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I’m not a fan of any of the companies listed but I don’t necessarily like blaming them for things parents shouldn’t be giving their kids access to. But maybe t

I’m not a fan of any of the companies listed but I don’t necessarily like blaming them for things parents shouldn’t be giving their kids access to. But maybe these lawsuits will wake some parents up.

mentos 3y ago
What if you consider social media to be like cigarettes?
- veave 3y ago
  Even if you did, parents shouldn't allow their kids to get cigarettes. Parents trying to get out of parenting is getting old already.
  - LightBug1 3y ago
    And if the cigarette companies advertise to the kids? And the second hand smoke is everywhere (everyone else using them) and are almost ubiquitous now? Such that the only way around that is to cut those kids off from society? I agree with you on parenting, but I won't, for a second, let these companies off the hook for the damage they cause. Give them an inch, they'll take your entire soul if they can and it will help their quarterly P&L. Don't forget it.
    - throw_m239339 3y ago
      > And if the cigarette companies advertise to the kids? It's illegal. Tiktok, Facebook, ... nonsense on the other hand isn't, because these platforms aren't responsible for the content they broadcast, by regulation. So should these regulations change?
      - LightBug1 3y ago
        Of course, I know it's illegal. I'm using the comparison to highlight it. It's as if we're allowing cigarette companies to be all pervasive through general access and direct advertising to our kids, and then saying: "but the parents shouldn't let them smoke, man, they're not responsible parents". I think that's unfair at this stage. Yes, perhaps regulation needs to change.
  - probably_wrong 3y ago
    I think you're being too harsh on the parents. I don't know a single parent who allowed their kids to get cigarettes, but I also don't know a single teen who ever said "I'd like to smoke but my parents don't allow it so no, thanks". They just smoked behind their parents' backs. I feel the comparison to cigarettes is apt: I know of children who had an "official" Facebook account for their parents and a "real" one for their school friends. And while I'm not sure I 100% agree with the lawsuit, I think it's worth asking: given how much money these companies invested in hooking teens up and how much they profited from it, should they also be held accountable for the negative effects of said hooking up?
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    Are you a parent? It certainly doesn't sound like it. While you might be able to keep a preteen away from things, once they are teenagers you can not prevent then from doing something they want to do. The amount of teenage pregnancies in states where they preach abstinence instead of doing sexual education is a pretty strong proof of that.
  - joelegner 3y ago
    The law has far more power over corporations than society has over parents and parents have over children. We are better off doing what is most effective: regulate the industry.
  - jonnycomputer 3y ago
    I think you over-estimate how much control parents do have, or even should have, over their own children.
- throw_m239339 3y ago
  > What if you consider social media to be like cigarettes? Well, then people should show some ID before using the internet or something to prove they are adults? How do you enforce that? at the ISP level? at the device level? At the website level? Genuine question. Who's responsibility is that? In a society where nobody wants to be responsible for anything?
  - geraldwhen 3y ago
    To buy ammo online, you need to upload a photo of your drivers license. It’s much, much cheaper to buy ammo this way. So there are regulated industries where age restriction is already being handled.
- DirectorKrennic 3y ago
  I don't see regulators pushing for Meta and Google to be broken up, or for ISPs to nuke TikTok in the USA. It's been talked about for years but nothing ever happens.
  - joelegner 3y ago
    I took it to mean the age restrictions and restrictions on advertising to kids, not an anti-trust action.
maxbond 3y ago
I don't think parents can just keep their kids off of social media, at least teens. How are they supposed to function socially if they're not even able to enter the spaces where a huge amount of the socializing is happening? What about during the pandemic, when it was virtually all online? If the goal is to promote their mental health and their growth, cutting them off from their peer group doesn't seem like a promising strategy. It seems silly to blame the parents when the world has shifted around them, outside of their control.
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  Many teens did not isolate. They had no reason to. Virtual relationships are low value, and I encourage my kids to do things in person.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    Well those are certainly views you're entitled to. Many of my most meaningful friendships have been with people I've never met in person. Teens are/were able both to contract and to spread COVID, which are two excellent reasons they might have isolated during the stay at home/shelter in place advisories. That said, encouraging your kids to interact in person seems reasonable to me.
- gitowiec 3y ago
  The space you call social media, is not a space where children learn social behaviours.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    Why do you say that? I'm part of one of the earlier cohorts (I assume) to go through high school on Facebook, and absolutely a huge part of my social life was on Facebook. I organized our senior ditch day on Facebook. My awkward first attempts at flirting were on Facebook. I'm not saying it's a good or healthy space for teens to socialize, but I do contend it's an important one.
brightball 3y ago
My kids are in middle school. Almost all of their friends have no restrictions at all on phone use, electronics, video streaming, etc. A few have been on TikTok and Instagram since they were in 5th grade. The amount of pressure I hear to let them have Snapchat is constant. Regardless, we maintained the restrictions. Apple Family makes it fairly easy to manage. Xbox controls are a little more of a pain but they work too to moderate. I’ve talked to my kids about the addictive and psychological elements of how certain games work or videos. They listened but didn’t understand. Last week, they started talking to me about how a lot of their friends have a phone in front of their face all the time and they see what we’ve been trying to warn them about. It was a struggle to get there but seeing that they finally really understood was big. The flip side though, the reason they understand is because they see people who have fallen victim to it. It’s like understanding why your parents warned you about drugs because you see what happened to your friend who fell into it. We know the consequences. At this point, parents shouldn’t have to spend so much time worrying about this. It’s not easy but it should be.
- mattgreenrocks 3y ago
  I am with you. I will die on this hill. Social media is toxic: it’s not real, it’s a waste of life when there’s tons of other awesome things you can do. And the legitimization of chasing Internet Points is truly sad.
  - boppo1 3y ago
    I'm an illustrator/painter and instagram has been a MASSIVE net positive on my life. I have come across extremely useful products (allaprima pochade) and artists who provide unparalleled education. I have learned WAY more from artists I have found on instagram, and for a paltry $600 compared to the thousands I absolutely wasted on university classes led by professors who I discovered too late were incompetent.
    - micromacrofoot 3y ago
      the sad thing is that in a lot of professions like this you need social media to promote your work
TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
On one side parents who are likely overworked, on the other a group of corporation filled with some of the top minds of our era focused on building the most addictive product imaginable. The deck is stacked very strongly against parents and it's completely unreasonable to not hold greater accountability towards these massive corporations.
wiseowise 3y ago
Have you ever been a child? Kids don’t live in isolation.
hnlmorg 3y ago
As a parent I can assure you that both things need to happen. It’s like how cigarettes weren’t allowed to be advertised to children. Sure, parents were responsible for teaching kids not to smoke but companies need to also be held accountable for the well-being of their product and it’s users too. It’s not an either / or. There is enough responsibility for all parties to be accountable.
xg15 3y ago
I think you can reformulate the old "bank debt" adage for social media and still have it hold true: If 10% of your users are using your product wrong, the users are at fault. If 90% are using it wrong, it's your fault.

