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Instagram says they'll be consulting with "parents, experts and policymakers" but this leaves out a very important part of the 'safe apps for kids' ecosystem -
by cmg 5y ago
Instagram says they'll be consulting with "parents, experts and policymakers" but this leaves out a very important part of the 'safe apps for kids' ecosystem - the children themselves.
They are using apps and online social spaces in ways that adults can't imagine or comprehend. They're dealing with self-esteem issues, bullying, predators, extreme content and targeted advertising & algorithmic content to keep them engaged. Kids aren't dumb. They're certainly as - or more - susceptible to the negative effects of social media as the rest of us but they shouldn't be ignored here or relegated to a class to be protected because of some kind of diminished capacity. Instead, IG and the experts should be working with them, including their ideas and feedback.
Similar to the iOS feature that can scan the messages of people under 18 on a family account for nudes, features like will get LGBTQ kids who don't have supportive homes in trouble for exploring their sexuality & identity. It will get kids who are looking for support in abusive situations via actually helpful posts in trouble when their adults see what they've been looking at.
I remember what kind of issues I had at home before I learned how to clear my web browser history in the 90s - I can only imagine how much worse this could be in terms of surveillance of kids.
- detcader 5y agoCounterpoint: children should relegated to a class to be protected
- cmg 5y agoI probably wasn't clear enough - children should be protected for a variety of reasons, but they should also be consulted about the issues they face and how best to protect them.
- detcader 5y agoThere's nobody to consult. It's like making drone strike pilots more inclusive. Normalizing children posting pictures of themselves online is pure evil. Children's pictures shouldn't be posted publicly online, period. This goes for parents posting them too. Because they can't consent. We have never had anything like the internet before, where you can instantly put things into the global public record forever. I only hope people will to stop and think about this. History doesn't make one optimistic though
- concinds 5y ago> Similar to the iOS feature that can scan the messages of people under 18 on a family account for nudes, features like will get LGBTQ kids who don't have supportive homes in trouble for exploring their sexuality & identity. It will get kids who are looking for support in abusive situations via actually helpful posts in trouble when their adults see what they've been looking at. This is a minor point of yours, but I don't see any valid reasons for kids below 13 to ever send or receive nudes, and I would hope that most of them wouldn't even have a "sexual orientation" at that age. Opposing policies that are as close to "universally good" as you can get, is going to make it even harder to solve the problems of kids using technology.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> but I don't see any valid reasons for kids below 13 to ever send or receive nudes, and I would hope that most of them wouldn't even have a "sexual orientation" at that age. I think you’re being extremely naive, if not badly misinformed, about how old people are when they start to develop their sexual/gender identity - these things happen before puberty.