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This is one of the things in my lifetime that gives me the most optimism, alongisde the IRA Bill. as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16

This is one of the things in my lifetime that gives me the most optimism, alongisde the IRA Bill. as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban, I hope META gets removed/broken up for you guys soon after, at least for underage users. I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species. I know the Tit for Tat and privacy optics, and the shutdown of dissenting views on certain proveable crimes in the ME may be bad sometimes, but these are far lesser than the desctruction of the social fabric of a society and the loss of development and inculcation of values of entire generations.

omnimus 2y ago
This move unfortunately has nothing to do with harm of social media. Its purely about economical war with china. US is simply protecting its interests. So not only the ruling class in US doesnt care about the harms of social media. They are actively protecting the results - the profits and data/spying/control facebook brings. They will surely not limit or break up facebook unless it would result in getting more results. If you are not in US though… this might good. Because the countries will most likely start to look more at their social media independence/s sovereignty.
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  I know this, but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth, and I hope it opens the door to more social media scrutiny. People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds
  - 0points 2y ago
    Don't expect the world to change. On Jan 20, new office will start tearing up decisions.
    - swarnie 2y ago
      I'm not one for the US Politics but i distinctly remember this being a keystone Trump policy last time around. Why would it change just a couple of years later?
      - 0points 2y ago
        I dont know. Ask him? https://time.com/6900348/tiktok-ban-donald-trump-congress/ https://time.com/6900348/tiktok-ban-donald-trump-congress/
      - vineyardmike 2y ago
        1. A TikTok investor was a major campaign donor 2. Your party gets to be the party that helped the youth with their little toy. Courting the next generation is important. Especially for the party that is associated with older people. 3. He wanted fame and credit for the deal before, and he won’t get it now. He even suggested that he be paid a fee in exchange. He gets nothing for this. 4. Four years later nothing bad happened thanks to TikTok. It was certainly a concern that the liberal youth would use it to organize or whatever. But his party is back in power so it clearly wasn’t a political threat.
  - lukan 2y ago
    "People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds" But that has been a thing since quite a while and unless you ban smartphones, won't go away. Not in general at least, but smartphone free areas (in school) are likely beneficial. On the other hand, we can also make it illegal and enforce it in an easy way to upload pictures of other people against their will. I guess in most areas it is already illegal, but what teen would go to the police over a ridiculous video? We all could also just accept, that everyone acts embarrassing from time to time.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - nicce 2y ago
      Not really. It was not socially acceptable to record in all scenarios. The negative effect for the recording person was larger than the internet fame on average.
      - vineyardmike 2y ago
        Not for the kids who grew up with this. Kids would film themselves bullying others even before you could get internet points for sharing it.
      - lukan 2y ago
        It is also not socially acceptable today, to film another person today and upload it against their will. Kids (and grown up kids) do it anyway.
        nicce 2y ago
        Sorry, what I mean is that the potential social fame outweighs most social penalty that you get from filming against the another persons will. The outweigh was not so clear previously, and not so easily achieved.
  - hbs18 2y ago
    > but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth No, there isn't. The youth will just switch to Instagram Reels.
  - close04 2y ago
    > there is still a massive net benefit for the youth, and I hope it opens the door to more social media scrutiny More realistically it just opens the door for US social media companies to fill the very profitable gap left by TikTok. Do you believe that for no reason whatsoever except the kindness of their corporate hearts, Meta, X, Alphabet, and others will just decide to abandon this segment?
- oefrha 2y ago
