> And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok

You realise children can legally do neither, right?

Government should be in the business of improving citizens lives. As another commenter said, left to their own devices companies would still be using leaded paint everywhere if it was 1c cheaper per gallon. I’ve grown very tired of this “any regulation is bad regulation” viewpoint, it doesn’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

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slibhb 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Some regulations are good. Like the ones regulating drugs and gambling (that have been largely dismantled).

But we don't need the government to protect people from Facebook!

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throw10920 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

I would say that it depends on the exact details of regulation being discussed, not just the target.

For instance, you could propose a regulation that says that any type of gambling with any wager, whether using real currency or fictional, for any age range, should be illegal. I think most people would consider that to be unreasonable.

You could also propose a regulation that says that companies cannot collect personal data on individuals for advertising purposes unless that individual is directly engaged with that company as a customer. This would hopefully render illegal Facebook's "shadow profiles"[1] that collect data on non-customers. While more controversial, I'd say that this would still be supported by most people you'd meet, while still falling into the category of "the government protecting people from Facebook".

Details of regulation matter, a lot.

[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-pr...

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7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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afavour 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why don’t we? Cigarettes are harmful to people, they get regulated. If Facebook is harmful, why not regulate it?

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slibhb 7 months ago | parent [-]

So you really not see a difference between _lung cancer_ and "my teenager is moody"?

The evidence that Facebook harms people is extremely iffy.

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afavour 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Do you not see the difference between “my teenager is moody” and “depression”? Using minimizing language here helps no one.

I agree that there should be more formal research into the effects of social media but as a parent I see concern about the effects of social media in conversation with other parents and teachers all the time. It is something we all witness in our own lives to some extent or another.

“We should let this run rampant while we investigate it fully” and “we should block this while we investigate it fully” are both valid viewpoints. And if voters want the latter it only makes sense for the government to be responsive to that.

	▲	slibhb 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		It's very hard, maybe impossible, to answer the question of whether social media harms people. It's like asking if TV, video games, etc harm people. Maybe -- but I don't trust the studies and at any rate, these are things people should decide for themselves and their families.

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BSDobelix 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

>The evidence that Facebook harms people is extremely iffy.

Funny because internal documents at Facebook said exactly that about teenagers:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/16/faceboo...

https://fairplayforkids.org/facebook-research-children/

https://theconversation.com/states-sue-meta-for-knowingly-hu...

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hn_acker 7 months ago | parent [-]

Facebook's internal documents showed that on 11 of 12 body image issues, Facebook was helpful to more teens than it was harmful to [1]:

> For example, lots of people rely on the reporting around the Frances Haugen leaks from inside Facebook to argue that “Facebook knew” that Instagram causes “body image issues” for children (and then most people leapt to the belief that the company then ignored and downplayed that finding). But, as we noted, the actual study told a very, very different story. As we pointed out at the time, the study was an attempt to do the right thing and understand if social media like Facebook was actually causing negative self-images among teenagers, and the study found that for the most part, the answer was absolutely not.

> It looked at 12 different potential issues, and surveyed teenaged boys and girls, and found that in 23 out of 24 categories, social media had little to no negative impact, and quite frequently a mostly positive impact. The only issue where the “negative impact” outweighed the “positive impact” was on “body image issues” for teenaged girls, and even then it was less than one-third of the teen girls who said that it made it worse for them. And the whole point of the study was to find out what areas were problematic, and which areas could be improved upon. But, again, in every other area, “made it better” far outranked “made it worse.”

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/28/contrary-to-popular-opin...

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BSDobelix 7 months ago | parent [-]

Written by Mike Masnick.....

Next, face filters are actually good for teenage self-esteem, just don't put mirrors in your house, or onlyfans... where women find the real mental glowup.

