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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

#41

This is a "can't lose" for Starmer. If it inevitably doesn't work exactly the way he wants, then he'll just blame the tech companies for not trying hard enough. Best bet here is to require that the government provide exacting requirements for what they want done and to hew to those requirements exactly. Some form of malicious compliance is necessary here.

They are running a bi-election for a replacement to dump his arse, he's already out the door

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

#42

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…

Yeah, and what they could actually do about it would be banning the whole social media thing. Ever tried to enforce rules you don’t follow yourself on teens? They see through that shit in three seconds.

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

#43
post #34
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement It is not even 10% effective, and rightly so. It’s so absurdly easy to work around that the whole thing is silly. If the kids can’t be on Instagram they’ll find an equally welcoming place like Roblox to hang out. You aren’t going to stop kids from being kids, and you probably shouldn’t try. Note how we’re trusting all these US companies with…

You're just repeating the "it's technically imperfect" argument again.

Psychologists call this black or white thinking - in this case, either something works perfectly or it's useless.

Next to impossible to get a person who believes this that they're engaging in a cognitive distortion though. I tried the same thing you're doing, once. I gave up. They will die on this hill and then wonder why they lost long after everyone else had moved on.

It's possible to make effective arguments in line with their values. They simply don't want to be helped.

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

#44
post #23

Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them. But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and wat…

I don't care if it's trivial to implement and impossible to bypass: it's an effort to eliminate anonymous Internet browsing/commenting because everyone over 16 has to submit ID as well. Its the end of free speech on the part of the Internet the UK controls.

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

#45
post #37
post #17

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] http…

Alright covers a broad spectrum of properties. Most teachers have been asking for more resources for decades, warning of the consequences of not doing so. It seems a little on the nose to ignore their warnings and when the consequences manifest opt to blame something else entirely.

It doesn't seem like there's been a precipitous drop in resources compared to the decades of requests and warnings that have led up to this point. So what's different now, if not resourcing?

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

#46
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what cost though? Everyone will now need to submit real ID to access social media. Smaller social media sites will probably just shutdown since it’s unlikely they can afford the whole verification process.

The same was true of food safety. Aunt Tracey might not be able to sell cupcakes from her home any more (made in the oven next to where the cat likes to sleep because of the heat), but we centralised things enough that when BSE and Salmonella outbreaks happen, which nowadays is extremely rare, we know how and why almost immediately. If the cost of ridding ourselves of animal torture, terrorism and child pornography i…

what a wild comparison, millions (billions?) of humans have died from food-borne disease, and yet we do in fact still let people very casually sell food to the public (even unpasteurized milk in the US)

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

#47
post #23

Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them. But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and wat…

If anything it’s makes the discussion from parents to the kids so much easier. Why can’t I use it? Because it’s illegal. When will this happen in the US? We need it yesterday.

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

#49

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.

Maybe not immediately but over time it can be given some teeth.

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

#50
I have to wonder how much of this is projected guilt. Parents can feel guilty about the amount of time they themselves spend on social media. Choosing for someone else to reduce their usage combined with choosing for someone else being required to make that happen seems like a way to feels as if they are acting against what they don't like, but at the same time doesn't require them to make any particular concession to their own behaviour.
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