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The case for banning children from social media

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Re: The case for banning children from social media

#521

Post by dustedcodes »

randomdata wrote: post #504
dustedcodes wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think HN falls into the category of social media in the sense that it is debated by lawmakers at the moment. Not every online community is social media just like not every shopping site that has girls posing in tight bikinis (Victoria Secret, Nike, etc.) is an adult site.

If HN isn't social media, I'm not sure what is. Perhaps you are referring to plain old media where there is no meaningful social interaction, rather one-way consumption of produced content? Indeed, lawmakers do seem concerned about new entrants to the media space, like producers on TikTok, no doubt because they struggle to exert the same kind of control over the content like they used to be able to when there were on…

   > If HN isn't social media, I'm not sure what is.
You don't see significant measurable difference between Insta/TikTok and HN? Ouch!

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#522

Post by gspencley »

bumby wrote: post #509
gspencley wrote: post #494

> How you feel about all this will likely come down to whether you believe that social-media platforms are addictive products—like cigarettes—marketed to kids or that they are vital and intractable parts of the national conversation. No that doesn't affect how I feel it about it at all. I raised two daughters whose lives overlapped with the existence of social media, but who were well into their teens before everyone…

Just for clarity, do you extend this to the government's ban on cigarettes being sold to minors? I.e., if a parent thought cigarette smoking was an acceptable risk for their children, should those children should be allowed to smoke? Or are some risks unacceptable irrespective of the parents assessment? If you do think some things are off the table regardless of the parent's opinion, where is that line drawn? (again,…

For context my default position on all issues stems from my personal world view that the only justifiable role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens.

With respects to cigarettes, I am open to being persuaded by the fact that an enormous amount of empirical data underscores the risk to an individual's health posed by the consumption of cigarettes and, therefore, it can be argued that a parent allowing their children to smoke could potentially amount to child endangerment or abuse, depending on the context. That said, I remember my parents caught me smoking and had me smoke an entire pack to induce illness so that I would not want to smoke again. And it worked. So this is a topic more complicated than it first appears surface-level.

With respects to social media, if we were to apply the same standard as we do with cigarettes and physical child endangerment then we are opening ourselves to the possibility that information and tools of communication can be "harmful" in and of themselves. As the article points out, this puts freedom of speech directly under attack. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right and therefore it is part of the government's very mandate and "raison d'etre" to protect and defend it. Moral busy bodies and their moral panics be damned, and I say that even though I despise social media and wish it didn't exist. But just because I don't like something doesn't mean that I think it should be illegal.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#523

Post by MandieD »

rfgh wrote: post #367
MandieD wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addressing center-left, middle-class women (like myself): "Worried about your son being sucked into the incel movement because he watched some video game playthroughs? Concerned that your daughter's depression is being driven by the unrealistic standards of femininity that influencers are pushing into her Instagram feed? Is your kid a zombie after spending more than a few minutes on TikTok? Did your mother become irr…

But what if arguing with strangers on the internet is a hobby that you derive much enjoyment and fulfilment from?

Third-party apps that pick comments from randos who follow politicians you can’t stand, I suppose… perhaps like the “freak” relationship from ca. 1999 Slashdot (“friends” of people you designated as “foes”)

Edited to add: but only randos who have indicated they want randos to argue with them :)

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#524

Post by red-iron-pine »

andsoitis wrote: post #463
Animats wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff It's not hard. It just upsets vested interests. Make it illegal to show ads to kids. You don't have to make "kid" identification airtight, because few people of any age want to opt into ads. The ad industry was very upset when the American Psychological Association proposed this back in 2004.[1] This doesn't raise constitutional issues because ads are con…

>> It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff > It's not hard. It just upsets vested interests. Vested interests are precisely why it is hard.

Take a look at the Fortune 500 list, and you can see exactly why the US has the problems it does. The largest companies correlate to the shortcomings, e.g. oil & gas & cars vs. public transit, or all of the healthcare companies that are in the F50 vs. affordable healthcare.

Vested interests rule the US at this point.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#525

Post by burnished »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #373
burnished wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can go ahead and independently verify something like that pretty easily. Kind of weird to veer towards lies and malice at the drop of a hat here

>Kind of weird to veer towards lies and malice at the drop of a hat here What? To me it is extremely naive to think that social media services wont try to use every single loop hole. Also, cant help but notice you didnt actually answer the question - just dismissed it.