mentos 3y ago

What if you consider social media to be like cigarettes?

veave 3y ago
Even if you did, parents shouldn't allow their kids to get cigarettes. Parents trying to get out of parenting is getting old already.
- LightBug1 3y ago
  And if the cigarette companies advertise to the kids? And the second hand smoke is everywhere (everyone else using them) and are almost ubiquitous now? Such that the only way around that is to cut those kids off from society? I agree with you on parenting, but I won't, for a second, let these companies off the hook for the damage they cause. Give them an inch, they'll take your entire soul if they can and it will help their quarterly P&L. Don't forget it.
  - throw_m239339 3y ago
    > And if the cigarette companies advertise to the kids? It's illegal. Tiktok, Facebook, ... nonsense on the other hand isn't, because these platforms aren't responsible for the content they broadcast, by regulation. So should these regulations change?
    - LightBug1 3y ago
      Of course, I know it's illegal. I'm using the comparison to highlight it. It's as if we're allowing cigarette companies to be all pervasive through general access and direct advertising to our kids, and then saying: "but the parents shouldn't let them smoke, man, they're not responsible parents". I think that's unfair at this stage. Yes, perhaps regulation needs to change.
- probably_wrong 3y ago
  I think you're being too harsh on the parents. I don't know a single parent who allowed their kids to get cigarettes, but I also don't know a single teen who ever said "I'd like to smoke but my parents don't allow it so no, thanks". They just smoked behind their parents' backs. I feel the comparison to cigarettes is apt: I know of children who had an "official" Facebook account for their parents and a "real" one for their school friends. And while I'm not sure I 100% agree with the lawsuit, I think it's worth asking: given how much money these companies invested in hooking teens up and how much they profited from it, should they also be held accountable for the negative effects of said hooking up?
- cycomanic 3y ago
  Are you a parent? It certainly doesn't sound like it. While you might be able to keep a preteen away from things, once they are teenagers you can not prevent then from doing something they want to do. The amount of teenage pregnancies in states where they preach abstinence instead of doing sexual education is a pretty strong proof of that.
- joelegner 3y ago
  The law has far more power over corporations than society has over parents and parents have over children. We are better off doing what is most effective: regulate the industry.
- jonnycomputer 3y ago
  I think you over-estimate how much control parents do have, or even should have, over their own children.
throw_m239339 3y ago
> What if you consider social media to be like cigarettes? Well, then people should show some ID before using the internet or something to prove they are adults? How do you enforce that? at the ISP level? at the device level? At the website level? Genuine question. Who's responsibility is that? In a society where nobody wants to be responsible for anything?
- geraldwhen 3y ago
  To buy ammo online, you need to upload a photo of your drivers license. It’s much, much cheaper to buy ammo this way. So there are regulated industries where age restriction is already being handled.
DirectorKrennic 3y ago
I don't see regulators pushing for Meta and Google to be broken up, or for ISPs to nuke TikTok in the USA. It's been talked about for years but nothing ever happens.
- joelegner 3y ago
  I took it to mean the age restrictions and restrictions on advertising to kids, not an anti-trust action.

