5 ms·

Like the spirit, dislike the execution. Passing legislation to “protect the kids” is politically easy. Bans are simple. Much more effective, IMO, would be to l

Like the spirit, dislike the execution. Passing legislation to “protect the kids” is politically easy. Bans are simple. Much more effective, IMO, would be to legislate the way social networks behave. Stop their most addictive patterns. Adults are just as susceptible as kids in my experience. If there needs to be anything kid specific, perhaps a block on using the service during school hours, or only for X hours a day.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Well when then fuck are social media companies going to take their responsibility seriously?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  When it becomes an obligation.
- to1y 2y ago
  What is their responsibility and what are they doing that is so insidiously addictive exactly? Endless shitposts by your friends for you to scroll-through is that the fentanyl of the internet? To me this just seems like they're trying to get some control over what people are exposed to and to find out who's doing what.
slibhb 2y ago
Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. Honest observers will look back on the anti-social-media movement as a moral panic. It isn't so much that social media is good, it's that the proper attitude toward new, scary things is to integrate them into your life in a healthy way rather than banning them. And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok
- lm28469 2y ago
  > it's that the proper attitude toward new, scary things is to integrate them into your life in a healthy way rather than banning them Exactly, just like we did with DDT, leaded paint, leaded gas, freon in fridges, uranium in lipsticks, PFAS, food additives, &c. > Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. And tech companies should't be in the business of influencing who will govern you
  - lukan 2y ago
    "And tech companies should't be in the business of influencing who will govern you" Who should be?
- LightHugger 2y ago
  Just like how we look at the anti tobacco movement as a moral panic? I think not.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- afavour 2y ago
  > And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok You realise children can legally do neither, right? Government should be in the business of improving citizens lives. As another commenter said, left to their own devices companies would still be using leaded paint everywhere if it was 1c cheaper per gallon. I’ve grown very tired of this “any regulation is bad regulation” viewpoint, it doesn’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.
  - slibhb 2y ago
    Some regulations are good. Like the ones regulating drugs and gambling (that have been largely dismantled). But we don't need the government to protect people from Facebook!
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
      Why gambling but not Facebook?
      - slibhb 2y ago
        Among other things, there is solid evidence that the move toward gambling in the US has been a disaster. This is a topic that's fairly easy to study in objective terms. The evidence for social media harming people is highly disputed and, I would say, largely unconvincing. For one thing, it relies on self-reported subjective well-being.
        blargey 2y ago
        I'm not sure how you define "harm", but I think a reduction in "self-reported subjective well-being" is one of the more robust definitions.
        Der_Einzige 2y ago
        Sports gambling is nothing compared to Dave and busters or Chuck E. Cheese’s tickets. We hook our kids of disgusting gambling behavior (legally?). No one cares about this and wants to go after sports betters instead. God damn boot lickers all over this thread. I’m so glad to not live anywhere near that godforsaken island.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  > Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. This sounds a lot like "Governments should not be in the business of telling tobacco companies how to design cigarettes." Social media use is a problem for developing brains. I'm not saying I like Australia's plan, but, like the person you're replying to, I like the spirit of it.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    Tobacco use is problematic because it causes cancer. I don’t think the analogy is apt.
    - nozzlegear 2y ago
      Isn't it more problematic because the nicotine causes addiction, making tobacco users orders of magnitude more likely to develop cancer? Social media sites are designed to cause addiction, to keep people doom scrolling and looking for their next dopamine hit for as long as possible. But even if addiction isn't our main contention and we want to keep the comparison to ailments, social media is also responsible for mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc. in developing children.
      - whimsicalism 2y ago
        coffee is addictive but doesn’t cause cancer so we are more chill with it. the addiction is necessary but insufficient.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  > Honest observers will look back on the anti-social-media movement as a moral panic. It is a justified 'moral panic'. The social media companies have way too much power over peoples' conception of reality.
- bgun 2y ago
  You realize that video slots, financial software, HR software, legal software, educational software and MANY more all have some amount of regulatory compliance, right? Do you think social media is special somehow and should just get a free pass when aspects of it have been shown to be potentially dangerous?
