I think a conversation on how to make sure parental controls are as easy to use and understandable as possible is warranted. I just don’t see a lot of that, it’s mainly either saying the government should ban all adult content or parents just shouldn’t give their kids technology without a reasonable middle ground. If you set your kid up with a new iPhone as a child account it’ll already by default give you some sane defaults and tries to have a simple interface for you to change it how you want.
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I like this, a lot. Empower parents from all backgrounds with the knowledge they need to protect their family, without a need for federal intervention. Perhaps a compilation of tips, tricks, and best practices for parental privacy control, hosted somewhere reputable & accessible 
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Or a “family friendly” checkbox people can click while setting up their internet/tv/phone. Deal with the family shield for a few years until they’ve grown up.
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Internet blockers aren’t very effective, you can get around it via third party DNS or VPNs. Parental controls on their devices are the best privacy-preserving solution (ones without any surveillance features, they just block content). There’s third party services that are tantamount to spyware for constantly surveilling your kid and I think that’s the wrong approach. Just use the built-in controls.
I think if a kid is busting out third party dns and VPN then a parent needs to start taking a lot more extra steps. Like confiscating electronics.
A checkbox temporarily signing up for a family blacklist from the service provider will do a decent job for 95% of families. Until eventually that 5% gets blown into a big deal.
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I think if a kid is able to figure out that they can work around network based parental controls with third party DNS they’ve earned a little extra freedom.
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A lot of routers already have that as an option when you’re setting it up and even if it doesn’t you can easily add a DNS filter. I don’t think it even needs to be something the actual ISP knows about, a local solution is better.
I think it’s option number 1.
By most objective data points, kids today are actually better off than they were 30 years ago.
As a young, tech savvy millennial I had full access to the open internet since middle school. There are plenty of damaging things that happened to me in my youth. None of them involved an internet connection. If anything communities I found on the internet were a huge help to me to deal with the shitty IRL stuff.
You are vastly overestimating the abilities of the average person. Ask people on the street what a DNS is.
Most people I know just get a box from the telephone company that they stick somewhere in the house and use the WiFi password that comes on the label.
Anything more complicated than a checkbox will have a big failure rate. Skilled parents I’m sure won’t need said checkbox but millions will.
And to clarify, I mean a checkbox when they’re signing up for service. Or when they’re paying a bill.
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I guess that’s part of my point though, network level blocking is more complicated and less effective than just using the simple built in controls on your kid’s device. I’m not really understanding what the benefit is.
More complicated and less effective, but for the end user (parents) a lot more simpler. People without kids will scoff at the checkbox and ignore it. Parents who don’t have time at the moment to configure everything just check the box. Maybe they’ll get around to setting up parental controls and turn off the shield at a later date.
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Isn’t everybody kind of right in this thread?
It’s easy to argue that parents failed their job applying parental control on their router for instance or their devices.
Why is that though?
Most people I know don’t even know they can access their router and configure it the way they want. Some might know it’s a possibility, but it’s too scary for them because they have no idea how.
Is it stupid bad parents negligence that don’t think about their kids? Of course it’s not. Pretty much all parents care about their kids.
So who’s to blame then? Is it the government, not doing its job in educating society on how the internet of things work?
You could even argue that it is all of us in this community that are not doing our job educating other people on that stuff.
I agree with @nateb, I think all 3 are right. Beside, at least in democracies, we are the government.
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What happened to supervised screen time? Most of the damage is done when a child is alone with the device. An adult should be able to see the screen at all times. If that isn’t possible then use a hybrid approach. Allow the child to consume media without interactivity. Take away the remote, or keyboard, in this instance. This is the best of both worlds.
I don’t think you need to surveil your kid to protect them though, parental controls are quite powerful and granular these days. You can preserve your child’s privacy while also keeping them safe.
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I disagree up to the age of 12. Have you seen the brain rot that constitutes children’s entertainment these days? An innocent looking Pepa Pig cartoon could have violent or sexual themes. Elsa and Spiderman. It’s disturbing. The YouTube Kids section isn’t suitable for children. Every video needs to be screened. Children don’t have a right to privacy in terms of what they watch online. I would only allow vetted YouTube channels or media I watched as a child.
I checked and YouTube have thankfully removed most of the disturbing Peppa Pig videos.
I think it should be “you can respect your child’s privacy while also keeping them safe”.
Some children will literally only use corporate apps. Some kids will be tor browser gurus. And this is a reality where child predators will literally target kids who have nobody monitoring them.
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This is why I advocate for LAN only computing in private spaces. Banning PornHub or forcing them to withdraw is pointless. An iPad works without WAN. Use a Jellyfin server or go back to DVDs. Glue a piece of plastic over the cameras and seal up the microphone holes. Airgap the child so they develop skills for the modern world without all of the irrelevant noise of the internet.
You would make them a social outsider, not good. Policing teenagers is also not great for building a relationship. I would recommend parental controls to teach very young children about turning off screens, but spying on your own kids, or relying on software to block adult content is time-consuming and doesn’t prepare teenagers for the real world at all.
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Is being exposed to porn and other adult content as a teenager actually important for “preparing for the real world”?
Edited a part out, I think I took it out of context
Also I think you missed a very important point of @ZenByte arguments 
I’m with PD on this. Kids need to learn healthy behaviors more than theyd benefit from being forced into perfection.
The child who learns to eat junk food in moderation will continue to eat healthy as an adult. The child who was never allowed to touch soda will only drink Coke through their 20s. The former knows how to control themself, the latter was never taught
God help the soul who discovers the internet in their 20s, and has no idea how to handle it bc NextDNS did all the work for two decades