[QOTD #19] COPPA

[El Héroe Oscuro]

Question Of The Day #19: Do you believe the age dictated by COPPA is accurate?

Under the guidance of the Federal Trade Commission, any website that collects information from children under the age of 13 must comply the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA abbreviated. What this essentially means is that children who are under this age must get permission from their parent or legal guardian to access the site through a series of hoops that they must jump through. For a second though, let's say that COPPA doesn't exist. Disregarding other sites, what do you think the age should be in which a person is independently able to go on PC? Do you think it should be higher than 13, lower than 13, or do you believe the age depicted by COPPA is accurate? Thinking back to when you joined PC, do you feel like you were mature enough to handle the topics that PC had, or do you think it was a little much for you?

Feel free to discuss all entities of this topic below.​

 

[Musicality]

Before getting to the main topic, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that COPPA can be said not to even exist, because from what I know if you're under 13 and want to register for the forums without parental consent, no one is going to stop you. The main reason for COPPA is to protect kids from sensitive material that could affect them negatively, but unlike other forums and from what I've seen so far, PC is a really "clean" and friendly forum in a sense, but I think that the bar should still be set at 13. I'll try to prove my viewpoints in the paragraphs below.

First of all, maturity level. It'll be a sweeping statement to say that everyone below 13 isn't mature and typeslkyethis b/c yoloswag yo, but if you look at other forums (e.g MineCraft Forums), you'll see many people who are in the 12-14 age range typing in that style. Typing that way not only makes the forum hard to read, it also dosen't facilitate discussion. For the kids below 13 that are able to conduct themselves maturely, then I think they'll be mature enough to ask their parents.

Second, will be the exposure that kids get. There will be the occasional user who goes around using horrible language and despite the censors it'll grow on the child over time, and some of the topics in the Discussion and Debates section may be too mature or too sensitive for kids to handle appropriately. And in the event of occasional flame wars the kid may get because of the reason in the above paragraph, it'll leave a negative impression on him.

The community at PC is really friendly and I have yet to meet people that rub me the wrong way or even trolls on the forum, so if not for the benefit of the majority of the members that are over 13, this seems like a fine environment for kids to browse through, but not to get involved. It is the Internet after all, and by going through COPPA they'll have parental guidance and be able to better navigate and contribute to the forums in whatever way they can.

While COPPA should be kept, I feel that there needs to be a system that can more accurately weed out the members who are faking their age to get in, because without chatting with them privately which they may not want to, you can't prove that they're under 13. Personally, it's not about the age, it's about the maturity level, so COPPA can only do so much. If a six year old comes on here, evades the system and contributes really actively to the forums, why not? It's not correct, but age only has a general relationship with maturity level.

^~^For walls of text.^~^

 

[Nick]

Anyone can lie about their age on the internet, so I'm not sure why COPPA exists in the first place. Not too many people probably follow it. I'm generalizing, but these days, a lot of parents give their kids free reign with pretty limited restrictions to go on the internet.

 

[Auticorn]

I think that COPPA is a good thing. It keeps PC out of trouble, and it helps limit those who join that are under the age of thirteen. While, I do agree that kids can easily lie about there age, it's usually proven they aren't the age they say they are. I've seen this plenty of times on PC before. You gotta remember that PC isn't all sunshine and daisies. It has a dark side such as the debate forum and stuff like that.

Usually, by the age of thirteen, parents stop caring what their child does online, unless they are doing things they aren't supposed to. Like, for example, trying to meet up with a complete stranger they hardly even know. That's usually when **** hits the fan. I actually think thirteen is a perfect age for COPPA because as I said, thirteen is when you become a teenager. By then, you are usually responsible for your own actions.

 

[Nah]

I've always kinda thought of COPPA as the anti-dumbass clause of the internet. Ya know, those warnings that are on products and stuff solely for the really dumb but sue-happy people. Things like:

"Do not ingest this obviously toxic chemical, and if you do ingest this chemical, do X, Y, and Z"

or

"Warning! This product is really really hot and should not be placed between your legs"

Basically what I think COPPA is for is so negligent parents can't sue a website because they get offended when their 8 year old kid sees something they maybe shouldn't have even though they should be regulating what their kid does on the internet to some degree at that age.

Is 13 the best age for this? IDK. Like Musicality said, you have plenty of mature children, and plenty of immature adults, so it's hard to find a good age limit for COPPA.

And yeah, it's pretty easy for people to lie about their age on the internet, but we can't really be held accountable if we have no other way to truly verify a person's age. What are we supposed to do, send Dark Templars to every user's house and spy on them to see if they really are the age they say they are on here?

 

[Musicality]

I've always kinda thought of COPPA as the anti-dumbass clause of the internet. Ya know, those warnings that are on products and stuff solely for the really dumb but sue-happy people. Things like:

"Do not ingest this obviously toxic chemical, and if you do ingest this chemical, do X, Y, and Z"

or

"Warning! This product is really really hot and should not be placed between your legs"

Basically what I think COPPA is for is so negligent parents can't sue a website because they get offended when their 8 year old kid sees something they maybe shouldn't have even though they should be regulating what their kid does on the internet to some degree at that age.

Is 13 the best age for this? IDK. Like Musicality said, you have plenty of mature children, and plenty of immature adults, so it's hard to find a good age limit for COPPA.

And yeah, it's pretty easy for people to lie about their age on the internet, but we can't really be held accountable if we have no other way to truly verify a person's age. What are we supposed to do, send Dark Templars to every user's house and spy on them to see if they really are the age they say they are on here?

god I love the way you type

Yeah, main points right there. Though we don't really have much that parents could sue us for, any kid browsing through most of the forums won't feel the least bit traumatized, heck, we don't even have a "troll/spam" forum of sorts. Age dosen't even really matter, as I've stated in my earlier post. Even if we set the age limit to 20, immature adults who don't bother to spellcheck will still exist. The forums seem to be fine with COPPA in place though, let's hope that this deters some of the kids that are afraid the FBI is gonna track them down and send an official government letter to their parents. It's pretty much all we can do, and there's really no need to put in place too many measures because it can all be avoided.

 

[Morgnarok]

Anyone can lie about their age on the internet, so I'm not sure why COPPA exists in the first place. Not too many people probably follow it. I'm generalizing, but these days, a lot of parents give their kids free reign with pretty limited restrictions to go on the internet.

My exact thoughts on the matter.

 

[Aquacorde]

idk like others have said: COPPA's pretty pointless. everyone lies about their age if they actually want to get on a site. if parents are actually regulating a child's internet dealings then that's going to be more effective than websites trying to regulate by age.

for PC in particular, there's not a lot going on that would be particularly damaging to kids. at the most they'll like, not really get what's going on/not be able to handle themselves socially with an older crowd/get themselves in trouble through immaturity and ignorance.
imo the age people are able to handle pc's environment is dependant on the individual, as with all things. like, when i was eleven, i just... stayed out of what i didn't know about. and hung around with people more my age and that i felt i could communicate with well. certainly being here requires an acceptable degree of literacy and comprehension skills- it's a discussion-based forum where communication is almost entirely done via text. you gotta be able to communicate because that is the point of the place. but then you have a huge range of topics that encompass a vast array of knowledge/maturity levels. like by all means stay out of d&d if you ain't know politics and social issues and that. but anyone can chill in poketriv or talk about aspects of the games.

in any case idc about coppa tbh it legit does not matter. i mean while it is in place, pc is legally obliged to weed out those under 13, just in case parents for whatever reason choose to take legal action (like who would even do that what the hell) but i personally dont give a **** and pc can't really be held responsible if people choose to lie about their ages so