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    I do. Social media is how we communicate with each other - governments should tread extremely carefully. It is not governments job to ensure that certain viewpoints are not expressed or that people stay ideologically influenced by the views of other people.
lm28469 2y ago
Good luck with that, these companies weight more than most countries. Meta &co won't disclose their secret sauce and/or change their algorithms because a small country asked politely. Social medias are like petrol, we're addicted and they provide way too much power to the people controlling them, we all know what the right moves are but nobody will pull the trigger.
dyauspitr 2y ago
I think the execution is bad because I don’t know how it’s going to be enforced. It explicitly says you can’t use government ID.
- pas 2y ago
  Are they going to use some kind of video verification (which is just some AI/ML guessing the age based on the video?) and usual signals (ie. if the user likes too many stuff that kids like they will be flagged, and their account suspended)? Well, I guess it will lead to kids getting a bit better at asking older folks for help.
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  It says they can't use government ID exclusively. They have to also offer an alternative, which is not specified... Agreed, the execution is bad.
psychoslave 2y ago
>Much more effective, IMO, would be to legislate the way social networks behave. Stop their most addictive patterns. We are less likely to change behavioral pattern after that period though, like we probably won’t see someone start to smoke at 45. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible of course, but past that age it looks like brains are already on track to become old reactionaries and generate complaints about how things used to be better before.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  I was already generating complaints about how things used to be better before by the age of, like, 10. Nowadays I have a huge list.
wcarss 2y ago
I agree with you that changing the behaviour of the networks would be better, but what actions does a state like Australia really have here? If they just say, "change", it must be backed up by a threat -- "we will fine you" or "we will ban you" are, I think, the most obvious threats available to a state. But fines can be tricky to exact across borders, especially with bigger states, and if Australia says "change or we'll ban you later", the networks may play chicken and deal with it later, when the threat is real. Starting with "you're banned" means it's painful now, and it's on the networks to prove they've changed and win a way back in, if they care. They might suddenly be willing to listen to how they need to change to get back in, and get that work done. I'm not really in favour of bans on access to information or networks of people communicating, but a(n effective) ban does seem like a potentially effective tool to motivate action, even if it lacks nuance and doesn't solve the real problems. I say "an effective" ban there because, come on, if it's just an age verifier then teenagers will figure it out and the whole thing is toothless, not ruthless.
cen4 2y ago
Easiest way it to limit Ads. If you are selling more ads than there are minutes in a day * population some large enough group is getting mind fucked.
- EduardoBautista 2y ago
  In my experience, the ads are the _least_ harmful parts of social media. It's the regular accounts that are causing FOMO and mental health issues by displaying unrealistic lifestyles that the majority of people won't ever achieve.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    That's only one fragment of social media though, it's not helpful to focus on this part of social media alone; another big one is the rhetoric hidden in otherwise normal / legitimate content that seems to be a nontrivial factor in a hard shift to the right, politically.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      the government should not be in the business of regulating social media to ensure that public opinion stays within [A, B] ideological bounds. for a long time I didn’t think this needed to be said, but now I realize it needs to be said quite forcefully actually
jeffhuys 2y ago
Much more effective, if it were ever able to actually pass. Which it won’t within reasonable time. Time for drastic measures.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
> Stop their most addictive patterns. Which are? While it's easy to say things like "oh, infinite scroll is addictive" or "autoplaying videos are addictive", those are only the most obvious ones; (social) media addiction comes in many forms. Old Reddit didn't have infinite scroll and you had to click to open items, but would you argue it wasn't addictive anyways? IRC style chat, news groups and forums didn't have any of the obvious dark addictive patterns we associate with harmful social media nowadays, but we still whiled away the hours on them regardless. I don't think it'd be as straightforward as banning certain practices. Besides, it'd be a game of whack-a-mole since for every legislation they'll find a way around it, or make it so that the users clamor to bring it back - take the EU privacy directive, it told companies they needed user permissions first. But they - the companies, not the EU or the laws - implemented it in the most obnoxious and harmful way possible to spite their own users and hopefully annoy them so much that they would either just hit accept, or vote the lawmakers out in favor of more economically liberal people.
whimsicalism 2y ago
i find it unfortunate that just because the ‘masses’ are on the internet now, everyone wants to play nanny and govern exactly how you design your website

