Social media in it's current state is harmful. So I'm all for this.
UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a parent, I completely agree. What's stopping you from doing this so far? Handing a child a smartphone is a decision parents can make, withholding access to a smartphone is also a decision parents can make.
You don't have children, do you? Being a know-it-all in an area you know nothing about. Denying a phone to one child is to isolate them among their peers. Denying it to all makes them equal again.
> Denying a phone to one child is to isolate them among their peers.
This is a worthy tradeoff if you genuinely believe social media to be as damaging for your child as you say it is.
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#73> “Children will be given back their childhoods,” As a parent, I completely agree. We need to protect children from the dangers of the completely uncontrolled "jungle" of social media. But above all, we need to give children back the right to experience a true, real childhood, made up of true friends, fresh air, friendships, and real relationships!
Because they're all going to go outside and skip and run and jump and skim stones rather than sitting in a darkened room playing Fortnite.
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#74I'm guessing that as an adult I'm going to have to show my passport / drivers licence or something else to go on YouTube now? Stuff that.
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does it benefit the UK government to block social media for children?
I'm not the UK government, so how would I know for sure? I'm just making some assumptions , no more than that. One common route that comes to my mind is this: block [something-dangerous] for children, then implement age verification for [something-dangerous], then use it as a tool of censorship. It's way easier to identify and track individuals based on their passport/ID/driving license than based on their email, IP…
I think it's absurd to say we're anywhere near Russia, a literal dictatorship. Russia blocks almost all Western and independent media, blocks or throttles Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp. People who discredit the military can be jailed for 15 years. This is all based on the Russian government's own opinion on what is "dangerous".
Conversely, social media is widely established as posing severe risks to children and teens. Heavy use is strongly linked to mental health issues, addiction, and disrupted sleep. It's not that different from banning the sale of hard drugs.
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not the UK government, so how would I know for sure? I'm just making some assumptions , no more than that. One common route that comes to my mind is this: block [something-dangerous] for children, then implement age verification for [something-dangerous], then use it as a tool of censorship. It's way easier to identify and track individuals based on their passport/ID/driving license than based on their email, IP…
I think it's absurd to say we're anywhere near Russia, a literal dictatorship. Russia blocks almost all Western and independent media, blocks or throttles Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp. People who discredit the military can be jailed for 15 years . This is all based on the Russian government's own opinion on what is "dangerous". Conversely, social media is widely established as posing severe risks to ch…
There is a lot of concern, yes, and no shortage of correlational type anecdata, sure.
Caution is well advised ... but hard drug equivalent causal effect? Not so much.
Scientists pour cold water on claims phones are rewiring kids' brains
Appearing before the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this week, three researchers spent much of the session explaining that concern and evidence are not quite the same thing.
Asked what evidence exists on the impact of digital devices on infants and young children, Professor Denis Mareschal, director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, replied: "There is very little, if any, causal research in the early years. Almost everything is correlational."
MPs kept coming back to the question – and the experts kept coming back to the same answer.
When questioned about social media's impact on adolescents, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the University of Cambridge was equally cautious. "What evidence do we have of the impact of digital devices or social media on the adolescent brain?" she asked. "Almost nothing. There are a few small studies, but they haven't been replicated, and they're purely correlational."
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a parent, I completely agree. What's stopping you from doing this so far? Handing a child a smartphone is a decision parents can make, withholding access to a smartphone is also a decision parents can make.
It sounds like you're assuming a few things: 1. Where you've written "smartphone", you're using this as a proxy for social media, which is what this legislation purports to target. 2. aledevv is a parent. 3. aledevv has, for whatever reason, not withheld access to social media (I'm taking "smartphone" as a proxy for "social media") for their child. 4. What aledevv said they agree with is state-level restrictions on s…
My conflation of social media and smartphones comes from reports of ICT skills declining in children due to overuse of smartphones and tablets to interact with technology. I used this as a decent proxy for the main means kids will interact with social media.
I understand parents' concerns, though I think the price in terms of civic liberties we pay for these social media bans is too high.
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except this doesn't, because most of the rioters are adults. In many of the previous riot/anti-immigrant violence cases, those arrested have substantial criminal records, which tends to lead to the "why is this person not in prison already?" discourse. (look at how long the court system queues are some time. It can be years from offence to conviction!)
Hate speech laws are already in place. All that's needed now is for everyone to doxx themselves for the speech-to-arrest pipeline to work smoothly.
Quite a lot of people seem to publish hate speech under their own names and newspaper bylines.
Pop quiz: which British journalist was cited as inspiration in the manifesto of Anders Breivik?
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#79Feels heavy handed, but the brain-rot seems to be quite real, so I don't see a better option.
Parents taking responsibility for what their children can see and do on their devices is an option. Maybe free classes for tech-illiterate parents? There are options that don't involve forcing everybody to prove their age and provide ID verification to access social media
What kind of class teaches 'tech-illiterate' parents to help their children not succumb to a multi-trillion dollar industry pushing out addictive and damaging content? It should be easy to develop such classes right? Maybe dust off the classes for 'health-illiterate' parents that were needed to stand up to the tobacco and alcohol industries?
Re: UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
#80This should be a parental decision, not a governmental one. UK parents are just offloading raising their kids.
Social media platforms are offloading detection of harmful content and algorithms to UK parents.