The argument for banning children from social media could equally easily apply to adults. I think everything that's available on the internet, short of pornography and beheading videos, should be equally available to all children, and companies should stop using COPPA as an excuse to ban children from their platforms.
The case for banning children from social media
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Re: The case for banning children from social media
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
> just ban it I don't disagree, but how do you propose we do that exactly?
Everyone must do an ID check when signing up to social media. If you are not an adult yet then your account will be locked until you become 18. This would also eliminate all the bots and fake people or double/triple anonymous accounts which are trying to game the algorithm to push for certain toxic agendas. Nobody should be anonymous on social media. Social media is to connect with humans, not with trolls or bots, so…
> Everyone must do an ID check when signing up to social media. If you are not an adult yet then your account will be locked until you become 18.
> This would also eliminate all the bots and fake people or double/triple anonymous accounts which are trying to game the algorithm to push for certain toxic agendas.
> Whistleblowers, which often get mentioned, don't need to be anonymous on social media.
> We have journalists and whistleblowers can already anonymously reach out to journalists and leak information so that journalists can publicise it under the protections of their profession.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#443This is the kind of thing that frustrates me. Begging large power institutions (especially economic ones) to raise your kids.
Economic power institutions are not able to stop your kids from going online, and they don't care to. They have no ethics and will slip into whatever position they need to in order to maintain face. So they'll pretend to care when they need to, but they're suck your kids into wasting entire days online in order to compile data that can be used to manipulate them politically or economically or socially when they can make money off of that.
There effectively aren't any social power institutions left (except social media itself), so the only real solution is to have a strong enough family that you can keep your kids away from this soul-rotting garbage.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#444I 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…
> 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 totally forgotten about. A good start would be to ban feeds based on algorithms; instead your feed would be a chronological list of new posts from channels you've chosen to follow.
> A good start would be to ban feeds based on algorithms; instead your feed would be a chronological list of new posts from channels you've chosen to follow.
The replacement you've described for an algorithm is still an algorithm.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#445I agree, but how? As a parent I'm going to implement stuff at home to keep my kids off of it, but the reality is they'll still get access somehow. I don't see a good tech solution for keeping them completely off it.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
I reiterate my first question: how are you going to enforce it? Because the war on drugs has a very specific enforcement mechanism: people who take drugs are given criminal records, locked up in prison, and have their future opportunities permanently curtailed. Is this your plan for an under-18 accessing social media? Do you think a policy of "we're going to help teens with their mental health" is going to accomplish…
Require by law that everyone on social media authenticates their age (maybe also their names, this would be good way to get rid of bots as well). This can be done with government ID or with via your bank or even with requiring social security number when creating an account. Or government can just make a new digital ID system that you have to go and register at whatever place is suitable for this and you can use that…
I think anonymous users might call you a slur, but the worst harassment I've seen online has come from people who proudly show their names and faces.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#447I 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…
Just like the popular saying, "it's the economy, stupid!", when it comes to kids and social media we might as well say "it's the parents, stupid!" > Like so many parents these days, my wife and I have ceded So the parents are to blame here. "Ceded" to what exactly? To your kids unsupervised wishes? Most of the inadequate and harmful use of these addictive social networks is done at home, so, it's your jurisdiction, n…
The 30% increase in teen suicide rates starting in 2011 shows that the parents need help.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computer games are also addictive. Back in my days soccer and basketball were addictive as well. I vividly remember my grandpa despising my uncle for having obsession with playing soccer and not spending more time on his homework. It seems like a pattern, grown ups just don’t like the way youngsters are spending their time. Maybe it’s totally normal in your teens to just spend aimlessly time in seemingly useless thin…
I spent my youth with my nose buried in books, and for a couple years it had become a problem. My parents would force me to stop reading books and spend some time talking to them, looking outside, doing anything as a kid. I would read a book at any chance I could get, I'd even sneak them into bed and use a dim flashlight to read, anything to get me out of where I was at that time. At the time I hated my parents and e…
Social media is correlated with many negative issues. Like depression, suicide, etc. meanwhile playing sports is correlated with many positive outcomes.
It’ll take some time to prove causation. But I think we have enough evidence to know that curtailing social media will improve lives.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Video games nowadays are just as bad. They're more boring than ever. Games people tend to be most addicted to appear to be glorified network social platforms, i.e. MMORPGs/LoL and the massive online communities extending them.
In what world is LoL a social network platform? It's literally a pvp moba
> and the massive online communities extending them.
As I said, the most addicting draw is the social component surrounding the games. The co-operative/team-based format means there's a baseline level of coordination in the background.
Something can be said about competition itself, but games that are by design 1-vs-1 are nowhere near as popular. As goes for actual sports.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#450I 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…
I think social media are too useful to ban, even to children.
And while it is not clear how we are going to regulate them, or more generally deal with the negative effects, it is something we must figure out, a blanket ban is not the solution. You have to realize that even sites like Stack Overflow can be considered social media.
They certainly have addiction potential, maybe not dissimilar to drugs, but guess what, even some hard drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine are not banned, they are regulated, because they have some use in medicine. Sugar is addictive too, and as of now, a serious health problem, but no one talks about banning sugar of course, instead calling for regulation.