5 ms·

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 p

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 5y 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 5y ago
  Which means the people on drugs are winning.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  But we're not talking about making something illegal, this is a plea to not create a service specifically for children.
- guerrilla 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
  Are you going to be launching cigarettes for kids tomorrow?
  - azinman2 5y 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 5y ago
      So that's a yes?
  - citruscomputing 5y ago
    You mean like Juul?
- foepys 5y 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 5y ago
    It's so highly regulated in some parts of the US that certain types of alcohol are sold exclusively by the government.
- quietbritishjim 5y 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 5y 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...

montecarl 5y 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 5y ago
Which means the people on drugs are winning.
staticassertion 5y ago
But we're not talking about making something illegal, this is a plea to not create a service specifically for children.
guerrilla 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
Are you going to be launching cigarettes for kids tomorrow?
- azinman2 5y 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 5y ago
    So that's a yes?
- citruscomputing 5y ago
  You mean like Juul?
foepys 5y 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 5y ago
  It's so highly regulated in some parts of the US that certain types of alcohol are sold exclusively by the government.
quietbritishjim 5y 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 5y 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...