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The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

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Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#11

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Reason077 wrote: post #9

My 15-year old niece who recently visited her cousins in Australia assured me that the recently enacted Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia, nor has it affected her U16 cousins, who still have their accounts. Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts.

Is there a plan to start fining the social media companies themselves? Or raise their liability thresholds?

This is sort of like the illegal-immigration debate. If you’re serious about fixing it, go after employers. Same for underage social media users. If you want to actually solve it, you have to penalize the platforms.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#12

Post by JumpCrisscross »

g-technology wrote: post #8

Isn’t it normally the case when politicians in any part of the world say they need to do something for the children, it’s just theatre to cover up them doing nothing or to hide legislation with a different purpose?

No, that’s a tech meme. If you’ve ever been near a PTA, you’ll understand that there is terrific civic potential in appealing to parents’ fears.

The true think of the children has always been national security.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#13

Post by basisword »

The tone gave it away before he finally disclosed but - shocker - the author is on the board of a social media company.

Social media has been a pretty clear net-negative for society. The opinions of a guy in away connected with the industry are irrelevant.

As usual when tech people are asked to do something to control the harms of their products the excuse is "you don't understand, it's not possible". The author thinks preventing children sharing nude images on platforms is some impossible task - yet Apple has already implemented pretty good controls for this.

I'm not saying the regulations are perfect but continuing to ignore the problems caused by social media is irresponsible.

There was an interview with a kid in the UK that went viral yesterday. The interviewer pointed out the kid had spent 9 hours on a screen the previous weekend and asked what they would do now. The answer - stare at the wall. Funny. Maybe said in jest. But I think it still sums up the reason we need to do something about this. If kids literally don't know what to do with themselves without a screen the future isn't looking good. Another kid said it was taking away his planned career...as an influencer.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#14

Post by basisword »

It would be great if we could test the harms of social media societally. Hypothetically if a democratic country with a free press was able to effectively ban Facebook, X, etc for a few years there's no doubt in my mind that the division we see in so many countries would clear up relatively quickly.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#15

Post by korm »

autoexec wrote: post #3

> Again, every detailed study on the subject has found that the number of teenagers who have negative experiences on social media is tiny. The study they linked is just self reported data from an internet survey. I'm sure that 13 year olds who don't get enough sleep because they're endlessly scrolling through ads, influencers, and disinformation don't see any problem with it the same way that a survey of alcoholics w…

It's interesting to see UK-based influencers all citing these weak studies (internet surveys) about how social media is not so bad for children, or bemoaning the huge loss for children whose access to educational videos will be cut.

While the financial motive is clear, they must all believe it to an extent, because social media made their careers and changed their lives.

The reality is that the vast majority of kids aren't interested in learning video editing or movie directing, they are mindlessly consuming AI-generated videos and similar content served to them. 30-second videos on random facts sprinkled here and there aren't education.

Not that I think this ban will help, but downplaying the harm to children is a bit too much coming from people with ties to these platforms, like the author of this article.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#16

Post by basisword »

Reason077 wrote: post #9

My 15-year old niece who recently visited her cousins in Australia assured me that the recently enacted Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia, nor has it affected her U16 cousins, who still have their accounts. Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts.

>> Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia

I think that's expected.

>> Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts

Social media companies had to try and identify existing accounts owned by < 16 year olds and start removing them at the start of this year. I'd guess that process is slow and they don't do it unless they're certain. But if they stop new accounts effectively then within a few years the ban would be pretty effective.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#17

Post by pj_mukh »

Article mostly cites self-reported studies ie the kids think that the kids are doing alright, which is a different statement from the kids are actually doing alright.

Most teachers seeing generational changes are raising five alarm fires around how badly the kids are doing. Actually testing kids is showing a startling reverse Flynn effect [1]. I’m curious what the author has in terms of actual evidence here?

[1] https://pure.eur.nl/en/publications/the-negative-flynn-effec...

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#18

Post by trewnews »

autoexec wrote: post #3

> Again, every detailed study on the subject has found that the number of teenagers who have negative experiences on social media is tiny. The study they linked is just self reported data from an internet survey. I'm sure that 13 year olds who don't get enough sleep because they're endlessly scrolling through ads, influencers, and disinformation don't see any problem with it the same way that a survey of alcoholics w…

> I'm sure that 13 year olds who don't get enough sleep because they're endlessly scrolling through ads, influencers, and disinformation

I didn't get sleep as a teenager because I read books. Should we ban those too?

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#19

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

basisword wrote: post #13

The tone gave it away before he finally disclosed but - shocker - the author is on the board of a social media company. Social media has been a pretty clear net-negative for society. The opinions of a guy in away connected with the industry are irrelevant. As usual when tech people are asked to do something to control the harms of their products the excuse is "you don't understand, it's not possible". The author thin…

Social media isn't the problem cellphones are. The Yookay isn't gonna ban those because they are useful surveillance devices.

> 9 hours on a screen

> do something about this

Yeah ban cellphones. And I don't mean just for children. If you want to be a shut in nerd that spends "9 hours on a screen" then you'd best sit down in front of a computer.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#20

Post by basisword »

kennyadam wrote: post #4
eiie wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Is that how it should work? The worst of us can’t be trusted to to behave appropriately in one area of life, therefore everyone must be banned from it?

That's how it works everywhere with lots of other things. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. Given the amount of money that's gone into making social media as addictive as possible and the majority of mobile games really being gambling masquerading as games why should they be treated any differently?
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