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The case for banning children from social media

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Re: The case for banning children from social media

#71

Post by d110af5ccf »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #27
C50VGicCxmHC wrote: post #3

> These bills will likely face considerable constitutional challenges. Previous attempts to block minors from accessing Web sites via broad legislation, including the Child Online Protection Act, from 1998, have been struck down on First Amendment grounds. You might get farther instead of banning children from social media, ban all ads to children on social media. Every single ad impression shown to a child is a $1,0…

Hrm. I'm not a big fan of this proposal, but I think that implementation would be technically interesting. Say we create a "this is a child" header, which would be sent with all HTTP requests and would mandate that the user not be tracked or advertised to. Great solution, except that everybody would immediately switch the header on because everybody hates ads. In effect, everybody wants to be a child. So now online s…

> I'm not going to choose to "prove I'm an adult" to most of the Internet, just the sites I want to use.

Except for purchases and other business or government type interactions I flat out refuse to do this. I simply do not use web sites or services that require a real name. I only rarely use ones that require an email.

Yes, this means I don't use most commercial services and major websites. I honestly think I'm better off for it. But it's also a line in the sand and I feel much better for observing it.

HN doesn't require an email to sign up. If it did, I almost certainly would never have created an account here.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#72

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

> but I do use YouTube

I don't have Google auth cookies on my primary browser and every Google property has cookie autodeletion when the last tab is closed. Every time I start YouTube fresh, I get a new profile that I have to mold back to the content I prefer. On a fresh window I'm constantly bombarded with superficial crap I never click on. I'm also perplexed by the amount of T&A clickbait that gets offered in the shorts specifically. I have to spend time clicking animal videos to steer that to something less obnoxious.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#73

Post by AbrahamParangi »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #67
tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

Social media is unlike drugs in that if you abstain while your peers use you're in some ways worse off. I wonder if there's a narrower ban to be had, either on image usage or especially on filters

Drugs also have this property- although I think it’s probably more true in the case of drugs than it is for social media.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#74

Post by tastysandwich »

XorNot wrote: post #61
tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

As noted by another poster[1]: how are you going to enforce it? The idea of banning people from seeking things they want to do to themselves is incredibly stupid with the "War on Drugs" and it's equally stupid here with all the same consequences: a sudden explosion of either unregulated social media alternatives (back in the day Napster had a chat function even), or suspiciously immature "18 year olds" on Facebook an…

That's a really good point. And a case in point - I remember when I was 12, joining forums, there was always a prompt asking me if I was over the age of 13. Obviously I clicked yes and registered anyway!

But part of the danger is the ubiquity of it I think. Every teenager has social media, so there's this massive peer-pressure. If you don't have it, you get picked on. I wonder if banning it would reduce the numbers at least enough to reduce this effect.

I'm definitely not saying this is some silver bullet... But I think we have to do something, and maybe this is a reasonable starting point.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#75

Post by tastysandwich »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #66
XorNot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As noted by another poster[1]: how are you going to enforce it? The idea of banning people from seeking things they want to do to themselves is incredibly stupid with the "War on Drugs" and it's equally stupid here with all the same consequences: a sudden explosion of either unregulated social media alternatives (back in the day Napster had a chat function even), or suspiciously immature "18 year olds" on Facebook an…

> As noted by another poster[1]: how are you going to enforce it? The number of comments here that haven’t realized that any regulations would require huge privacy intrusions for everyone is weird to see. It’s like people are imaging some magical set of rules that would only apply to kids but wouldn’t impact themselves negatively.

Totally, that's why I figured it's easier to just ban it for under 18s, then leave it alone for over 18s. I'm an adult - I don't want to be told what I can and can't see.

(Obviously, "banning it" is not so clear-cut. Are you going to force Instagram to require that everyone uploads an ID to verify their age?)