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Well when then fuck are social media companies going to take their responsibility seriously?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
When it becomes an obligation.
to1y 2y ago
What is their responsibility and what are they doing that is so insidiously addictive exactly? Endless shitposts by your friends for you to scroll-through is that the fentanyl of the internet? To me this just seems like they're trying to get some control over what people are exposed to and to find out who's doing what.

slibhb 2y ago

Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. Honest observers will look back on the anti-social-media movement as a moral panic. It isn't so much that social media is good, it's that the proper attitude toward new, scary things is to integrate them into your life in a healthy way rather than banning them. And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok

lm28469 2y ago
> it's that the proper attitude toward new, scary things is to integrate them into your life in a healthy way rather than banning them Exactly, just like we did with DDT, leaded paint, leaded gas, freon in fridges, uranium in lipsticks, PFAS, food additives, &c. > Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. And tech companies should't be in the business of influencing who will govern you
- lukan 2y ago
  "And tech companies should't be in the business of influencing who will govern you" Who should be?
LightHugger 2y ago
Just like how we look at the anti tobacco movement as a moral panic? I think not.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
afavour 2y ago
> And if we should ban anything it's drugs and gambling, not tiktok You realise children can legally do neither, right? Government should be in the business of improving citizens lives. As another commenter said, left to their own devices companies would still be using leaded paint everywhere if it was 1c cheaper per gallon. I’ve grown very tired of this “any regulation is bad regulation” viewpoint, it doesn’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.
- slibhb 2y ago
  Some regulations are good. Like the ones regulating drugs and gambling (that have been largely dismantled). But we don't need the government to protect people from Facebook!
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    Why gambling but not Facebook?
    - slibhb 2y ago
      Among other things, there is solid evidence that the move toward gambling in the US has been a disaster. This is a topic that's fairly easy to study in objective terms. The evidence for social media harming people is highly disputed and, I would say, largely unconvincing. For one thing, it relies on self-reported subjective well-being.
      - blargey 2y ago
        I'm not sure how you define "harm", but I think a reduction in "self-reported subjective well-being" is one of the more robust definitions.
      - Der_Einzige 2y ago
        Sports gambling is nothing compared to Dave and busters or Chuck E. Cheese’s tickets. We hook our kids of disgusting gambling behavior (legally?). No one cares about this and wants to go after sports betters instead. God damn boot lickers all over this thread. I’m so glad to not live anywhere near that godforsaken island.
nozzlegear 2y ago
> Governments should not be in the business of telling tech companies how to design software. This sounds a lot like "Governments should not be in the business of telling tobacco companies how to design cigarettes." Social media use is a problem for developing brains. I'm not saying I like Australia's plan, but, like the person you're replying to, I like the spirit of it.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  Tobacco use is problematic because it causes cancer. I don’t think the analogy is apt.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    Isn't it more problematic because the nicotine causes addiction, making tobacco users orders of magnitude more likely to develop cancer? Social media sites are designed to cause addiction, to keep people doom scrolling and looking for their next dopamine hit for as long as possible. But even if addiction isn't our main contention and we want to keep the comparison to ailments, social media is also responsible for mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc. in developing children.
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      coffee is addictive but doesn’t cause cancer so we are more chill with it. the addiction is necessary but insufficient.
rightbyte 2y ago
> Honest observers will look back on the anti-social-media movement as a moral panic. It is a justified 'moral panic'. The social media companies have way too much power over peoples' conception of reality.
bgun 2y ago
You realize that video slots, financial software, HR software, legal software, educational software and MANY more all have some amount of regulatory compliance, right? Do you think social media is special somehow and should just get a free pass when aspects of it have been shown to be potentially dangerous?
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  I do. Social media is how we communicate with each other - governments should tread extremely carefully. It is not governments job to ensure that certain viewpoints are not expressed or that people stay ideologically influenced by the views of other people.

