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The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

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Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#21

Post by bob001 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #17
ungreased0675 wrote: post #4

The EFF is very wrong on this one. Some things are bad and we should keep children away from them.

I'm all for protecting kids from facebook/insta/snap/etc, they have love hate relationships with all of those, but YT is a bridge too far, is's more a knowledge sharing platform than a social network.

Then it can separate the two separate components easily to satisfy whatever the law is. If it can’t then it is social media. A lot of YouTube is not knowledge sharing unless you view MrBeast as a sharer of knowledge.

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#22

Post by 4ndrewl »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #10
ungreased0675 wrote: post #4

The EFF is very wrong on this one. Some things are bad and we should keep children away from them.

Great, you do your job as a parent and keep your children away from them while leaving the rest of us free from your envisioned surveillance state.

He says clicking "accept" to tracking cookies and their 762 "partners"

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#23

Post by infotainment »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #17
ungreased0675 wrote: post #4

The EFF is very wrong on this one. Some things are bad and we should keep children away from them.

I'm all for protecting kids from facebook/insta/snap/etc, they have love hate relationships with all of those, but YT is a bridge too far, is's more a knowledge sharing platform than a social network.

If you primarily choose to watch educational videos sure, but YouTube can give you just as much brainrot as TikTok, depending on what the recommendation engine decides you might like.

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#24

Post by Barrin92 »

big85 wrote: post #20
ungreased0675 wrote: post #4

The EFF is very wrong on this one. Some things are bad and we should keep children away from them.

We have parental controls on devices. The change forced by the UK government is to give control to corporations, instead of the parents. Parents are much better at knowing their own kid's age than corporations are. Teens keep fooling the age verification (pointing the camera at a video game character, using fake ID, even drawing beards on their face with a pen). But they aren't going to fool their own mother, and the…

>We have parental controls on devices

That's irrelevant because social media regulation is a collective action problem. No individual parent can restrict their kids access to social media without ostracizing it, it only makes sense if all parents together get their kids off these platforms.

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#25

Post by ndngmfksk »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #17
ungreased0675 wrote: post #4

The EFF is very wrong on this one. Some things are bad and we should keep children away from them.

I'm all for protecting kids from facebook/insta/snap/etc, they have love hate relationships with all of those, but YT is a bridge too far, is's more a knowledge sharing platform than a social network.

I think the personalised content and advertising puts it into the same category. At least, I think it has the same problematic incentives.

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#26

Post by rimeice »

> they’ll also lose access to educational videos on YouTube, local events on Facebook, and potentially cut off from distant friends and family.

Cmon, if you’re trying to make the case for how essential social media is for children under the age of 16, please find some better examples. As if there are no other sources of educational content online than YouTube and anyone who has left Facebook knows the last two points are simply not true. This is so weak from the EFF.

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#27

Post by throwawayffffas »

They are really underestimating the harm of being on these platforms causes.

These platforms are the digital equivalent of heroin if heroin always came with either nazi or bolshevik propaganda.

They are entirely focused on the axe they rightfully have to grind the whole age verification debacle they are not seeing the bigger picture.

The major social media companies are undermining the foundations of our societies for ad revenue and giggles.

Keeping teens out is a huge step in the right direction.

Re: The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents

#29

Post by btbuildem »

Canadian federal govt just pushed thru a slew of similar legislation - absolutely unprecedented assault on privacy, tools for tracking everyone all the time, minimally constrained, giving broad leeway to a three-person unelected body to implement the actual details.
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