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#76

Post by johnisgood »

tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

Why ban at all? Enforcing it is an issue. Privacy-intrusion is a given for everyone, not just kids. It probably would not work, similarly to any related bans. Again, why ban at all? Let the parents do the parenting... I guess? Or ban having sex without the use of contraceptives if you are so keen on banning.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#77

Post by d110af5ccf »

bastawhiz wrote: post #70
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hrm. I'm not a big fan of this proposal, but I think that implementation would be technically interesting. Say we create a "this is a child" header, which would be sent with all HTTP requests and would mandate that the user not be tracked or advertised to. Great solution, except that everybody would immediately switch the header on because everybody hates ads. In effect, everybody wants to be a child. So now online s…

> Let's say that there's a Government Identity office that, when you turn 18, grants you an Adult Citizen ID# security key that lets you verify your identity digitally. There's really no reason a non-SSN identification number couldn't be used for this. If SSNs weren't sensitive, you could just have a government endpoint that takes an SSN tells you whether the holder is over 18 (or "no, or the SSN is not valid). The o…

There's also nothing stopping the service from remembering this hypothetical SSN equivalent (or a fingerprint of it), exchanging data with other service providers, and tracking you that way.

There are certainly cryptographic primitives that can be used to solve the privacy concerns but I have approximately zero confidence that they would even be considered for use by the current technically illiterate batch of legislators.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#78

Post by [deleted] »

atahanacar wrote: post #64
andy_ppp wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But society stops minors from doing all sorts of harmful behaviors, like drinking, drugs, gambling, guns etc. I think we should consider limiting the algorithms applied to teenagers at least to being much simpler and maybe not allow personal information to be used. I don't think this is some loss of freedom we need to worry about.

>But society stops minors from doing all sorts of harmful behaviors, like drinking, drugs, gambling, guns etc. None of which affect my freedoms. >not allow personal information to be used I 100% agree with this. If a kid can't consent for anything else, how can they consent for their data being collected and processed? >I don't think this is some loss of freedom we need to worry about. You may not worry, but I do. On…

[deleted]

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#79

Post by Beaver117 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #52
C50VGicCxmHC wrote: post #3

> These bills will likely face considerable constitutional challenges. Previous attempts to block minors from accessing Web sites via broad legislation, including the Child Online Protection Act, from 1998, have been struck down on First Amendment grounds. You might get farther instead of banning children from social media, ban all ads to children on social media. Every single ad impression shown to a child is a $1,0…

Always baffling to see suggestions like this on HN: > Every single ad impression shown to a child is a $1,000 fine. > If you do that, social media companies will figure out how to keep kids from accessing their site. Do you really want to live in a world where every website forces you to log in and verify your state-issued ID? I think some people see the words “social media” and assume it only applies to sites they d…

I'm so tired of this argument. HN and Reddit are not social media. Is your real name Pragmatic Pulp? Do you post pictures/videos of yourself here, or update us about your family? I could go on but I hope you get it.

"Social Media" is a really specific term and it doesnt mean any random forum.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#80

Post by whats_a_quasar »

d110af5ccf wrote: post #56
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #14

There is a real public health issue here. Teen mental health really has fallen off a cliff in the last 10 years, in every measure available. Self-reported rates of depression and anxiety disorders have more than doubled. Suicides of 10-14 year olds have more than doubled. Suicides among 14-19 year olds have gone up ~50%. Hospital admissions for non-fatal self harm in girls 10-14 have ~tripled. It's not just an increa…

> Lots of people on HN have a strong reaction against any attempt to regulate the internet, from generations of moral panics about new things. No. That is absolutely not why and betrays precisely the lack of understanding about these things that causes such a response to begin with. Any time you find yourself dismissing widely held concerns you should take a step back and reevaluate if you haven't missed something. P…

I didn't dismiss concerns about freedom of speech. I explicitly acknowledged them in paragraph 4. My point is that there is a tradeoff here, and reasonable people can disagree.

That's reasonable a reasonable complaint about how I talked about moral panics. Updated the wording to not say that's the reason for HN's strong reaction. Though I really do think that cultural history is a major factor.

> Also I think I'd object to your framing of "a public health crisis comparable to opioids". Much of that appears to be attributable to the side effects of the "war on drugs". At absolute minimum the vast majority of overdoses are clearly due to unreliable product quality which is simply not an issue for things purchased legally.

I really don't think this is true. The government didn't cause a generation of people to become addicted to Oxytocin. You can argue about the best way to help, and lots of municipalities are trying harm reduction programs, but I don't think you can pin people ODing on fentanyl on the government.

Smoking regulations worked. CFC regulations worked. Automobile safety regulations worked. Sanitary standard regulation worked. Mandatory vaccine campaigns worked. Food and drug safety regulations worked. The clean air act and clean water act mostly worked. Government intervention often goes wrong, but it also often leads to huge increases in well-being. Particularly for addictive things presented to minors.

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