I'm not doing your homework for you - if you think HN is personalized it should be trivial to show it.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#526

Post by edgyquant »

cowl wrote: post #487
ok_dad wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime someone exchanges cash, goods, or services to promote a product or service, and then repeat this inspection up the chain of shell companies! > Is kid playing with fancy toys is an ad? not enough context, maybe > Is product placement in movie an ad? yes, clearly > How and who will determine if this is and ad or not? Probably some corporate compliance drones and underfunded government stooges.

> not enough context, maybe > Probably some corporate compliance drones and underfunded government stooges. Youtube alone has 720,000 hours of fresh video content per day Tiktok must have less number of hours but more Videos per day. Add Instagram, facebook, Twitter and it's impossible for anyone to verify this manually so in the end how is the platform supposed to decide what to show and what not where the "not enou…

That’s the platforms problem, not ours. If they can’t validate the content then they’ll have to scale back to an amount they can.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#527

Post by edgyquant »

ok_dad wrote: post #362
sssilver wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just realized that banning blatant advertisement may be one of the most effective measures to help slow down the reckless consumption of natural resources

Imagine if people didn't think they needed 27 hilarious t-shirts they'll never wear or wear once, a tool to cut an apple into slices (plus one for all the other fruits and veg), plastic bags for everything they pack for their kids, toys that will go on the pile of other toys, a new phone and car each year, 137 pairs of sneakers, etc. Not to mention no longer getting ear-and-eye-fucked with billboards, pop-ups, requir…

Sounds like a utopia to me

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#528

Post by enraged_camel »

gspencley wrote: post #522
bumby wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for clarity, do you extend this to the government's ban on cigarettes being sold to minors? I.e., if a parent thought cigarette smoking was an acceptable risk for their children, should those children should be allowed to smoke? Or are some risks unacceptable irrespective of the parents assessment? If you do think some things are off the table regardless of the parent's opinion, where is that line drawn? (again,…

For context my default position on all issues stems from my personal world view that the only justifiable role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens. With respects to cigarettes, I am open to being persuaded by the fact that an enormous amount of empirical data underscores the risk to an individual's health posed by the consumption of cigarettes and, therefore, it can be argued that a parent allowing…

>> That said, I remember my parents caught me smoking and had me smoke an entire pack to induce illness so that I would not want to smoke again. And it worked. So this is a topic more complicated than it first appears surface-level.

This is child abuse, to be totally clear. I'm really sorry you were put through that.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#529

Post by bumby »

gspencley wrote: post #522
bumby wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for clarity, do you extend this to the government's ban on cigarettes being sold to minors? I.e., if a parent thought cigarette smoking was an acceptable risk for their children, should those children should be allowed to smoke? Or are some risks unacceptable irrespective of the parents assessment? If you do think some things are off the table regardless of the parent's opinion, where is that line drawn? (again,…

For context my default position on all issues stems from my personal world view that the only justifiable role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens. With respects to cigarettes, I am open to being persuaded by the fact that an enormous amount of empirical data underscores the risk to an individual's health posed by the consumption of cigarettes and, therefore, it can be argued that a parent allowing…

Thanks for replying. This seems like a pretty reasonable position.

I'm assuming the "role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens" would extend to the rights of children as well as parents? Like you, I also don't believe people need to be protected from information (except in cases of extreme asymmetries of risk, e.g., national security). However, I think an important nuance is to distinguish between information and particularly nefarious methods of disseminating/collecting information.

As a potentially poorly thought-out example, the government protects our rights to self-defense. However, this right should not be conflated with assuming we have the right to any mechanism of self-defense. There are certain mechanisms of self-defense that the government puts limits on. E.g., I do not have an unchecked right to protect myself with a machine-gun or a nuclear arsenal. So while I agree with your fundamental principle, it still remains unclear to me where the limits of regulations/rights stand.

>the fact that an enormous amount of empirical data underscores the risk to an individual's health posed by the consumption of cigarettes and, therefore, it can be argued that a parent allowing their children to smoke could potentially amount to child endangerment or abuse

I think this is the exact point the article was poking at: to some, social media is viewed as such a risk as to be tantamount to being abusive. It sounds like you are at least acknowledging that as a potential valid perspective, even if you disagree about the risk assessment. As a corollary, though, I'm not sure there is the same preponderance of evidence of real or imminent danger in social media as in the cigarette example.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#530

Post by edgyquant »

afunctionof wrote: post #507
eimrine wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do we determine it's a child online Why not use passport verification for any enough big social network? Anyway there is almost impossible to use them anonymously.

Not only can you tie all of your speech to a government-issued ID, you can do it for the low price of $160 and a piece of ID that forty-percent of Americans will have no other use for!

So use a government ID instead
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