| ▲ | echelon 6 hours ago |
| We need to stop this helicopter civilization bullshit. We're building 1984 to protect from god knows what imaginary harms. Stop putting plastic wrap around people's freedoms, liberty, and right to privacy. |
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| ▲ | Gigachad 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The harms of smartphones and social media are about as far from imaginary as it could get. The data is screaming at us. We will look back at handing kids phones with instagram like giving kids cigarettes and think wtf were we doing. |
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| ▲ | AngryData 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | And I find that harm to be far less than the harm caused by identifying everybody all the time and censoring topics to people based on government provided tokens. | |
| ▲ | imjonse 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's no coincidence cigarettes were named 'torches of freedom' to get women to start paying up for the privilege of using them a hundred years ago. | |
| ▲ | echelon 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are you sure it's just kids? In dealing with the ills of social media, you do what you do with every other negative externality - you tax it. At least the parts of it you don't like. Designing privacy, freedom, and liberty destroying mechanisms is not the way. Big social wants these regulations to pass so that they can get better identity tracking for ads targeting. To them it doesn't matter if the tech ushers in 1984. It makes them more money. | | |
| ▲ | bloqs 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not sure I get your arguement here Are you saying that we should let children smoke and just tax it because its better for their liberty and freedoms? Or are you saying we should just tax social media for adults but banning it for kids is ok | | |
| ▲ | anonzzzies 13 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We do that here; heavy tax sigarettes (and booze): both dropped like a lead balloon. So yes, tax it for everyone. Kids cannot pay for sigarettes and most adults don't want to (most vapers I know do it because it costs far less; that should be taxed more too imho). If browsing insta/tiktok costs an euro per hour, let's see how many still do it; I'd say they go bankrupt in a few months. Apparently it was never that interesting. |
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| ▲ | Gigachad 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's definitely not just kids. Social media is a lot like meth, we should at a bare minimum stop giving it to kids as soon as possible. And then come to realise it's bad for everyone and should be wound back. | | |
| ▲ | Paracompact 23 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Their argument would be, "If meth is a negative externality, we should just tax it instead of banning it in stores for kids to buy." Kids may die, but I'm sure with all that extra state revenue we'll get a nice park or museum or kickback to Tesla or something. |
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| ▲ | PeterStuer an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| "We" are building 1984 to make sure "We" stay in power of our EU Animal Farm. |
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| ▲ | krige 12 minutes ago | parent [-] | | EU? It's mostly happening elsewhere though. See: Australia. See: California. See: KIDS act. See: KOSA. Sounds like denial or tunnel vision. |
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| ▲ | countcol 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | smilekzs 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The legal guardian is responsible for gatekeeping what their minor sees or does not see. | |
| ▲ | echelon 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'd seen all the shock websites by age 12. Kids love to prank each other. None of this is a real harm. The real harms are the government being able to put a muzzle on speech, track who says what, and begin to cordon off areas of thought and expression. You might think it's a win that this is happening, but you won't be the one in charge and you won't have a say how it's used against you. | | |
| ▲ | doginasuit 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't think it is a win, I'm not sure how you got that from my comment. There should be enough room for nuance to acknowledge that the internet is uniquely unhealthy for young people. I don't find 'I saw all the bad stuff and look how great I turned out' very compelling. If empirical research showed that some kind of intervention would be helpful, I'd be in favor of it even if it comes at a cost. But I don't think age-gating will prove effective as an intervention. If anyone needs to be reined in, it is tech companies that exploit attention and gather data, and the age-gating controversy is a costly distraction. | |
| ▲ | denkmoon 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Shock sites are materially different to the harm kids do to one another on social media. | | |
| ▲ | echelon 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Shock sites are materially different to the harm kids do to one another This would be the "fixed" version of your comment. The social media bit is irrelevant. Kids have always been assholes to other kids. I took the school bus a few times, and the older neighborhood kids tried to chase me down, beat me, and piss on me. That was before the internet. You can't make up for other parents' bad parenting by trying to invent a system to bubble wrap all the kids. You teach your own kids to be strong in the face of adversity, to grow a thick skin, and to stand up for themselves. | | |
| ▲ | fwipsy 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Just because you survived it doesn't mean that it's "not real harm." I am sympathetic to privacy concerns, but the downsides also need to be taken seriously and mitigated where it's possible to do so without critically compromising privacy. |
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| ▲ | Balinares an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I have a hunch that the Epstein class is getting increasingly upset about the kids encountering ideas about what ought to be done about the Epstein class, and mostly are keen to see the next generation molded back into good little subservient laborers. It really isn't about the well-being of the kids. |
