor response to someone asking for citations for *your* claims. Don't be that dishonest ass, nobody likes him and he's usually a liar.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Research
If you want to win me over, back up your assertions with a link to data we can check and, if need be, challenge.
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And calling that Phyrric would be overstretching..
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ID laws are already in place for liquor purchase. It's illegal for a child (or anyone under 18) to buy booze over here in the UK. I believe the restriction applies to people under 21 in the US (correct me if I'm wrong).
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The required ID is very well established, usually required for things other than simply buying alcohol and nobody is tracked outside of the purchase transaction. On top of that, restriction of alcohol to minors is based on solid medical evidence, not a "for the children" excuse made up with zero supporting evidence. So, most people aren't going to have a problem with its execution, unlike the scenario I presented. That scenario would require mandatory ID for all citizens, which will then inevitably be constantly tracked and abused, while there's no basis for the restriction at all other than the feelings of a random politician.
So, it's not only a dumb logical fallacy and a poor attempt at distracting from what I said, it's a badly conceived comparison that fails on its own logic as rebuttal.
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Guess I shouldn't be shocked that such a thing exists, but since donny is such a bigly fan of putin - how long till this POS arrives on our doorstep?
On a side note, since they will now be assuring no children are on line, they can remove all prior restrictions put in place "for the children" ..... right? .. right?
LOL - fat chance.
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I'm getting really tired of this bitching about us uppity peasants demanding rights equal to those enjoyed by the rich and powerful.
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