lm28469 2y ago

Good luck with that, these companies weight more than most countries. Meta &co won't disclose their secret sauce and/or change their algorithms because a small country asked politely. Social medias are like petrol, we're addicted and they provide way too much power to the people controlling them, we all know what the right moves are but nobody will pull the trigger.

dyauspitr 2y ago

I think the execution is bad because I don’t know how it’s going to be enforced. It explicitly says you can’t use government ID.

pas 2y ago
Are they going to use some kind of video verification (which is just some AI/ML guessing the age based on the video?) and usual signals (ie. if the user likes too many stuff that kids like they will be flagged, and their account suspended)? Well, I guess it will lead to kids getting a bit better at asking older folks for help.
brokenmachine 2y ago
It says they can't use government ID exclusively. They have to also offer an alternative, which is not specified... Agreed, the execution is bad.

psychoslave 2y ago

>Much more effective, IMO, would be to legislate the way social networks behave. Stop their most addictive patterns. We are less likely to change behavioral pattern after that period though, like we probably won’t see someone start to smoke at 45. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible of course, but past that age it looks like brains are already on track to become old reactionaries and generate complaints about how things used to be better before.

LoganDark 2y ago
I was already generating complaints about how things used to be better before by the age of, like, 10. Nowadays I have a huge list.

wcarss 2y ago

I agree with you that changing the behaviour of the networks would be better, but what actions does a state like Australia really have here? If they just say, "change", it must be backed up by a threat -- "we will fine you" or "we will ban you" are, I think, the most obvious threats available to a state. But fines can be tricky to exact across borders, especially with bigger states, and if Australia says "change or we'll ban you later", the networks may play chicken and deal with it later, when the threat is real. Starting with "you're banned" means it's painful now, and it's on the networks to prove they've changed and win a way back in, if they care. They might suddenly be willing to listen to how they need to change to get back in, and get that work done. I'm not really in favour of bans on access to information or networks of people communicating, but a(n effective) ban does seem like a potentially effective tool to motivate action, even if it lacks nuance and doesn't solve the real problems. I say "an effective" ban there because, come on, if it's just an age verifier then teenagers will figure it out and the whole thing is toothless, not ruthless.

cen4 2y ago

Easiest way it to limit Ads. If you are selling more ads than there are minutes in a day * population some large enough group is getting mind fucked.

EduardoBautista 2y ago
In my experience, the ads are the _least_ harmful parts of social media. It's the regular accounts that are causing FOMO and mental health issues by displaying unrealistic lifestyles that the majority of people won't ever achieve.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  That's only one fragment of social media though, it's not helpful to focus on this part of social media alone; another big one is the rhetoric hidden in otherwise normal / legitimate content that seems to be a nontrivial factor in a hard shift to the right, politically.
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    the government should not be in the business of regulating social media to ensure that public opinion stays within [A, B] ideological bounds. for a long time I didn’t think this needed to be said, but now I realize it needs to be said quite forcefully actually

jeffhuys 2y ago

Much more effective, if it were ever able to actually pass. Which it won’t within reasonable time. Time for drastic measures.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

> Stop their most addictive patterns. Which are? While it's easy to say things like "oh, infinite scroll is addictive" or "autoplaying videos are addictive", those are only the most obvious ones; (social) media addiction comes in many forms. Old Reddit didn't have infinite scroll and you had to click to open items, but would you argue it wasn't addictive anyways? IRC style chat, news groups and forums didn't have any of the obvious dark addictive patterns we associate with harmful social media nowadays, but we still whiled away the hours on them regardless. I don't think it'd be as straightforward as banning certain practices. Besides, it'd be a game of whack-a-mole since for every legislation they'll find a way around it, or make it so that the users clamor to bring it back - take the EU privacy directive, it told companies they needed user permissions first. But they - the companies, not the EU or the laws - implemented it in the most obnoxious and harmful way possible to spite their own users and hopefully annoy them so much that they would either just hit accept, or vote the lawmakers out in favor of more economically liberal people.

whimsicalism 2y ago

i find it unfortunate that just because the ‘masses’ are on the internet now, everyone wants to play nanny and govern exactly how you design your website