The case for banning children from social media • Hacker News Board

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#251

Post by Kbelicius » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:08 AM UTC

erfgh wrote: post #165

amatecha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, honestly, just go all the way and ban advertising altogether (I would be so happy if this happened, even though it obviously never will). Pretty willing to tank my karma to say this, I don't care, I think advertising is one of the biggest psychological pollutants in modern society and any possible benefit (??) is vastly outweighed by the cognitive waste incurred by all who are subjected to it.

How would you define advertising? If there were no advertisements how would people know about products? They would have to read discussions and recommendations but how would those discussions and recommendations not be considered advertisements?

> How would you define advertising?

Showing unprompted information about a service/product. Not much thought went in to this definition, be charitable.

> If there were no advertisements how would people know about products?

There is word of mouth, reviews, catalogs...

> They would have to read discussions and recommendations but how would those discussions and recommendations not be considered advertisements?

It is not that complicated. If somebody is getting paid to recommend or participate in a discussion on a certain service/product then that is an advertisement.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#252

Post by carabiner » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:10 AM UTC

It'll be fascinating to see the effect on the prestige of working for Meta if this does end up happening. It'll solidify the idea the social media = smoking. Will Facebook be forced to create resources on quitting social media? Will FB become a mostly right-leaning company that opposes government oversight for the sake of their userbase? Will Metamates have a stigma when they seek jobs elsewhere?

Maybe Meta will even rebrand itself like Altria after some turnaround, as a new, "understanding" social media company, that promotes "user's choice to use..." social media.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#253

Post by h0h0h0h0111 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:11 AM UTC

I'm amazed that we're still entertaining banning everything in 2023.

The same song and dance was made of TV 30-50 years ago, keeping kids off the internet 15 years ago, and I'm sure for keeping kids off AI in a few years time.

The cat is out of the bag, and trying to force it back in the bag is going to be no better for kids

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#254

Post by DoreenMichele » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:11 AM UTC

Maybe we could do something radical and empower parents to handle this more effectively by creating more family-friendly policies so parents have the time, energy and mental focus to handle it themselves.

Maybe we could start by finding some effective means for addressing our affordable housing issues.

Last I checked, the US was also the only developed country that lacked a national maternity leave policy. I'm not sure if I really want such, but it suggests there's lots of relatively low-hanging fruit for improving our policies with regards to being family friendly.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#255

Post by goatlover » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:21 AM UTC

FractalHQ wrote: post #168

hackernewds wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs, and evidently just as bad, why not ban them for adults as well?

As someone 8 years sober from social media, I’m convinced the benefits of banning it would far outweigh the cost.

Sounds a lot like, "I stopped drinking because it became a problem, so everyone else should too."

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#256

Post by Dave3of5 » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:21 AM UTC

I think rather than banning it which won't work if you made the SM companies financially responsible for any damages they cause the children.

The government would make it easier to seek damages from SM companies that cause harm to children. For example if you required the SM companies to provide proof they actively tried to help or stop in cases of bullying and if they don't the pay a large fine.

That would make it more costly to ignore and I'm pretty sure you'd fine a report button on that post to allow you to report bullying pretty quick.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#257

Post by goatlover » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:22 AM UTC

JanSt wrote: post #180

johnisgood wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else would it be if not parents, the Government? How would that really go? Would we really have to provide our ID to Facebook and such? That would suck.

The government checks or disallows many things, i.e. drugs. Individualism is strong in the US, but if parents sucks kids suffer.

The disallowing of drugs has not fared any better than disallowing alcohol did.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#258

Post by dotandgtfo » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:27 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #105

tastysandwich wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)

> Totally, that's why I figured it's easier to just ban it for under 18s, then leave it alone for over 18s. There is no such thing as "leave it alone for over 18s". If you institute strict age requirements, those have to be enforced for every user account. So yes, that means every site you use would require you to go through something like a KYC process. Privacy on the internet would be gone . You can't enforce age r…

Not sure how viable this is in the US due to reasons but a centralized auth service could in theory not provide any PII back to the service requesting an age verification, and the auth provider wouldn't necessarily have to be get data back from the service except for the first time a user registers an account.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#259

Post by geysersam » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:28 AM UTC

Dave3of5 wrote: post #256

I think rather than banning it which won't work if you made the SM companies financially responsible for any damages they cause the children. The government would make it easier to seek damages from SM companies that cause harm to children. For example if you required the SM companies to provide proof they actively tried to help or stop in cases of bullying and if they don't the pay a large fine. That would make it m…

But is SM really responsible for bullying?

Bullying happens irl as well.

The playground builders are usually not considered responsible when bullying happens at a playground.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#260

Post by andy_ppp » Wed, Apr 05, 2023, 8:29 AM UTC

atahanacar wrote: post #120

andy_ppp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not the government's or the society's responsibility to babysit your kids My point is that the government do try to protect children from various harms, why not social media?

The reasoning is simple: If it were the government's responsibility to babysit your kids, it would be acceptable for them to restrict my freedoms in doing so. However, it is neither their, society's nor my responsibility, so my freedoms shouldn't be restricted for that cause. If it doesn't restrict my freedoms, I don't care, government can do whatever parents want, whether it be ban the sale of alcohol to kids, stop…

I understand your reasoning I’d just rather we were more careful about how social media works, especially the use of LLMs integrated into advertising and addiction systems, for example. I think you already seem to think I have a fully formed plan of what the regulations should be, I definitely don’t want infringe free speech but I think teens are especially vulnerable to abuse on these platforms and suicide amongst teenage girls particularly has increased as these systems became more mainstream.

I think there is a balance to be had here but I get that you disagree and are scared of government getting it wrong.