App Store Parental Approval: A Simple Solution Backed by SD Parents
by Dr. Steven Meyer
The future of any nation is solely in the hands of its ensuing generation. It is my children and yours who will dictate the agendas, priorities and vision for our nation for decades to come. Unfortunately, the current youth of this country are being molded and guided by ever-changing and at times diabolical forces outside the moral and appropriate guidance of family, community, church and local educational Systems.
As access to the internet, social media and smartphones grow exponentially, our children’s formative guidance is being shifted from familiar allies to diverse and at times nefarious sources throughout the world. While exposure to alternative lifestyles and ideas can be enlightening, it can also lead impressionable youths down irreversible paths of calamity.
During my upbringing decades ago, while I read voraciously, it was my parents, pastors and teachers who provided firm guidance to monitor the appropriate and unacceptable material which was available. It behooves us as citizens to demand that our legislatures provide us as parents with appropriate tools to regulate our youth internet app usage to protect them from diabolical influences.
As a father to six children, it is inconceivable that I have little or variable control of my children’s online access and encounters. More concerning is certain governmental attempts to usurp the authority of parents by dictating and allowing minors access to inappropriate content. State lawmakers must focus on solutions that empower parents to enforce healthy online habits in line with each families’ individual viewpoints and priorities. Government must not be allowed to parent our children!
While parenteral control tools do exist, they are universally confusing and cannot begin to keep up with evolving technology and the ever-increasing plethora of new internet applications. A ubiquitous system which would require parental consent as a blanket tool would solve this confusing landscape.
Fortunately for parents the South Dakota legislature’s study committee on AI and regulation of Internet Access by Minors is considering a parent focused proposal to circumvent the current ineffective and burdensome system which will require all children under 16 to obtain parent permission before they can download any new app. Because app stores are centralized hubs for activity, setting parental approval guardrails in app stores ensures parents will be given a simple, powerful tool for protecting their kids from access to harmful sites.
South Dakota could be the first state in the nation to mandate App Store parental approval for all children under the age of 16. Based on current polling by Concerned Women for America of South Dakota, an overwhelming 85% of South Dakota parents polled support requiring app stores to obtain parental approval for teens under 16 years of age to download their apps. Furthermore 79% of them trust app stores more than individual apps to be utilized as gatekeepers for parents and children’s personal information and internet app access.
This simple legislative solution, which is already supported by the vast majority of South Dakota parents, will empower parents to ensure that their kids are not accessing inappropriate apps and internet content. Parents must stay in charge of what their children can access on their devices.
As a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, I strongly urge the South Dakota study committee on AI and regulation of internet access by minors to hear this call from parents like myself. We want to maintain authority over our children’s upbringing and not be overpowered by government and nefarious outside influence. Please put the future of our state and our country first by passing the committee proposal to require app store parental approval.
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Imagine that another autocratic Republican is calling for expanding government (at the cost to the taxpayer) and using concern for “future generations” as a justification. If you were so concerned about kids, you wouldn’t be creating this expanding system of government, taking us into more debt, which will crash the USD as the leader in international trade. Please spare me the BS; you have an addiction to power, you want to control people, you have no willpower to pacify the urges, and this push to “make it a law” feeds your addiction. We don’t need the government to control the internet; we need parents to parent; promote that if you genuinely care about “the future generations,” but we all know you won’t because, like all addicts, this won’t stop until they get their fix.
I also am a parent. I also have tried to shepherd my children’s journey within the electric world. You are always chasing a moving target.
All the young person has to do is intercept the password phase of the login and any rule is unenforceable except in a punitive act..and how are you going to find an individual to prosecute who likely lives on the opposite side of the world in a state condoning his activity?
This is an issue whose policy and enforcement has to remain in the home, not government’s hands. The only sure way to prevent noncompliance would currently be some type of device attached to the physical body of the child that would then disable the electronic device they are in proximity of…. mandatory implant likely…a horror I would never never support.
My children are raised with an understanding of our family morals, expectations, and rules. When they encounter something their older friends are viewing that likely exceeds the “rating” of their age I trust them to react appropriately. They have come to discuss it with parents or siblings….or like the jc penny catalog or playboy magazines stuffed under the bed of yesteryear they exist and you deal with it as PARENTS. The State will never do it right, that is fascism.