  It’s definitely not “purely about economical war”. A large part of it was public support for Palestine and the perceived role of TikTok in it, which explains the timing of the ban and why it succeeded this time around. Evidence? Well, many congresscritters were very open about this motive, e.g. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmakers-tiktok-ban-pro-palestinian-content-1235016101/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmaker... But yes, of course “social media is bad for children” had nothing to do with it at all.
  - omnimus 2y ago
    Honestly i think Palestine is very very minor reason. Some super pro israel politians might point to it as reason but its seems more of a cover. Why? Because there is huge support of palestine on facebook and instagram too. Its probably even bigger than on TikTok. These services have all the same content. If content creators arent already posting on all of the networks then there is army of people/bots who will hapily repost for them.
    - oefrha 2y ago
      Have you followed the situation at all? Activists have been constantly screaming about censorship and sometimes unjustified bans on Facebook and co. since last year. [1] is just one of the dozens/hundreds of reports/accusations you can read. Sure you can post, doesn’t mean your content will be shown to others, and sometimes you literally can’t post or they ban your account if you’re influential. Oh and this is BBC saying Facebook censors Palestinian news outlets, from earlier today.[2] Of course Facebook isn’t as stupid as banning all posts that remotely smells like supporting Palestine, so you can still find a lot of that if you bothered to look. Politicians were saying even that is fanned by people finding unfiltered stuff on TikTok. [1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship-palestine-content https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo
      - omnimus 2y ago
        I am not saying networks are not doing that. They absolutely do that. But TikTok does it too. Its not like TikTok is some unfiltered bastion of freedom. TikTok is way more aggressive with shadowbans than even Facebook where they stopped caring and its all automated curation. I simply doubt Palestine alone is someting they worry about as much as $$$ and influence.
sschueller 2y ago
If this was really about our kids then why not also ban Instagram, Reels, Snap etc. ? This is pure protectionism and has nothing to do with your kids being safe nor national security.
endgame 2y ago
The problem with AU's U16 ban is that it's going to end up being a de facto real ID requirement for any Australian to communicate online. And also, how many of us on this site were able to learn and grow because they got online as teenagers and learned things? It would have been much, much better to regulate out the worst features of social media platforms for everyone than to pass a Bill that nobody knows how to implement, with a timeline of "well, you've got a year to figure it out".
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  I'm hoping it's a government or licensed third party provided anonymous token login system, or an email with a protected top level domain like anonymous@citizenverification.au or something. De facto id will be a massive step backwards, if they move forward despite saying they most likely wouldn't, but not as far backwards as raising a generation on reactionary and divisive social media
  - alfiedotwtf 2y ago
    lol… you must be new here. When has ANY digital initiative gone right the first time from any Australian government. The last time they tried censorship (aka Stephen Conroy) it was thwarted by a 15 year old and abandoned. Let’s not even talk about their current piracy website ban where all you need to do is point DNS to someone non-Australian.
    - OhioMan2943 2y ago
      I'm pretty aware of how inept our government is at these policies, and their surveillance state tendencies (eg undisclosed facial recognition testing at flinder street station). But at this point i think a malicious australian government is less of a threat to the public and our way of life and emotional prosperity than social media.
      - 0xy 2y ago
        The Australian Government has been hacked repeatedly, including the time Centrelink was hacked and they didn't even know they had been infiltrated (and attempted to cover it up). Not to mention their KYC regulations led to the Optus disaster, by forcing telecoms to store PII longer than necessary. Your position is that everyone in Australia should have their PII exposed because parental responsibility belongs with the state, as parents shouldn't be trusted to parent. It is an absolute CERTAINTY that the ID mandate will be mismanaged and be a security catastrophe. Don't forget Australian Parliament House was hacked as well. But this time it'll be different, right? Your position is especially egregious because it is a global ID mandate (and it'll be totally ineffective as a 10 year old can figure out a VPN).
ptek 2y ago
