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UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

manchestereveningnews.co.uk

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Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#231

Post by [deleted] »

thisislife2 wrote: post #187
tarkin2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't parents be the ones to protect their children from the dangers of heroin, rather than an over-reaching state?

Do you really believe parents can realistically protect their wards from getting hooked to any harmful, addictive drugs? How will they ever know if their kids are experimenting with these drugs? The problem is that the drugs are addictive - all it it needs is for someone to try it a few times to get completely hooked to it. And you don't realise it until it is too late.

[deleted]

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#232

Post by halJordan »

insurgent_dino wrote: post #170
tarkin2 wrote: post #162

I teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades. And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used agai…

Do you agree that parents should be the one protecting their children from this 'propaganda' and internet slop? Whilst I agree that social media can be overwhelmingly negative especially for young people, dont you recon that the risk to privacy and free-nature / increased surveillance of the internet is a greater problem?

I think they should be "one of" not "the one." You know, it takes a village. And in any event, as others have said, parents have completely refused to participate in the question anyways, so in the real world your statement is not worth the paper it's written on.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#233

Post by yw3410 »

tarkin2 wrote: post #162

I teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades. And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used agai…

May I ask how long you've been teaching and generally how big the behavioural change and/or timespan has been?

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#234

Post by latency-guy2 »

ajkjk wrote: post #136
Aurornis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but really, I think it's a good idea. > Yes, it removes the "free" internet > Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access Is anyone else as stunned as I am by how many posters on tech websites have suddenly gone full anti-free-internet and embracing the police state? The internet I grew up on was all about freedom and resisting the police state. Now the top voted comment (at least a…

I'm stunned when people can't reason about a tradeoff between two principles because they assigned infinite weight to one of them. Police state=bad. Industrial scale drug addiction in kids=also bad. Some compromise must be made. The slippery slope arguments do nothing. People are trying to solve this problem; trying to scare them with other problems they may have later--which they can solve separately!--is just irrel…

Hey, if it's irrelevant noise then why are you crying about it?

Anyway, to make it the UK's problem even more, I will be doing what I can to eliminate the UK's traffic to as many services as possible. I have no interest in supporting the small island or it's people or their great red coat firewall.

Enjoy your wall.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#235

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

tarkin2 wrote: post #162

I teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades. And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used agai…

My kid's school bans phones for that very reason. I find the age limit annoying and very easy to circumvent, which renders it pointless. This is a problem, because I agree with the benefits of kids attention not being eroded at scale.

edit: added age

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#236

Post by simplyluke »

Fervicus wrote: post #31

Somehow all the countries are suddenly proposing the same thing. You'd think at least one of these countries might try something different if they actually cared about the kids, like banning algorithmic feeds. Not suspicious at all.

And yet you're still labeled a conspiracy theorist if you suggest that their might be ulterior motives for identity verification in the nation that arrested 12,000 people for what they posted online in 2023.

I'm actually very supportive of getting rid of screens + social media for kids. I don't the reasons I'm supportive of that bear any resemblance to the motives of the UK's political class.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#237

Post by mmarq »

insurgent_dino wrote: post #170
tarkin2 wrote: post #162

I teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades. And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used agai…

Do you agree that parents should be the one protecting their children from this 'propaganda' and internet slop? Whilst I agree that social media can be overwhelmingly negative especially for young people, dont you recon that the risk to privacy and free-nature / increased surveillance of the internet is a greater problem?

I’m a parent, children should be banned from social media and enforcement should include serious fines for parents who don’t monitor their children.

After the first 2-3 fines, people will magically learn to use parental control and the idiocy of age verification will end.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#238

Post by Rebelgecko »

thisislife2 wrote: post #187
tarkin2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't parents be the ones to protect their children from the dangers of heroin, rather than an over-reaching state?

Do you really believe parents can realistically protect their wards from getting hooked to any harmful, addictive drugs? How will they ever know if their kids are experimenting with these drugs? The problem is that the drugs are addictive - all it it needs is for someone to try it a few times to get completely hooked to it. And you don't realise it until it is too late.

IMO everything you said is equally applicable to social media (unless you have complete and total surveillance over your kids)

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#239

Post by _heimdall »

elmomle wrote: post #126
_heimdall wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd dig deeper on the problem though. More fundamentally, laws like this are based on the fundamental assumption that both children and their parents can't make good decisions and that the state must instead force the right decisions on them.

Yet we have laws around child endangerment. I'm a big supporter of parental sovereignty, but I also acknowledge that if society operates the way it does, I can't immediately think of a good reason why "mental health endangerment" (which social media for kids very much is) wouldn't be included in the broader scope of endangerment.

I don't have children so huge caveat there, but from what I have heard from those parents I'm close to our child endangerment laws are out of hand.

I had a family member find police knocking on their door because their child was playing unattended in the front lawn in the middle of the day in a nice neighborhood with very low crime. While I completely get that some people find that unsafe and wouldn't let their kids play outside unsupervised, it wasn't long ago that I was a kid riding my bike a mile or two down the road to go to a friend's house on the other end of our neighborhood.

Either we all now live in a crime riddled third world country (aging myself there, I guess its the global south now), or we may have overstepped in the name of keeping other people's children safe despite what their parents think is best.

With regards to social media, that should be something we are making loud and clear to parents so they can make the decision best for them. A close friend didn't let their kids have a cell phone or be on social media at all until 16 years old, parent can absolutely make similar choices if they think it matters.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#240

Post by _heimdall »

slopinthebag wrote: post #228
_heimdall wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't surprise me at all. At least in the US, both major political parties fully embrace censorship and a police state. Sure the disagree on the details, but they agree pretty universally on the direction.

I believe this is the outcome of technocracy. Technocrats need power, they need a strong police to enforce their legislation, and they need censorship to maintain a narrative. It's a deeply authoritarian ideology, and it's infected much of the western world.

Yeah that's a very reasonable hypothesis. More generally, I assume it happens anytime power is centralized into too few hands - they will always want force to keep what they have.
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