Archive: https://archive.is/qeL2G
For background, Ghey was a transgender teenager who was killed by two other teenagers. Both were sentenced last week to life imprisonment with a minimum of 22 and 20 years respectively. They formulated their plans to kill a number of schoolchildren by befriending them and using plans they researched.
Now Ghey's mother has spoken to the BBC (who else?) to denounce the Internet as the "wild west" and calling for the state to restrict what children can view online in a way that would only work by removing access to the Internet and implementing a UK style Intranet. She also claims that it is impossible for parents to parent their children - therefore the state must intervene - by requiring all technology and what citizens see to be restricted by the state.
As we live in a time where people are treated like children by default, you are assumed to be a child by default (the Online Safety Act requires different treatment for content not "safe for kids" as an example), the desire that people need to be protected from themselves and everything must be done "for the children" and "for your own good".
For example, in North Korea, the general public have no access to the Internet. They do have access to Kwangmyong, the heavily restricted Intranet where everything citizens see and the technology used to access it is wholly controlled by the state.
Another case of not letting a tragedy go to waste.
ETA: Education Minister just told the BBC that they will be expanding age verification to all content not "safe for kids", not just pornography. Their preferred option to be introduced by 2025 is both Government Photo ID and live, on-going facial recognition. They're also not ruling out implementing an Intranet and banning the possession of technological devices for children.
She's on the right track: children shouldn't have unrestricted access to the internet (or rather, the internet shouldn't have unrestricted access to your children). But you don't need a special locked-down smartphone for that - just don't buy your kid a smartphone.
But shouldn't that be the role of parents and not the state, particularly one that treats everyone as children until proven otherwise?
I had largely unrestricted access to the internet from the age of 11/12 on, and that was back when it really was the wild west. It was far less dangerous back then because Discord troons grooming mentally ill kids into sexually mutilating themselves wasn't a problem back then. If the state ever wants to play a constructive role in internet safety (they don't and likely never will), shutting down tranny gathering places and enforcing antitrust laws against Big Tech would go a long way towards improving things.
They were just sitting in any open IRC chat ready to pounce, things weren't all that different back then.