> I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species. Haha so that when you ring the girl's house her father would answer the phone and ask why you are calling his daughter. I don't use social media except for this site, still need to get on the github.
- shafyy 2y ago
  OMG, that was one of my biggest fears back then. Ah, good old times =P
afiori 2y ago
I can empathize with this view, but this move is about reinforcing the current oligopoly of us-based internet giants, this is going to protect Meta's interests.
alfiedotwtf 2y ago
You could just not use it? Why are you pushing your tastes and opinions on others?
eimrine 2y ago
> as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban Are you completely acknowledged about certain mechanisms doing that? I (not an Aussy) also support this but not via becoming the Government's slave.
- frereubu 2y ago
  How would you do it instead?
  - eimrine 2y ago
    Just prohibit any proprietary software for the target audience and the problem is 100% over, not even 99%. Countrywide ban is understandable measures for opium and it is a working mechanism.
zxcvbnm69 2y ago
[dead]
chvid 2y ago
That is a very naive take. Banning TikTok will make US big tech (Google and Meta) much more powerful and much harder for politicians to regulate.
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  Market consolidation is bad but i'm hoping this is the start of something. Even though with the elect it probably isn't
perks_12 2y ago
U16 ban? I'd argue that the highest risk in terms of Meta/IG comes from people aged 50 and up. Boomers who can't recognize fake news for shit taking everything at face value. The kids will be fine, their bullshit radars are evolving. Old people's don't.
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  Beggars can't be choosers :)
rdm_blackhole 2y ago
Just wait until they ban something you care about and then see if you are still in favor of governments deciding what apps you should have or not have. You think this is a win for now and then in the future based on this same precedent, the Australian government will ban an app that you use regularly because they can and there will be nothing you can do. When that happens, you'll go protest in the street against the big fascist Australian government, am I right? > I know the Tit for Tat and privacy optics, and the shutdown of dissenting views on certain provable crimes in the ME may be bad sometimes If you are going down that road, maybe you can explain when it's ok to ban dissenting views. Apparently, censorship is ok in some cases but not others? Who decides what should be talked about? You? If censorship is fine in some cases but not in others how do you differentiate between good censorship and bad censorship? After all, when China removes comments and articles about Tiananmen from the web, they are simply doing what is best for them. But in the west, we call them authoritarians, So what does that make us? > the destruction of the social fabric of a society and the loss of development and inculcation of values of entire generations. This vague statement is fear mongering and and a complete hyperbole and gross exaggeration. The same thing was said about newspapers then it was TV, then it was video games and now TikTok/social media. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Since not enough time has passed yet to see the effect of social media on multiple generations, then your argument is invalid. Are there some downsides to social media? Sure. But it also enables marginalized people to connect with each other whereas in the past they would not have had a space to congregate. It also helps uncover stories that people in power would prefer to not see the light of day. It also helps coordinate push back against new laws that in the past would have been approved without as much of a peep. Your argument is basically, that we should throw the baby with the bath water. It's not different than the populists parties who take complex issues and promise to solve everything with a simple solution when in fact most problems can't be fixed that way.
- corimaith 2y ago
  Appealing to libertarian principles here but I'd be hard pressed this is really about libertarian principles or if one is just mad of an action is going against a certain country's interests and is using whatever principle they can find to demean it irrespective of their actual beliefs.
amelius 2y ago
Yes, and let them also remove Twitter/X asap.
sabbaticaldev 2y ago
> as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban, I hope META gets removed/broken up for you guys soon after, at least for underage users. oh boy… your optimism sounds childish after reading the second line
elzbardico 2y ago
The fact that people like you vote is one of the things that make me incredibly pessimistic about our future.
guappa 2y ago
Why are you optimist? Does facebook and google doing the exact same thing harm you any less?