maxbond 3y ago

I don't think parents can just keep their kids off of social media, at least teens. How are they supposed to function socially if they're not even able to enter the spaces where a huge amount of the socializing is happening? What about during the pandemic, when it was virtually all online? If the goal is to promote their mental health and their growth, cutting them off from their peer group doesn't seem like a promising strategy. It seems silly to blame the parents when the world has shifted around them, outside of their control.

geraldwhen 3y ago
Many teens did not isolate. They had no reason to. Virtual relationships are low value, and I encourage my kids to do things in person.
- maxbond 3y ago
  Well those are certainly views you're entitled to. Many of my most meaningful friendships have been with people I've never met in person. Teens are/were able both to contract and to spread COVID, which are two excellent reasons they might have isolated during the stay at home/shelter in place advisories. That said, encouraging your kids to interact in person seems reasonable to me.
gitowiec 3y ago
The space you call social media, is not a space where children learn social behaviours.
- maxbond 3y ago
  Why do you say that? I'm part of one of the earlier cohorts (I assume) to go through high school on Facebook, and absolutely a huge part of my social life was on Facebook. I organized our senior ditch day on Facebook. My awkward first attempts at flirting were on Facebook. I'm not saying it's a good or healthy space for teens to socialize, but I do contend it's an important one.

brightball 3y ago

My kids are in middle school. Almost all of their friends have no restrictions at all on phone use, electronics, video streaming, etc. A few have been on TikTok and Instagram since they were in 5th grade. The amount of pressure I hear to let them have Snapchat is constant. Regardless, we maintained the restrictions. Apple Family makes it fairly easy to manage. Xbox controls are a little more of a pain but they work too to moderate. I’ve talked to my kids about the addictive and psychological elements of how certain games work or videos. They listened but didn’t understand. Last week, they started talking to me about how a lot of their friends have a phone in front of their face all the time and they see what we’ve been trying to warn them about. It was a struggle to get there but seeing that they finally really understood was big. The flip side though, the reason they understand is because they see people who have fallen victim to it. It’s like understanding why your parents warned you about drugs because you see what happened to your friend who fell into it. We know the consequences. At this point, parents shouldn’t have to spend so much time worrying about this. It’s not easy but it should be.

mattgreenrocks 3y ago
I am with you. I will die on this hill. Social media is toxic: it’s not real, it’s a waste of life when there’s tons of other awesome things you can do. And the legitimization of chasing Internet Points is truly sad.
- boppo1 3y ago
  I'm an illustrator/painter and instagram has been a MASSIVE net positive on my life. I have come across extremely useful products (allaprima pochade) and artists who provide unparalleled education. I have learned WAY more from artists I have found on instagram, and for a paltry $600 compared to the thousands I absolutely wasted on university classes led by professors who I discovered too late were incompetent.
  - micromacrofoot 3y ago
    the sad thing is that in a lot of professions like this you need social media to promote your work

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago

On one side parents who are likely overworked, on the other a group of corporation filled with some of the top minds of our era focused on building the most addictive product imaginable. The deck is stacked very strongly against parents and it's completely unreasonable to not hold greater accountability towards these massive corporations.

wiseowise 3y ago

Have you ever been a child? Kids don’t live in isolation.

hnlmorg 3y ago

As a parent I can assure you that both things need to happen. It’s like how cigarettes weren’t allowed to be advertised to children. Sure, parents were responsible for teaching kids not to smoke but companies need to also be held accountable for the well-being of their product and it’s users too. It’s not an either / or. There is enough responsibility for all parties to be accountable.

xg15 3y ago

I think you can reformulate the old "bank debt" adage for social media and still have it hold true: If 10% of your users are using your product wrong, the users are at fault. If 90% are using it wrong, it's your fault.