this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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There's certainly more to it than just a gimmick. One of the most important things is web filtering for content, which is a useful parental control because children should not be exposed to porn, graphic violence, and other types of mentally harmful content. Controls may not be able to stop everything but they can definitely hinder and slow down the process at least.
This.
I'm really tired of people letting perfect behaviour the enemy of good in every single online discussion.
I'm very well aware that parental controls aren't a 100% foolproof protection for my daughters, but that certainly doesn't make them useless.
Based on that mentality we may as well not ban murder, because some people break the law anyway. We may as well not have vaccines, because no vaccine is 100% effective for all people. It's so brain-dead.
To be more clear, I mean when parental controls are added to an app they are almost always half baked and inserted as a marketing gimmick.
As a whole parental controls are definitely important for parents to utilize to the best of their abilities, it’s just hard to actually implement them on the application level as opposed to the network or device level.
Executing them effectively is extraordinarily difficult though. They are a gimmick in the sens most of the time they give a false sense of security. Trying to get the working in a way that allows kids to use devices effectively but blocks what you want them to block is a very hard line to walk. When you finally feel like you are close there's a new app or something changes and it's like you are starting all over again. Apple perhaps has the most usable and consistent ecosystem for this, but it's still not all that good and the cost of the relative simplicity is a lack of granular control when you want it.
I'm not claiming to have the answer, but I can understand why people are scared and frustrated with the current state of parental controls.