The case for banning children from social media
101–110 of 593 posts
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always baffling to see suggestions like this on HN: > Every single ad impression shown to a child is a $1,000 fine. > If you do that, social media companies will figure out how to keep kids from accessing their site. Do you really want to live in a world where every website forces you to log in and verify your state-issued ID? I think some people see the words “social media” and assume it only applies to sites they d…
I'm so tired of this argument. HN and Reddit are not social media. Is your real name Pragmatic Pulp? Do you post pictures/videos of yourself here, or update us about your family? I could go on but I hope you get it. "Social Media" is a really specific term and it doesnt mean any random forum.
> I'm so tired of this argument. HN and Reddit are not social media.
Reddit is very much a "social media". So is HN.
Removing photo posting or allowing people to use pseudonyms doesn't exempt a site from being social media.
If someone doesn't post photos to Facebook, does that make it not a social media for them?
If Facebook decided to allow pseudonyms, would it not be social media?
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#103> These bills will likely face considerable constitutional challenges. Previous attempts to block minors from accessing Web sites via broad legislation, including the Child Online Protection Act, from 1998, have been struck down on First Amendment grounds. You might get farther instead of banning children from social media, ban all ads to children on social media. Every single ad impression shown to a child is a $1,0…
Eh, honestly, just go all the way and ban advertising altogether (I would be so happy if this happened, even though it obviously never will). Pretty willing to tank my karma to say this, I don't care, I think advertising is one of the biggest psychological pollutants in modern society and any possible benefit (??) is vastly outweighed by the cognitive waste incurred by all who are subjected to it.
I ran a similar thought experiment with a collegue the other day. We talked about how the world might change if internet ads were made illegal overnight. A lot of tech companies would lose value and I suspect a significant portion of the economy would become less productive, but I don't think it wouod be catastrophic for society. In fact, I think we'd maybe all slow down, not purchase as much andaybe even desire less.
As you said, it will never happen, but I too would be pleased if it did.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#104Or, one could consider the crazy option of letting parents exercise at least some modicum of decision-making on how their children live their lives. I can understand much of the disgust with social media as it is today, but some of these arguments spin off so far into emotional reactionary vitriol that they lose whole forests for meager trees about the larger dangers of laws deciding such minutia for parents.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As noted by another poster[1]: how are you going to enforce it? The number of comments here that haven’t realized that any regulations would require huge privacy intrusions for everyone is weird to see. It’s like people are imaging some magical set of rules that would only apply to kids but wouldn’t impact themselves negatively.
Totally, that's why I figured it's easier to just ban it for under 18s, then leave it alone for over 18s. I'm an adult - I don't want to be told what I can and can't see. (Obviously, "banning it" is not so clear-cut. Are you going to force Instagram to require that everyone uploads an ID to verify their age?)
> Totally, that's why I figured it's easier to just ban it for under 18s, then leave it alone for over 18s.
There is no such thing as "leave it alone for over 18s".
If you institute strict age requirements, those have to be enforced for every user account. So yes, that means every site you use would require you to go through something like a KYC process.
Privacy on the internet would be gone. You can't enforce age restrictions if you allow users to remain private.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#106Banning things rarely works. Educating parents on how it can harm and hinder their children is a harder, but more effective approach.
> Banning things rarely works.
This depends on your definition of the term "works". Prohibition of many things has had a profound effect on the shape of human society. Prohibitions on religion for example, such as the repression of the Huguenots in France and of Christianity in Japan prevented the development of Protestantism and Catholicism in those countries respectively.
Prohibition and censorship of revolutionary materials and correspondence societies in 19th century Europe absolutely slowed down the process of democratization and popular reform there.
Even just in personal experience, it's much easier to get weed since it is no longer prohibited. You used to need "a source" which you had to work out in each new town or city you moved to. Then there were limits on what those people could get you.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, it would be quite simple. - Record a social media site advertising to a user who is under XX years old. Complain to a portal. - Fine $1000 x complaint received each month. - Continue to do so until the service's accounts satisfy some sort of auditing standard. Come on, we do this for all kinds of things like credit card information and other data certifications.
> Fine $1000 x complaint received each month. Ahh yes, fine companies $1000 for each complaint received. Surely nothing will go wrong and nobody would ever think to do this to sink their competitors? Surely the government overhead of enforcing this would be cheap? It’s so weird to read all of these HN comments that can’t take basic realities of the internet and regulation into account. Suggesting automatic $1000 fine…
Or you prepare before launch to a provided set of standards. PCI hasn't sunk innovation, for example.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#108It’s essentially manipulation of the dopamine system in the exact same way as casinos except it’s worse because it uses AI to really start personalising what keeps us hooked. Would you let your children become addicted to gambling?
> Would you let your children become addicted to gambling? The problem is worse because it's not up to the parents. Even if the kids opt out, they will now feel excluded because all their peers are on social media, they will still be a victim of the gossip mills and other nastiness present on social media even if they're not directly participating. That's why a blanket-wide ban for under-18s or under-16s is necessary…
I wouldn't go this far but I'd definitely make social media a lot less social/algorithm/attention driven.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#109> These bills will likely face considerable constitutional challenges. Previous attempts to block minors from accessing Web sites via broad legislation, including the Child Online Protection Act, from 1998, have been struck down on First Amendment grounds. You might get farther instead of banning children from social media, ban all ads to children on social media. Every single ad impression shown to a child is a $1,0…
No they won't. They'll keep the kids on as a loss leader. So much value add in indirect ways. Put up with a few years of not advertising to them so you have a user base later on. Keep the parents on-site under the delusion they are "spying" on their kid.
Re: The case for banning children from social media
#110[deleted]