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I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

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Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#21

Post by gabbygab »

wallflower wrote: post #2

A few parents have always tried to use their kids as a means for more than attention (fame, money, power). Now that advertisers see the influence that a few parents have, they are rabid with dollars. On the far left side of the power law curve of that, we have: “Online and Making Thousands, at Age 4: Meet the Kidfluencers“ https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/business/media/social-med... https://news.ycombinator.com/it…

You mean like the british royal family? Politicians? Movie stars? Which the news exploits for money as well?

It's so funny how the media pushes neverending anti-social media stories and yet exploits children themselves for money.

Is it okay when the elites and the news industry does it but not when ordinary people do it?

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#22

Post by coldtea »

Insanity wrote: post #12
franciscojgo wrote: post #4

I'm more surprised by the story telling and narrative of the 14 year old author! Impressed. Pretty sure the only thing I was worrying about when 14 was how to get past the min. word count and not use "however" so much.

Indeed, really impressive. It also impressed me to see what she's involved in at school: > Sonia Bokhari is an 8th grader and a persuasive and narrative writer. She is also the leader of her middle school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and a member of the school’s Environmental Club. She might not be the average 14yo :)

Yeah, she might be the parent-pressured 14yo.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#23

Post by jerf »

franciscojgo wrote: post #4

I'm more surprised by the story telling and narrative of the 14 year old author! Impressed. Pretty sure the only thing I was worrying about when 14 was how to get past the min. word count and not use "however" so much.

It's edited, of course.

Since this is the 21st century and everyone's on a hair trigger for reasons to be offended, everyone in magazines like that is edited, so there's nothing particular about this author getting edited. Magazines have editors for a reason. Nobody produces the best prose on their own without any editing.

The only thing in the article that really struck me as strained was the "We are also the next generation of engineers and innovators," bit. Wouldn't be surprised that was a whole-cloth editorial insertion.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#24

Post by beamatronic »

ravenstine wrote: post #14
MattBearman wrote: post #6

My wife and I recently had our first child, and we decided we didn't want her to have any kind of social media presence until she was old enough to make that decision for herself. It's been a challenge ensuring friends and family don't post stuff about our daughter, but reading this reinforces that we're making the right choice.

One of the reasons I left Facebook was the amount of web presence people give their young children. It's not that I don't think children are adorable. I'm talking about parents who have a baby and then spend every day posting photos about every event in the child's life. I know 3 people in my relatively small circle who have been posting on behalf of their children for years . Maybe I'm a freak, but I think there's s…

To your point about strangers: There are two basic ways to use social media: public to the world and friends only. I feel like the first is a non starter, do you feel the same about the second use-case?

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#25

Post by aboutruby »

Being anonymous or more likely pseudo-anonymous is very undervalued. I think there is already a trend but in the future people are likely to have many pseudo-anonymous identities and one public one with as few data possible and as curated as possible.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#26

Post by karangoeluw »

coldtea wrote: post #20

> When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed. Well, that's because you're 13, the age when kids turn blase and embarrassed about being kids, and of the childish things they used to like. It's not like her mother did anything specially wrong, e.g. posting the letter to the tooth fairy, and so on. It's only embarrassing to her because she's 1…

Just because your wound will get better tomorrow doesn't mean the pain today is invalid

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#28

Post by aboutruby »

coldtea wrote: post #20

> When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed. Well, that's because you're 13, the age when kids turn blase and embarrassed about being kids, and of the childish things they used to like. It's not like her mother did anything specially wrong, e.g. posting the letter to the tooth fairy, and so on. It's only embarrassing to her because she's 1…

Won't you mind sharing your childhood photos then? Things you wrote, things you said, things you did? That were captured without your permission?

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#29

Post by samayylmao »

coldtea wrote: post #20

> When I saw the pictures that she had been posting on Facebook for years, I felt utterly embarrassed, and deeply betrayed. Well, that's because you're 13, the age when kids turn blase and embarrassed about being kids, and of the childish things they used to like. It's not like her mother did anything specially wrong, e.g. posting the letter to the tooth fairy, and so on. It's only embarrassing to her because she's 1…

I respectfully disagree. Children have a right to their own privacy from the rest of the world and it is a parents' responsibility to respect that. My son is only 11 months old but neither my wife, our family/friends, or myself post pictures of him or any intimate details on social media. They can be shared privately but not on social media.

Re: I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me

#30

Post by citilife »

MattBearman wrote: post #6

My wife and I recently had our first child, and we decided we didn't want her to have any kind of social media presence until she was old enough to make that decision for herself. It's been a challenge ensuring friends and family don't post stuff about our daughter, but reading this reinforces that we're making the right choice.

We did a similar thing, ask that no photos be posted, no discussions, etc. from family members

Obviously, there are still "leaks", but clearly discussing it with people and explaining why usually is enough. Although we get some strange looks, I explain what I personally can do with just a small dataset, and then people respect it.

I think it's probably the single largest threat to our society, because it's essentially normalizing zero-privacy. I personally think it should be a choice that can be made at 14 or something. I'm a libertarian, but I often think laws to protect children are relatively good. As such, I think a law protecting a child's privacy is probably something we as a society should consider. Implementation would be quite difficult, however.

The problem has more to do with the future adult. My work related to ML has me horrified to think of the future. With enough data about a child (and enough of a training dataset), it should be possible to predict outcomes (political leaning, wealth, death, etc.)

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