121–130 of 134 posts
The fact that they'll ban kids from accessing every social media except Reddit tells you everything you need to know about the real motives behind this "ban".
I'm not on social media. But reddit seems slightly more intelligent than tiktok, instagram, X. What's the real motive then, according to you?
I've said this to every single person who pushed for this. "Imagine you're a teenager, and your parents and government tell you to not do something... What will happen?" The answer is of course that they keep doing it anyhow. But hide it. As an Aussie, and a parent. What I wanted was that the government mandate that in order for your website or app to launch in Australia, that if you want to allow kids between certai…
What if that's the point? What if having to hide it means you do it less?
I've said this to every single person who pushed for this. "Imagine you're a teenager, and your parents and government tell you to not do something... What will happen?" The answer is of course that they keep doing it anyhow. But hide it. As an Aussie, and a parent. What I wanted was that the government mandate that in order for your website or app to launch in Australia, that if you want to allow kids between certai…
You’re probably too young to remember when anti smoking laws were introduced to Australia. It took decades to change behaviours and attitudes. The cigarette industry did everything in their powers to undermine the laws. The social media giants are playing the same game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These ones help people to stop or avoid smoking. If you want to smoke, you still will. As for social media, people don’t really want to stop or avoid using it
Everyone wanted to smoke. And then less people did. And the nobody did, apart from the ones who were already addicted. How do you attribute that?
You are right in the sense that less and less people smoke. You just can’t exclude that we are people and do stupid things to look cooler or something
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it is a human right that I decide for myself what is good for me and what is bad for me. I have for example Instagram and Facebook, but only to look what kind of Magic the Gathering Events are at the weekend, do I look at reels and doom scroll? No. So I would not say I am addicted despite having a smartphone. Technology is in most of the cases not bad, and their use can enrich lives.
That's even worse than saying: fentanyl helps me overcome pain, so it should be felt available to everyone. You're either a hardcore contrarian or a hardcore libertarian. Or living under a rock?
For example, in many countries that legalized Marijuana the number of addicts did not significantly rose. Further the police now have even less to do, as they do not need to control these people if they are taking this drug.
The social media ban has been a wild success in preventing 11-year-olds having their social connections locked into the major social media platforms. Prior to the ban, if you weren't on insta you weren't connected. Now my kid talks to other kids on the phone or sends SMS, but also doesn't really stay in constant contact with their peers outside of school hours, they do their own thing or organise socialising themselves.
It's been hugely positive for interrupting the hostile social media companies from hijacking kids' social connections for the purpose of addictive algorithms to drive ad revenue.
From what I hear, once social media use is embedded in the older teenagers, they are all working around the ban very easily. The social media companies have made no real effort to enforce the ban or comply at anything more than a minimum level, and I wouldn't expect them to as they have absolutely no concept of social licence.
It's beautiful to see civil society take back one little bit of freedom from psychopathic oligarchs.
Here in Australia, every parent I have spoken to is happy about the ban. The media is predictably unhappy since they lose eyeballs, advertising revenue and money. Previous approaches like expecting parents to educate children failed miserably. Most parents lacked at least one or more of motivation, time or knowledge.
Did you read what the article said?
> parental awareness of their [children] online habits had actually declined.
From that perspective, it's even worse now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean there was a time where only adults would typically have a mobile phone.
Times change. There was also a time where only man were allowed to vote, I do not get your point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's even worse than saying: fentanyl helps me overcome pain, so it should be felt available to everyone. You're either a hardcore contrarian or a hardcore libertarian. Or living under a rock?
Believe it or not, there are other ways for dealing with drug abuse then just banning everything. If one thing has become clear, it is that the war on drugs has failed. Instead of banning these products, they should be sold under a regulated and taxed system, with the tax revenue used to fund support programmes for those wishing to quit. For example, in many countries that legalized Marijuana the number of addicts di…
Furthermore, the supply chain isn't comparable to drugs: you cannot illegally import facebook, and you cannot make a ton of money out of it.
And legalization, i.e. the status quo, just keeps the problems too.
It's a bad metaphor.
BTW, I explicitly mentioned fentanyl. It is regulated. And we all know what happens when you release it for free. Now that I think about it, you didn't reply to the argument at all. You just mention war on drugs, then shift to marijuana in a kind of gotcha style and hope no-one notices.