5 ms·

Seems more like an issue for parents to manage. It's hard to control what teenagers do, but young children simply don't have the resources and opportunity to d

Seems more like an issue for parents to manage. It's hard to control what teenagers do, but young children simply don't have the resources and opportunity to do things their parents don't permit them to do.

variable11 6y ago
Yes, parents getting destroyed by a criminally unbalanced system must somehow navigate evil patterns by multi-billion dollar criminal monopolies. What a genius insight, please blame more victims.
staticassertion 6y ago
That doesn't seem true. What if this were drugs? "Just leave that to the parents, don't force people to stop selling to kids"? These days many kids have cell phones. For better or worse, that's what parents are doing. I don't know why, I'm not a parent and I don't know any children, but I know that as a young kid a cell phone allowed me to walk home alone or with another kid at an early age, so I can imagine justifications. Anyway, I don't see why this should be on parents to manage, or how that would be effective.
- montecarl 6y ago
  Seems much easier to control, influence, and parent your children than to make other people stop selling drugs. The USA has been losing a war on drugs for decades.
  - celticninja 6y ago
    Which means the people on drugs are winning.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    But we're not talking about making something illegal, this is a plea to not create a service specifically for children.
  - guerrilla 6y ago
    You seriously think parents aren't trying to stop their kids from doing drugs too? No, they do both. What planet are you from?
- azinman2 6y ago
  Or poison, cigarettes, alcohol, porn, fast food… There are a host of things parents have the responsibility of shielding their kids from. Trying to cancel out harms in the world is futile.
  - the-smug-one 6y ago
    Are you going to be launching cigarettes for kids tomorrow?
    - azinman2 6y ago
      I didn’t realize this was a totally separate product. I’m mixed in that probably many kids are already using Instagram as is… I guess I go back to parent responsibility (although we probably all lose through the tragedy of the commons).
      - LegitShady 6y ago
        So that's a yes?
    - citruscomputing 6y ago
      You mean like Juul?
  - foepys 6y ago
    Cigarettes, alcohol, and porn is actually regulated. In the US alcohol is even so tightly regulated that they bind infrastructure budgets to the legal drinking age of 21.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      It's so highly regulated in some parts of the US that certain types of alcohol are sold exclusively by the government.
  - quietbritishjim 6y ago
    Those are mostly examples of things that are _not_ the exclusive responsibility of parents. For example, selling alcohol to children (at least here in the UK) is a criminal offence, not something you can just say "well it's the parents' fault for not stopping them coming into my shop to buy". Pre-internet, that was even true of porn. They seem to support the opposite point than you make in your second paragraph.
- logifail 6y ago
  > These days many kids have cell phones. For better or worse, that's what parents are doing. I don't know why, I'm not a parent and I don't know any children, but I know that as a young kid a cell phone allowed me to walk home alone or with another kid at an early age, so I can imagine justifications. Our 11-year old travels to school on the train. Last week he set off to school on a day that (thanks to Covid19) he was supposed to be doing "home schooling" (there's a rather crazy timetable, he's got two [different!] days each week in school, three days at week home-schooling). So, we called him on his cell phone : "get off the train as soon as you can, we'll come and pick you up, you need to get back home ASAP" In the good old days he'd have been blissfully unaware of his(our) mistake until arriving at school, at which point he'd have asked an adult for help, and would (probably) come home by himself. I'm not convinced that kids carrying cellphones around is a net benefit, but here we are...
grawprog 6y ago
>Seems more like an issue for parents to manage. No, it seems like zuckerberg should justify why this needs to exist. There doesn't need to be an Instagram for children. What benefit to children get by having an Instagram. Why should this now be an issue for parents because zuck figured he could monetize children?
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Eating disorders at even a younger age! Coming to a child near you.
- bko 6y ago
  In a free society, you don't need to justify why something needs to exist.
  - mettamage 6y ago
    There are so many things that need justification for safety reasons. All the 18+ stuff comes to mind, most notably slot machines. Even in a free society.
    - prichino 6y ago
      Yeah and horses trampled over kids all the time. Justification enough is that the kids should've known better
  - vletal 6y ago
    "free" like in the "regulations are harmful" way?
    - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
      "free" like not guilty until proven otherwise
      - imbnwa 6y ago
agentdrtran 6y ago
parents cannot fight multibillion dollar tech companies trying their damndest to get to their kids alone. it's a one-sided fight.
aftergibson 6y ago
Great, yet another communication channel kids need to be "parented" away from at the potential cost of social isolation. It must be wearying for parents. Kids are resilient, but I imagine many parents don't like the thought of their kid missing out on context/social interaction because the lazy-parents kids let them do whatever they want.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  > Kids are resilient, but I imagine many parents don't like the thought of their kid missing out on context/social interaction because the lazy-parents kids let them do whatever they want. (I mentioned what this was like for me growing up.) Would encourage people to share some alternative paths to not being excluded socially. There's always a way around these platforms, but as a shy kid I never would've found them without a bit of guidance.
- logifail 6y ago
  > the lazy-parents kids let them do whatever they want One of the kids in our 11-year-old's class lost it in the class WhatsApp group last week, hurled any and all terms of abuse you can think of. So our 11-year-old left the group as did many of his friends, and that got reported to the school. Who thinks an 11 year old can understand that saying stuff online could potentially destroy your career several decades hence if someone made a screenshot? I'd happily enforce a minimum age 18 for use of social media.
tartoran 6y ago
Ok, but for the parents who are unable or who mismanage this, we all end up paying for this collectively as a society. No, things that harm people need to be kept a very close eye onto. Gambling is regulated to some extend and it still attracts the weak willed people but at least children are not allowed in. Instagram for kids is a similar thing, it captures all the attention of children for profit, it primes these kids to be superficial and instills a consumerist behavior creates only problems down the line, we can't ignore these things or we will live in a sicker society. It is never perfect but we should strive to at least head in that direction. This is my opinion at least.
LegitShady 6y ago
> Seems more like an issue for parents to manage. No, if something is harmful and addictive it should be regulated, parents or not. Instagram should not be free to get away with addicting children to social media because some parents are not as attentive as they should be. Children should be legally protected from this predatory behaviour by tech ogilarchs looking to embed themselves into the behaviour of young children. Why not a kid's gambling site? I mean, it seems like an issue for parents to manage. Children don't have the resources so it shouldn't be regulated, right? It's predatory, and should be regulated, and heavily punished.
smithza 6y ago
We should compare and contrast to other engagement mediums designed for children; i.e. Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, PBS Kids, Amazon Fire Kid's edition, etc. For these, excepting PBS I think, monetary motivation is the same. More engagement equals more opportunity to show 'Baby Bottle Pop commercials'. One major difference is gov't regulation over open airwaves (in America at least). There is no regulation in the app/product domain. Amazon Fire and Instagram are bound to whatever company moderation policies are in place at Amazon and FB (and App store moderation at Apple/Google).
sharkjacobs 6y ago
And cigarette companies should be allowed to advertise to children. Free capitalism is sacred and parents are the only ones who should care about the wellbeing of their children. Society doesn't exist and no one is responsible for the wellbeing of anyone else beyond their own nuclear family.
simonswords82 6y ago
You are making the bold assumption that all parents are knowledgeable enough or give a shit enough to keep their kids off of social media. The kids are ultimately the ones who suffer so why not just prevent the problem at the root cause by disallowing Instagram for kids.

