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France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

rte.ie

41–50 of 172 posts

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#41

I've noticed that there's a decent amount of people who had benefitted having access to computer and internet really early on that seemed to be pro on banning teen access to social media, is there a reason why? the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day if algorithmic amplification is the reason then I'm not sure why social media as a whole has to be banne…

Advertising, a push to incredibly short video content, dumb memes, AI slop, conspiracy theories, scams, algorithms that push more of all these bad things to generate ‘engagement’ and advertising revenue and punish real thoughtful ideas. The truth hasn’t even put its shoes in before misinformation is racing around the world on these platforms.

It’s hard to think of something genuinely positive about platforms like instagram YouTube and twitter nowadays.

Trying to share genuine joy in an activity is still possible but the platforms heavily push frequent users to think of themselves as ‘content creators’ and produce trivial yet popular video clips with all the negatives that brings.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#42
post #27

So I guess in 10 or so years whoever doesn't submit their ID card to every online service in existence will not be able to do much of anything online.

Yeah, I for one am getting pissed already about having legitimate parts of the internet cut off unless I'm willing to submit to ID verification.

For example, discussions about recent killings by ICE in the US. This example is one where I really don't want to tie my real life ID to my online presence for fear of retribution if I ever feel confident to travel to there again.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#44

I've noticed that there's a decent amount of people who had benefitted having access to computer and internet really early on that seemed to be pro on banning teen access to social media, is there a reason why? the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day if algorithmic amplification is the reason then I'm not sure why social media as a whole has to be banne…

> the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day

I’m not trying to be a jerk, but did you actually participate in “Internet forums back in the day?” I couldn’t think of anything more different than contemporary social media. Internet forums in late 90’s and early 00’s were something special. Hell, I had more “internet friends” from online forums attend my wedding than I did friends from high school or college… and for some it was the first time meeting in person.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#45
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far? Exactly.. They will use any trick or loophole available to keep the reach and to exploit attention spans. Kids brains aren't correct really made for social media whatsoever. Ban is justified and the bar should be even higher than 15 years old, but it's a start. I have a young baby and no way it touches anything smartphone related for many many ye…

> Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far? This feels like you intended to make it a gotcha question, but the answer is: America isn't really trying to do that at all. So we should just give up? "Damn, handling biowaste is hard and dangerous, what we'll do is just prevent people from leaving their house."

I'm not in America nor would I rely on their legislators doing anything about it, especially with current admin. France, Australia and the likes (who are in process of implementing banning social media for kids) is the only way behemots will understand. Otherwise you're risking loopholes beig exploited, bureaucracy being slow while behemots move fast, etc. Ban is pretty much self explanatory and leaves little room for interpretation, at least not in a way where 100s of pages of moderation guidelines and potential ambiguity such docs create

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#46
post #36

This is ridiculous. I went to university at the age of 14 and was absolutely capable of managing my way through social media at that time - but it became much worse in my early 20s when interest in politics peaked. Maybe interest in politics should be outlawed instead, it’s much more harmful.

If you went to university at 14, which is what... 4+ years earlier then anyone else usually manages? then you really shouldn't extrapolate your own experience on the population at large.

You'd have skipped multiple years in education, hence you'd be massively more intelligent then the general population that this regulation aims to help, (albeit against their own wishes).

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#48
post #21

It's a good start. Ban it for all under 30s and over 60s.

That’s a little harsh. Under 25 and over 75 would be more appropriate.

That's the kind of soft-hearted laissez-faire attitude that got us where we are today

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#49
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad content reaching kids is not the issue. (Well, it is part of it…) The whole thing is bad. We don't give cigarettes to kids either.

Actually, we don't stop kids from buying cigarettes, we punish stores that sell cigarettes to kids and are caught! That's my entire point! You just made my argument for me!

And the store does not use facial recognition and/or checking id to know if the potential buyer is a kid ? The only (huge) difference for me is the scale of the verification and how data are stored.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#50

I don't like the idea of centralised digital ID for the obvious surveillance/privacy arguments and think that side of the conversation needs to be focused on. BUT, I also think that the Social Media experiment has shown that social media in general really, really sucks. It sucks for adults but it's objectively damaging to kids. So like, I am all for restricting kids from it, and honestly I'd happily see it regulated…

Social media is objectively damaging to the interests of the ruling class, who have been objectively damaging to western civilization during the past decades in which they had near-complete control over the flow of information. It'd be batshit crazy to go back to the times when information flow was centralized in the hands of a few corporations, just because a some neurotics can't handle the increased flow of information from decentralized media.
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