hyperbolert 2y ago
Cmon that’s a bit hyperbolic isint it. This operation is wrong but social discourse online is good
pizza 2y ago
Funny, this is one of those topics that has repeatedly given me great pessimism. If you take the conclusion that social media is corrosive to society then it should lead to a game of whack-a-mole against all social media. Yet I don't see that being the case in the emerging bipartisan narrative - the implication being that it's great when we do it. On the other hand if you take it as a threat to national security, there needs to be a clearer argument for why that outweighs the pretty immediate free speech implications of the large number of users who do not want the app to be banned. This sets a huge precedent and yet I see proponents of the ban just getting carried away as to why the perceived short term benefits are justified with such unclear long-term ramifications. This is fundamentally about how speech on the internet stacks up against the interests of the defense department.
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  All options are shit, but western world governments have done next to nothing on social media before this.
wslh 2y ago
We should also ask ourselves why we haven’t developed better tools or advocated more effectively for open APIs to mitigate the negative effects of social media. Platforms like Twitter/X often foster toxicity and binary thinking around complex topics. Imagine if X (or any other social platform) provided the "right" APIs, enabling third-party tools to introduce features like a "hate counterbalance" or a curated presentation of opposing viewpoints, or clarity on contentious topics. Such tools could help users break out of echo chambers and avoid the spiraling effect of focused "black hole" of hate.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
accurrent 2y ago
There are some things that are bad, but not the domain of a government to handle. When a 4 year old kid punches another 4 year old kid in a playground fight, the government usually does not get involved. Rather, adult supervision plays an instrumental role in child development. The same is the case for the digital domain. Unfortunately, its very hard to know what someone is doing online. In some cases Ive seen parents just hand their kid their phone and allow them to do anything. In other cases Ive seen parents conciously guide kids. I also guess its harder to know when youre kid has been exposed to some type of harm. Personally, Id start by making kids aware of the dangers as early as possible. With regards to social media, yes: we have seen some really unscrupulous use of it. Ranging from driving genocides to cyber-bullying and sex trafficking. Banning something is however often the worst way of dealing with it (I can just imagine the next generation of kids getting a high by figuring how to bypass whatever security is in place; Kids are often the best people to figure out how to break some rule that was set by some dumb adult). On the otherhand, there are people who have used the internet to do genuine good. Ive learned a tonne from youtube videos, MOOCs and wikipedia. Ive also had a tonne of good meals thanks to cooking videos on tiktok. Quite frankly, the free access to information is great for equallizing the playing field. Today I dont have to be an MIT student to learn about the latest breakthroughs in AI. Social media is also a huge boon for small businesses (like a local bakeshop). It was instrumental in reconnecting with loved ones post a natural disaster. What we really need is to hold our big tech executives accountable. If facebook or google make money of a scam ad or sex trafficking scandal, then the executives of these companies should be charged for facilitating a crime (and charged with jail time not money). We are far passed the age where we need "rapid innovation" in this field. This should extend to cases where children are exposed to content that is inappropriate (theres no excuse now that we have the kind of AI models we have). The other very pressing thing to note is the mental health epidemic that has started because of social media (which is where I presume you're coming from). I personally do think that kids should not be uploading stuff (and parents should not be making money of their kids cuteness). However, Im not sure how youd enforce such a thing. Banning kids under 16 will simply open a blackmarket for IDs up. Public education could be one way to help mitigate the risks, but also I think stricter penalties for social media bosses will disincentivize them from being over eager to hyper-optimize your feed. Other possibilities include rules about frequency by which social media apps can send notifications and banning them from being pre-installed on consumer devices (though I feel both are overly draconian and there may be other creative ways of getting around them).

