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UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

manchestereveningnews.co.uk

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Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#191

Post by jvvw »

drnick1 wrote: post #117
maccard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is parental controls on devices.

The solution is parenting, period. Do not give your kid an Internet-connected device before they are ready for it.

Homework requires internet-connected devices (I guess you can semi-supervise that, but it becomes harder as they become older as you don't want to sit there watching them do all their homework).

There is also a cost socially, which is hard to navigate as a parent. If everybody is talking about minecraft every break and playing it together in the evenings, then it's hard for them if they haven't even seen the game.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#193

Post by ajkjk »

p-e-w wrote: post #146
ajkjk wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stunned when people can't reason about a tradeoff between two principles because they assigned infinite weight to one of them. Police state=bad. Industrial scale drug addiction in kids=also bad. Some compromise must be made. The slippery slope arguments do nothing. People are trying to solve this problem; trying to scare them with other problems they may have later--which they can solve separately!--is just irrel…

> Police state=bad. Industrial scale drug addiction in kids=also bad. Some compromise must be made. False. The whole point of fundamental rights is that they aren’t compromised on based on outcomes. “Torture is bad, but not being able to get information out of criminals is also bad. Some compromise must be made.” That’s just not how it works, is it?

> The whole point of fundamental rights is that they aren’t compromised on based on outcomes.

This is false, we generally take away fundamental rights when there's justification for doing so. e.g. the first paragraph of https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986 (and every other paragraph also; I'm sure there are UK equivalents). We enshrine fundamental rights in order to elevate them above baser considerations, but it's not like a paperclip-maximizer thing where we optimize 100% for protecting them over all other considerations. Nor should it be (for the obvious paperclip-maximizer failure modes).

Anyway, the debate here is not over "police state good" and I'm frankly disappointed in all the commenters who interpret anyone disagreeing with them as claiming that. I for example loathe the idea of a police state and I'm quite sure the people I'm replying to would find I agree with them on most issues related to that. But it is not black and white, despite everyone's attempts at portraying it as such. I would love to hear people's practical, viable, politically-tenable plans for doing something about industrial-scale addiction to social media which do not involve impinging on these freedoms at all.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#194

Post by techblueberry »

TFNA wrote: post #182
techblueberry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m becoming something of an accelerationist on this issue. I think we’re at a dead end with like 5 companies controlling most of the internet. If this pisses people off and encourages them to get active politically or create new modes of communication. Great! Freedom has to be more than “you can choose any walled garden you want!” We need more spaces that aren’t mediated. I feel like we’ve accepted this terrible def…

The typical medium for the internet today, even among many people who would have been computer nerds in days of yore, is the smartphone, i.e. primarily a consumption device. I can't see people becoming so pissed out that they would overcome the limitations of the phone and actually create bold new modes of communication. Just using an alternative prepackaged app like Signal is way out there for most people.

Despite propaganda to the contratry, meatspace is still an option.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#195

Post by ElProlactin »

someguyiguess wrote: post #92
ElProlactin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not see that the largest companies on the internet are also surveilling everyone and that the massive troves of data they're collecting about their registered users and even non-registered users is directly and indirectly accessible to governments around the world?

Doesn’t that prove their point?

How so? If you're anti-surveillance, wouldn't you be pleased that under-16s won't be able to use the most wide-ranging and insidious surveillance platforms ever created?

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#196

Post by surgical_fire »

Aurornis wrote: post #74
atollk wrote: post #29

I know many people dislike this movement but really, I think it's a good idea. Yes, it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago, but that's gone already anyway. Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access, but arguing against any law to be against that just seems like straight up anarchism to me. I see both children and adults being manipulated by corporations with "algorith…

> but really, I think it's a good idea. > Yes, it removes the "free" internet > Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access Is anyone else as stunned as I am by how many posters on tech websites have suddenly gone full anti-free-internet and embracing the police state? The internet I grew up on was all about freedom and resisting the police state. Now the top voted comment (at least a…

The internet as it is sucks in no uncertain terms.