	▲	hn_acker 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		> Next, face filters are actually good for teenage self-esteem, just don't put mirrors in your house, or onlyfans... where women find the real mental glowup. Did anyone suggest anything close to that? And why mention OnlyFans? If the number of teen users helped by a social media site with face filters is greater than the number of teen users harmed by the social media site, then the former group might already be avoiding or using the worse features (including but not limited to face filters) in a healthy way. Parents and guardians should be teaching children to use the internet in a healthy way, including by warning that photos on social media can be edited with internal and external tools. Some public schools include the topic of manipulated images on social media in health class. Removing face filters from social media sites that have them might be a good idea, but people with severe body image issues will resort to external tools and post the edited images in their group chats. But I digress. Of the pressures that teen social media users attribute to social media, "overwhelmed because of all the drama" and "like their friends are leaving them out of things" are more prevalent than "worse about their own life" [2]; even then, most teen social media users report that social media makes them feel "more connected to what's going on in their friends' lives" and "like they have people who can support them through tough times" [3]. The percentage of teen social media users reporting that social media has had a net positive effect on them personally is greater than the percentage that report a net negative effect [3] (and the sample probably includes users of TikTok and Instagram, which have face filters). > Written by Mike Masnick..... Wherein he links to [4] the publicized results [5] of Facebook's internal research, provides a major infographic from the results, and follows up with infographics and excerpts from Pew Research, yes. Also, I have to correct what I wrote in my previous comment. What I originally wrote: > Facebook's internal documents showed that on 11 of 12 body image issues, Facebook was helpful to more teens than it was harmful to The evidence I referred to was from public documents about internal research, not internal documents. The infographic was about Instagram, not Facebook. Instagram, which has an app with face filters. The reesearch was about 12 issues, of which one was body image. The corrected version of what I wrote is: < Facebook's public documents on an internal study showed that on 11 of 12 issues (including problematic use, social comparison, and eating issues), Instagram was helpful to more teen users than it was harmful to. The 12th issue was body image. Instagram was helpful to more teen boys than it was harmful to, but more harmful to teen girls than it was helpful to. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42266581 [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/11/16/connection-c... [3] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/11/16/connection-c... [4] https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/28/contrary-to-popular-opin... [5] https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Instagram-Te...

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meiraleal 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We definitely do. Just enforcing the laws would do, as drugs and gambling is a good amount of social media ads revenue

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lm28469 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> But we don't need the government to protect people from Facebook!

Says who exactly ?

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lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Why gambling but not Facebook?

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slibhb 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Among other things, there is solid evidence that the move toward gambling in the US has been a disaster. This is a topic that's fairly easy to study in objective terms.

The evidence for social media harming people is highly disputed and, I would say, largely unconvincing. For one thing, it relies on self-reported subjective well-being.

	▲	blargey 7 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm not sure how you define "harm", but I think a reduction in "self-reported subjective well-being" is one of the more robust definitions.
	▲	Der_Einzige 7 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Sports gambling is nothing compared to Dave and busters or Chuck E. Cheese’s tickets. We hook our kids of disgusting gambling behavior (legally?). No one cares about this and wants to go after sports betters instead. God damn boot lickers all over this thread. I’m so glad to not live anywhere near that godforsaken island.

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zknow 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Isn't gambling usually illegal for minors?

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throw10920 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

> I've grown very tired of this “any regulation is bad regulation” viewpoint, it doesn’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.

This is sneering, where you don't respond to a particular poster's point, but instead attack an unrelated (and even fictional) group of people based on something you don't like, or an attitude that you subjectively perceive to be common. Precisely zero people in this thread have made the claim that "any regulation is bad regulation", and in fact the person you responded to specifically called out drugs and gambling as things that they would be open to regulating.

Sneering is against the HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), boring, unenlightening, not intellectually gratifying, and degrades the quality of the site. Please don't do it.

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afavour 7 months ago | parent [-]

[EDIT: removed a snarky reply, need to remind myself not to engage with off topic trolling]

	▲	tom_ 7 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sneering is one of the things posters are specifically requested not to do: "Please don't sneer".
	▲	throw10920 7 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Ctrl-F “sneering”, no results Ctrl-F for "sneer" - or just read the guidelines, as you should have before posting, and clearly did not: > Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > I for one find dismissing a thought by pointing to the big board of rules to be boring, unenlightening and not intellectually gratifying. But that’s just me. You did not read the rest of my comment, then, which pointed out why sneering is bad. Or maybe you did, because you quoted it, but then chose to forget what you quoted? Separate from the enumerated rules, it's pretty obvious why this kind of behavior - both in your original comment, and your reply - is generally anti-intellectual, and better suited for Reddit than HN. If you're not going to follow the guidelines, and going to act in such a hostile and shallow manner, then perhaps you should go somewhere else. > [EDIT: removed a snarky reply, need to remind myself not to engage with off topic trolling] Reminding you of the HN guidelines that you repeatedly and blatantly violate, and calling out your hostile, dishonest, emotionally manipulative, and anti-intellectual behavior, is not trolling. The only one engaging in off-topic trolling, by bringing up fictional positions that nobody adopted, is you.