variable11 6y ago

Yes, parents getting destroyed by a criminally unbalanced system must somehow navigate evil patterns by multi-billion dollar criminal monopolies. What a genius insight, please blame more victims.

staticassertion 6y ago

That doesn't seem true. What if this were drugs? "Just leave that to the parents, don't force people to stop selling to kids"? These days many kids have cell phones. For better or worse, that's what parents are doing. I don't know why, I'm not a parent and I don't know any children, but I know that as a young kid a cell phone allowed me to walk home alone or with another kid at an early age, so I can imagine justifications. Anyway, I don't see why this should be on parents to manage, or how that would be effective.

montecarl 6y ago
Seems much easier to control, influence, and parent your children than to make other people stop selling drugs. The USA has been losing a war on drugs for decades.
- celticninja 6y ago
  Which means the people on drugs are winning.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  But we're not talking about making something illegal, this is a plea to not create a service specifically for children.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  You seriously think parents aren't trying to stop their kids from doing drugs too? No, they do both. What planet are you from?
azinman2 6y ago
Or poison, cigarettes, alcohol, porn, fast food… There are a host of things parents have the responsibility of shielding their kids from. Trying to cancel out harms in the world is futile.
- the-smug-one 6y ago
  Are you going to be launching cigarettes for kids tomorrow?
  - azinman2 6y ago
    I didn’t realize this was a totally separate product. I’m mixed in that probably many kids are already using Instagram as is… I guess I go back to parent responsibility (although we probably all lose through the tragedy of the commons).
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      So that's a yes?
  - citruscomputing 6y ago
    You mean like Juul?
- foepys 6y ago
  Cigarettes, alcohol, and porn is actually regulated. In the US alcohol is even so tightly regulated that they bind infrastructure budgets to the legal drinking age of 21.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    It's so highly regulated in some parts of the US that certain types of alcohol are sold exclusively by the government.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  Those are mostly examples of things that are _not_ the exclusive responsibility of parents. For example, selling alcohol to children (at least here in the UK) is a criminal offence, not something you can just say "well it's the parents' fault for not stopping them coming into my shop to buy". Pre-internet, that was even true of porn. They seem to support the opposite point than you make in your second paragraph.
logifail 6y ago
> These days many kids have cell phones. For better or worse, that's what parents are doing. I don't know why, I'm not a parent and I don't know any children, but I know that as a young kid a cell phone allowed me to walk home alone or with another kid at an early age, so I can imagine justifications. Our 11-year old travels to school on the train. Last week he set off to school on a day that (thanks to Covid19) he was supposed to be doing "home schooling" (there's a rather crazy timetable, he's got two [different!] days each week in school, three days at week home-schooling). So, we called him on his cell phone : "get off the train as soon as you can, we'll come and pick you up, you need to get back home ASAP" In the good old days he'd have been blissfully unaware of his(our) mistake until arriving at school, at which point he'd have asked an adult for help, and would (probably) come home by himself. I'm not convinced that kids carrying cellphones around is a net benefit, but here we are...

