Parenting & Family Quote by Mike Fitzpatrick

“Internet safety begins at home” is the kind of line politicians love because it flatters everyone: parents feel empowered, government sounds supportive, and nobody has to argue about whose job it really is. Fitzpatrick’s intent is clear and practical on paper: make the FTC build a single, authoritative “clearinghouse” site where families and educators can find guidance about online risks. It’s governance by brochure, but updated for the browser era.

The subtext is where the quote does its real work. The home-first framing shifts the burden of cybersecurity and digital literacy away from platforms and onto individuals. It’s a familiar American move: treat a structural problem as a personal responsibility project. You can hear the political calculus in the phrasing. “Surfing the Internet” dates it to a moment when the web still felt like a frontier with hidden predators and pop-up landmines, a place children might wander into rather than a set of always-on systems designed to keep them scrolling.

Choosing the FTC is also telling. It positions internet danger as a consumer-protection issue, not primarily a law-enforcement or civil-liberties one. That’s safer rhetorically: it avoids the surveillance and censorship fights that come with harsher proposals, while still signaling “we’re doing something.” A website mandate is low-cost, highly legible, and politically easy to message.

The catch is baked into the solution: information can’t outpace incentives. A government resource page can help, but it doesn’t change the design choices, data collection, and recommendation engines that manufacture risk at scale.