If kids want to be on social media badly enough, they will find a way regardless of approval and permission from their parents. They get banned from Meta and TikTok, they just band together and move to an app not on the list. I agree that people need to know if something is harmful. All the effort and money going into a ban, would’ve been better spent on media literacy and education on how algorithms work, and the addictive nature of some platforms. This is the reason why none of my kids are interested in most social media. Because they know how awful it is. YouTube is a bit more grey, IMO. I filter out shorts for my kids, but they’ve learned a lot of stuff over the years. Yet Roblox isn’t banned? That should’ve been top of the list. Identity verification is a privacy and security nightmare. People should not be required to provide their identity to participate in discussions, or even worse, use their own device.

Yep. I’ve since deleted it, but I had to verify my identity on my FB account, which i’d had since 2008. Math is a thing 🙄.

They learned from countries like Australia huh? Australian here, did they learn how much its not working 😂🙄! None of my kids have anything other than YouTube, but my 9yo knew how to get around it. He doesn’t because he just watches in a browser with ad blockers and we monitor it. My high schooler reports the many and varied ways kids just changed where they go online to continue their crap. Do I think under 16s should be on social media, no. But identity verification is not going to fix that.

Taking photos.

Hopefully. It’ll be both good an bad. Do the majority of people know it exists? Or was it just me living under a rock until a few weeks ago 😂?

GrapheneOS keyboard sends to Google?

2. Thanks everyone, for the very entertaining lunch break read!

I’ve recently switched too, from iPhone 15 pro to pixel 10 pro. I’d also spent a few weeks slowly swapping out iOS apps for as many Foss as possible. I’m still fumbling my way around GOS, but mostly love it. I loathe iOS 26. Seriously wtf was that? I’m finding battery life better on the pixel, I like the Foss and android apps better. I enjoy using a bare minimum of Google apps without allowing them access to everything. If I could ditch them altogether I would, but my travel apps wouldn’t work without Google play.

For profiles, I ended up with bare minimum on my daily driver, including Gplay and travel stuff. I put my socials (decentralised only) and book apps on a separate profile. This adds a layer to access these, which helps reduce time on them.

I haven’t had a chance to play with camera apps yet, and I need to try different keyboards as I’m not loving the GOS one.

A minor complaint is not being able to send emoji reactions to text messages. I know, I know, privacy is more important than emojis. But I like annoying my husband with exploding unicorns every now and then.

Anyone thinking of changing, do it! I’m a tech noob and it was really easy to switch. Just takes a bit of research to get your head around it all.

This thread is the best thing I’ve read today 🤣

Full time parent to 5 sons. Love the privilege of being able to do it. Love my coworker 😂. The products have mostly turned out awesome, development is coming along nicely. Versions 1, 2 and 3 have matured with v1 having been released into the wild. Versions 4 and 5 are entering their feral grunting phase, hopefully a couple more years of research will yield good results. Lack of pay is annoying.

I’ve already degoogled, I’m on an iPhone 15 pro and have mostly deappled as well. Only iCloud remaining, because I can’t decide which alternative to go with. Ente probably, I mainly use it for photos. I just keep reading all the threads I can find on Pixel/GOS. I think the only hesitation I have left is the camera quality. I read mixed opinions. At first I was horrified at having to buy a Google phone in order to degoogle, but I’ve come round to finding it kinda funny that it can be done!

I have the book! I am currently waiting on my new prescription reading glasses so I can bloody well read it 😡. I lost my reading glasses in December. Wanting to read this book finally moved me from denial into making an eye test appointment 🙄🤦‍♀️

Unnecessary but fun, same here. Literally no one would gain anything interesting by hacking into my laptop. Maybe they’ll learn that I’m autistic af then run away scared from the evidence of adhd hyper fixations that have been loved, then abandoned? Yubikey is on my list to explore. Then there’s the whole self hosting rabbit hole. So much to see, so little time.

How are you liking your GrapheneOS phone? Which one did you get? I’m eyeing a pixel 10 pro.

I wish more men would have this conversation. I’m raising 5 sons and I decided early on to have some really blunt, uncomfortable conversations with them (age appropriate of course), to combat this. It’s worked, as far as I know. One kid, now adult, sometimes struggles with it. Porn, and toxic masculinity traits. But he talks about it openly and actively combats it.

You quit porn to show respect for your partner! Congrats. As a woman, whose ex husband was addicted to porn, what you did is commendable. This wasn’t the sole reason he earned the title of ex husband, but it was a massive contributing factor.

Currently learning tech stuff to improve digital privacy. Not to a totally anonymous level, but better than completely oblivious. Attempting not to annoy my family with digital security info dumps. Finally found time to install Linux on an old laptop to mess around with. Also trying to find online communities via decentralised platforms because I deleted everything Meta. Neurodivergent safe spaces are the one thing I miss, so if anyone has any suggestions to check out please let me know.

I’m still hyper focused on reading, this is a life long thing.

This month my intense fixation is learning about GrapheneOS and looking at Pixel phones so I can mess around with that. Then I had to dive into researching Garmin watches because I rely on my Apple Watch a lot to keep daily life functioning (hello time blindness 😂).