omnimus 2y ago

This move unfortunately has nothing to do with harm of social media. Its purely about economical war with china. US is simply protecting its interests. So not only the ruling class in US doesnt care about the harms of social media. They are actively protecting the results - the profits and data/spying/control facebook brings. They will surely not limit or break up facebook unless it would result in getting more results. If you are not in US though… this might good. Because the countries will most likely start to look more at their social media independence/s sovereignty.

OhioMan2943 2y ago
I know this, but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth, and I hope it opens the door to more social media scrutiny. People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds
- 0points 2y ago
  Don't expect the world to change. On Jan 20, new office will start tearing up decisions.
  - swarnie 2y ago
    I'm not one for the US Politics but i distinctly remember this being a keystone Trump policy last time around. Why would it change just a couple of years later?
    - 0points 2y ago
      I dont know. Ask him? https://time.com/6900348/tiktok-ban-donald-trump-congress/ https://time.com/6900348/tiktok-ban-donald-trump-congress/
    - vineyardmike 2y ago
      1. A TikTok investor was a major campaign donor 2. Your party gets to be the party that helped the youth with their little toy. Courting the next generation is important. Especially for the party that is associated with older people. 3. He wanted fame and credit for the deal before, and he won’t get it now. He even suggested that he be paid a fee in exchange. He gets nothing for this. 4. Four years later nothing bad happened thanks to TikTok. It was certainly a concern that the liberal youth would use it to organize or whatever. But his party is back in power so it clearly wasn’t a political threat.
- lukan 2y ago
  "People forget how relaxed life was before everyone could point a camera at someone and upload and embarass them in 10 seconds" But that has been a thing since quite a while and unless you ban smartphones, won't go away. Not in general at least, but smartphone free areas (in school) are likely beneficial. On the other hand, we can also make it illegal and enforce it in an easy way to upload pictures of other people against their will. I guess in most areas it is already illegal, but what teen would go to the police over a ridiculous video? We all could also just accept, that everyone acts embarrassing from time to time.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicce 2y ago
    Not really. It was not socially acceptable to record in all scenarios. The negative effect for the recording person was larger than the internet fame on average.
    - vineyardmike 2y ago
      Not for the kids who grew up with this. Kids would film themselves bullying others even before you could get internet points for sharing it.
    - lukan 2y ago
      It is also not socially acceptable today, to film another person today and upload it against their will. Kids (and grown up kids) do it anyway.
      - nicce 2y ago
        Sorry, what I mean is that the potential social fame outweighs most social penalty that you get from filming against the another persons will. The outweigh was not so clear previously, and not so easily achieved.
- hbs18 2y ago
  > but there is still a massive net benefit for the youth No, there isn't. The youth will just switch to Instagram Reels.
- close04 2y ago
  > there is still a massive net benefit for the youth, and I hope it opens the door to more social media scrutiny More realistically it just opens the door for US social media companies to fill the very profitable gap left by TikTok. Do you believe that for no reason whatsoever except the kindness of their corporate hearts, Meta, X, Alphabet, and others will just decide to abandon this segment?
oefrha 2y ago
It’s definitely not “purely about economical war”. A large part of it was public support for Palestine and the perceived role of TikTok in it, which explains the timing of the ban and why it succeeded this time around. Evidence? Well, many congresscritters were very open about this motive, e.g. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmakers-tiktok-ban-pro-palestinian-content-1235016101/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmaker... But yes, of course “social media is bad for children” had nothing to do with it at all.
- omnimus 2y ago
  Honestly i think Palestine is very very minor reason. Some super pro israel politians might point to it as reason but its seems more of a cover. Why? Because there is huge support of palestine on facebook and instagram too. Its probably even bigger than on TikTok. These services have all the same content. If content creators arent already posting on all of the networks then there is army of people/bots who will hapily repost for them.
  - oefrha 2y ago
    Have you followed the situation at all? Activists have been constantly screaming about censorship and sometimes unjustified bans on Facebook and co. since last year. [1] is just one of the dozens/hundreds of reports/accusations you can read. Sure you can post, doesn’t mean your content will be shown to others, and sometimes you literally can’t post or they ban your account if you’re influential. Oh and this is BBC saying Facebook censors Palestinian news outlets, from earlier today.[2] Of course Facebook isn’t as stupid as banning all posts that remotely smells like supporting Palestine, so you can still find a lot of that if you bothered to look. Politicians were saying even that is fanned by people finding unfiltered stuff on TikTok. [1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship-palestine-content https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo
    - omnimus 2y ago
      I am not saying networks are not doing that. They absolutely do that. But TikTok does it too. Its not like TikTok is some unfiltered bastion of freedom. TikTok is way more aggressive with shadowbans than even Facebook where they stopped caring and its all automated curation. I simply doubt Palestine alone is someting they worry about as much as $$$ and influence.

sschueller 2y ago

If this was really about our kids then why not also ban Instagram, Reels, Snap etc. ? This is pure protectionism and has nothing to do with your kids being safe nor national security.

endgame 2y ago

The problem with AU's U16 ban is that it's going to end up being a de facto real ID requirement for any Australian to communicate online. And also, how many of us on this site were able to learn and grow because they got online as teenagers and learned things? It would have been much, much better to regulate out the worst features of social media platforms for everyone than to pass a Bill that nobody knows how to implement, with a timeline of "well, you've got a year to figure it out".

