Can Apple’s child safety feature backfire? Warnings may cause risky sharing

Apple’s plan to roll out tools to limit the spread of child sexual abuse material has drawn praise from some privacy and security experts as well as by child protection advocacy groups. There has also been an outcry about invasions of privacy.

These concerns have obscured another even more troublesome problem that has received very little attention: Apple’s new feature uses design elements shown by research to backfire.

One of these new features adds a parental control option to Messages that blocks the viewing of sexually explicit pictures. The expectation is that parental surveillance of the child’s behavior will decrease the viewing or sending of sexually explicit photos, but this is highly debatable.