While I dislike some of those regulations, I have no will to fight for the status quo.

> Do people not realize that they're going after Reddit, YouTube, and other sites, too?

Consider that I have a profound hatred for both YouTube and Reddit.

Why should I care?

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#197

Post by jvvw »

academic_84572 wrote: post #94
maccard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is parental controls on devices.

Surely we know by now that this is not enough? Kids find ways around everything. Even adults find the 'digital wellbeing' tools on Android and iOS useless. Just look at the multitude of apps available for digital self regulation these days (ScreenZen, Freedom, BlockSite, etc). No single solution works for everybody at the moment. Regulation by itself is also insufficient. But maybe combining regulation with parental…

Regulation does add friction. And it makes it easier for a parent to say 'no, you aren't allowed that app' (which you can obviously say anyway, but it gives you a very solid and non-negotiable reason to say no). Some children will find their ways round things, but a lot, if their friends aren't using a particular app, won't bother, or they will be the type of children who won't try and break the law.

Most apps and sites are terrible in terms of the parental controls they provide - they tend to be all or nothing. E.g. I'd like to have a group for our family on WhatsApp but I don't want my children to be able to join random WhatsApp groups and there isn't any way to have the former and not the latter.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#198

Post by mathgradthrow »

jvvw wrote: post #191
drnick1 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is parenting, period. Do not give your kid an Internet-connected device before they are ready for it.

Homework requires internet-connected devices (I guess you can semi-supervise that, but it becomes harder as they become older as you don't want to sit there watching them do all their homework). There is also a cost socially, which is hard to navigate as a parent. If everybody is talking about minecraft every break and playing it together in the evenings, then it's hard for them if they haven't even seen the game.

>Homework requires internet-connected devices

I see an opportunity for much more reasonable legislation since this is a thing that the gov already controls.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#199

Post by techjamie »

Aurornis wrote: post #175
vincnetas wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OG internet was not swarming with multibillion dollar predators ready to exploit every single psychological trick to manipulate you for profit. If you can solve this, i welcome the OG internet to be free and open place to share ideas. Let me know your suggestions.

The mistake is thinking that regulation and removing the free internet is going to harm those corporations you dislike and leave the smaller sites untouched. The more regulations are added, the harder it is for anyone other than the multibillion dollar corporations to set up the infrastructure needed to comply. That small forum you visit and the chat space you hang out in have to geo block your entire region because…

If a big player in a space is asking for regulation, always treat it as them pulling the ladder up to make things harder for new upstarts.

As an example, look at what Anthropic's response to the US making them pull Fable. They commended the action and said they believe there need to be permanent regulations around safety of released models with approval committees and mandatory testing.

They aren't recommending it purely because of safety, they want to add expenses to their competitors without so much money to burn.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#200

Post by techblueberry »

Aurornis wrote: post #161
techblueberry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m becoming something of an accelerationist on this issue. I think we’re at a dead end with like 5 companies controlling most of the internet. If this pisses people off and encourages them to get active politically or create new modes of communication. Great! Freedom has to be more than “you can choose any walled garden you want!” We need more spaces that aren’t mediated. I feel like we’ve accepted this terrible def…

You're basing everything on a flawed assumption: That the regulations will be most difficult for the big websites, but not be an impediment to small communities. It never works that way. The more regulations you add, the harder it becomes to have a small community on the internet. The big companies can spend money to comply and lobby. The small communities cannot. We are already seeing this. There are websites blocki…

There’s a reasons I described it as accelerationism. I think whatever the next thing is probably hasn’t been invented yet, but I would hope the discomfort of exclusion might inspire it. It only works if enough people feel left out - I.e. all under 16s

But yeah, it’s not without risks.

But there’s two sort of self-identified reasons for freedom of speech.

One is to get the best ideas on the table. I’m a little suss of this one (when taken to extremes) because speech that costs nothing is just noise.

The second is to make sure everyone has an outlet to express themselves so they don’t rebel. And while I certainly don’t want to see violent rebellion, I think maybe a bit more social and political rebellion wouldn’t be the end of the world.

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