OhioMan2943 2y ago
I'm hoping it's a government or licensed third party provided anonymous token login system, or an email with a protected top level domain like anonymous@citizenverification.au or something. De facto id will be a massive step backwards, if they move forward despite saying they most likely wouldn't, but not as far backwards as raising a generation on reactionary and divisive social media
- alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  lol… you must be new here. When has ANY digital initiative gone right the first time from any Australian government. The last time they tried censorship (aka Stephen Conroy) it was thwarted by a 15 year old and abandoned. Let’s not even talk about their current piracy website ban where all you need to do is point DNS to someone non-Australian.
  - OhioMan2943 2y ago
    I'm pretty aware of how inept our government is at these policies, and their surveillance state tendencies (eg undisclosed facial recognition testing at flinder street station). But at this point i think a malicious australian government is less of a threat to the public and our way of life and emotional prosperity than social media.
    - 0xy 2y ago
      The Australian Government has been hacked repeatedly, including the time Centrelink was hacked and they didn't even know they had been infiltrated (and attempted to cover it up). Not to mention their KYC regulations led to the Optus disaster, by forcing telecoms to store PII longer than necessary. Your position is that everyone in Australia should have their PII exposed because parental responsibility belongs with the state, as parents shouldn't be trusted to parent. It is an absolute CERTAINTY that the ID mandate will be mismanaged and be a security catastrophe. Don't forget Australian Parliament House was hacked as well. But this time it'll be different, right? Your position is especially egregious because it is a global ID mandate (and it'll be totally ineffective as a 10 year old can figure out a VPN).

ptek 2y ago

> I'm 22 and often wish I had never been born into a world with social media, with the belief that it is one of the worst things we have ever made as a species. Haha so that when you ring the girl's house her father would answer the phone and ask why you are calling his daughter. I don't use social media except for this site, still need to get on the github.

shafyy 2y ago
OMG, that was one of my biggest fears back then. Ah, good old times =P

afiori 2y ago

I can empathize with this view, but this move is about reinforcing the current oligopoly of us-based internet giants, this is going to protect Meta's interests.

alfiedotwtf 2y ago

You could just not use it? Why are you pushing your tastes and opinions on others?

eimrine 2y ago

> as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban Are you completely acknowledged about certain mechanisms doing that? I (not an Aussy) also support this but not via becoming the Government's slave.

frereubu 2y ago
How would you do it instead?
- eimrine 2y ago
  Just prohibit any proprietary software for the target audience and the problem is 100% over, not even 99%. Countrywide ban is understandable measures for opium and it is a working mechanism.

zxcvbnm69 2y ago

[dead]

chvid 2y ago

That is a very naive take. Banning TikTok will make US big tech (Google and Meta) much more powerful and much harder for politicians to regulate.

OhioMan2943 2y ago
Market consolidation is bad but i'm hoping this is the start of something. Even though with the elect it probably isn't

perks_12 2y ago

U16 ban? I'd argue that the highest risk in terms of Meta/IG comes from people aged 50 and up. Boomers who can't recognize fake news for shit taking everything at face value. The kids will be fine, their bullshit radars are evolving. Old people's don't.