grawprog 6y ago

>Seems more like an issue for parents to manage. No, it seems like zuckerberg should justify why this needs to exist. There doesn't need to be an Instagram for children. What benefit to children get by having an Instagram. Why should this now be an issue for parents because zuck figured he could monetize children?

aaomidi 6y ago
Eating disorders at even a younger age! Coming to a child near you.
bko 6y ago
In a free society, you don't need to justify why something needs to exist.
- mettamage 6y ago
  There are so many things that need justification for safety reasons. All the 18+ stuff comes to mind, most notably slot machines. Even in a free society.
  - prichino 6y ago
    Yeah and horses trampled over kids all the time. Justification enough is that the kids should've known better
- vletal 6y ago
  "free" like in the "regulations are harmful" way?
  - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
    "free" like not guilty until proven otherwise
    - imbnwa 6y ago

agentdrtran 6y ago

parents cannot fight multibillion dollar tech companies trying their damndest to get to their kids alone. it's a one-sided fight.

aftergibson 6y ago

Great, yet another communication channel kids need to be "parented" away from at the potential cost of social isolation. It must be wearying for parents. Kids are resilient, but I imagine many parents don't like the thought of their kid missing out on context/social interaction because the lazy-parents kids let them do whatever they want.

throwaway3699 6y ago
> Kids are resilient, but I imagine many parents don't like the thought of their kid missing out on context/social interaction because the lazy-parents kids let them do whatever they want. (I mentioned what this was like for me growing up.) Would encourage people to share some alternative paths to not being excluded socially. There's always a way around these platforms, but as a shy kid I never would've found them without a bit of guidance.
logifail 6y ago
> the lazy-parents kids let them do whatever they want One of the kids in our 11-year-old's class lost it in the class WhatsApp group last week, hurled any and all terms of abuse you can think of. So our 11-year-old left the group as did many of his friends, and that got reported to the school. Who thinks an 11 year old can understand that saying stuff online could potentially destroy your career several decades hence if someone made a screenshot? I'd happily enforce a minimum age 18 for use of social media.

tartoran 6y ago

Ok, but for the parents who are unable or who mismanage this, we all end up paying for this collectively as a society. No, things that harm people need to be kept a very close eye onto. Gambling is regulated to some extend and it still attracts the weak willed people but at least children are not allowed in. Instagram for kids is a similar thing, it captures all the attention of children for profit, it primes these kids to be superficial and instills a consumerist behavior creates only problems down the line, we can't ignore these things or we will live in a sicker society. It is never perfect but we should strive to at least head in that direction. This is my opinion at least.

LegitShady 6y ago

> Seems more like an issue for parents to manage. No, if something is harmful and addictive it should be regulated, parents or not. Instagram should not be free to get away with addicting children to social media because some parents are not as attentive as they should be. Children should be legally protected from this predatory behaviour by tech ogilarchs looking to embed themselves into the behaviour of young children. Why not a kid's gambling site? I mean, it seems like an issue for parents to manage. Children don't have the resources so it shouldn't be regulated, right? It's predatory, and should be regulated, and heavily punished.

smithza 6y ago

We should compare and contrast to other engagement mediums designed for children; i.e. Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, PBS Kids, Amazon Fire Kid's edition, etc. For these, excepting PBS I think, monetary motivation is the same. More engagement equals more opportunity to show 'Baby Bottle Pop commercials'. One major difference is gov't regulation over open airwaves (in America at least). There is no regulation in the app/product domain. Amazon Fire and Instagram are bound to whatever company moderation policies are in place at Amazon and FB (and App store moderation at Apple/Google).

sharkjacobs 6y ago

And cigarette companies should be allowed to advertise to children. Free capitalism is sacred and parents are the only ones who should care about the wellbeing of their children. Society doesn't exist and no one is responsible for the wellbeing of anyone else beyond their own nuclear family.

simonswords82 6y ago

You are making the bold assumption that all parents are knowledgeable enough or give a shit enough to keep their kids off of social media. The kids are ultimately the ones who suffer so why not just prevent the problem at the root cause by disallowing Instagram for kids.