OhioMan2943 2y ago
Beggars can't be choosers :)

rdm_blackhole 2y ago

Just wait until they ban something you care about and then see if you are still in favor of governments deciding what apps you should have or not have. You think this is a win for now and then in the future based on this same precedent, the Australian government will ban an app that you use regularly because they can and there will be nothing you can do. When that happens, you'll go protest in the street against the big fascist Australian government, am I right? > I know the Tit for Tat and privacy optics, and the shutdown of dissenting views on certain provable crimes in the ME may be bad sometimes If you are going down that road, maybe you can explain when it's ok to ban dissenting views. Apparently, censorship is ok in some cases but not others? Who decides what should be talked about? You? If censorship is fine in some cases but not in others how do you differentiate between good censorship and bad censorship? After all, when China removes comments and articles about Tiananmen from the web, they are simply doing what is best for them. But in the west, we call them authoritarians, So what does that make us? > the destruction of the social fabric of a society and the loss of development and inculcation of values of entire generations. This vague statement is fear mongering and and a complete hyperbole and gross exaggeration. The same thing was said about newspapers then it was TV, then it was video games and now TikTok/social media. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Since not enough time has passed yet to see the effect of social media on multiple generations, then your argument is invalid. Are there some downsides to social media? Sure. But it also enables marginalized people to connect with each other whereas in the past they would not have had a space to congregate. It also helps uncover stories that people in power would prefer to not see the light of day. It also helps coordinate push back against new laws that in the past would have been approved without as much of a peep. Your argument is basically, that we should throw the baby with the bath water. It's not different than the populists parties who take complex issues and promise to solve everything with a simple solution when in fact most problems can't be fixed that way.

corimaith 2y ago
Appealing to libertarian principles here but I'd be hard pressed this is really about libertarian principles or if one is just mad of an action is going against a certain country's interests and is using whatever principle they can find to demean it irrespective of their actual beliefs.

amelius 2y ago

Yes, and let them also remove Twitter/X asap.

sabbaticaldev 2y ago

> as someone in Australia who strongly supports our recent U16 ban, I hope META gets removed/broken up for you guys soon after, at least for underage users. oh boy… your optimism sounds childish after reading the second line

elzbardico 2y ago

The fact that people like you vote is one of the things that make me incredibly pessimistic about our future.

guappa 2y ago

Why are you optimist? Does facebook and google doing the exact same thing harm you any less?

hyperbolert 2y ago

Cmon that’s a bit hyperbolic isint it. This operation is wrong but social discourse online is good

pizza 2y ago

Funny, this is one of those topics that has repeatedly given me great pessimism. If you take the conclusion that social media is corrosive to society then it should lead to a game of whack-a-mole against all social media. Yet I don't see that being the case in the emerging bipartisan narrative - the implication being that it's great when we do it. On the other hand if you take it as a threat to national security, there needs to be a clearer argument for why that outweighs the pretty immediate free speech implications of the large number of users who do not want the app to be banned. This sets a huge precedent and yet I see proponents of the ban just getting carried away as to why the perceived short term benefits are justified with such unclear long-term ramifications. This is fundamentally about how speech on the internet stacks up against the interests of the defense department.

OhioMan2943 2y ago
All options are shit, but western world governments have done next to nothing on social media before this.

wslh 2y ago

We should also ask ourselves why we haven’t developed better tools or advocated more effectively for open APIs to mitigate the negative effects of social media. Platforms like Twitter/X often foster toxicity and binary thinking around complex topics. Imagine if X (or any other social platform) provided the "right" APIs, enabling third-party tools to introduce features like a "hate counterbalance" or a curated presentation of opposing viewpoints, or clarity on contentious topics. Such tools could help users break out of echo chambers and avoid the spiraling effect of focused "black hole" of hate.

deleted 2y ago

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accurrent 2y ago

There are some things that are bad, but not the domain of a government to handle. When a 4 year old kid punches another 4 year old kid in a playground fight, the government usually does not get involved. Rather, adult supervision plays an instrumental role in child development. The same is the case for the digital domain. Unfortunately, its very hard to know what someone is doing online. In some cases Ive seen parents just hand their kid their phone and allow them to do anything. In other cases Ive seen parents conciously guide kids. I also guess its harder to know when youre kid has been exposed to some type of harm. Personally, Id start by making kids aware of the dangers as early as possible. With regards to social media, yes: we have seen some really unscrupulous use of it. Ranging from driving genocides to cyber-bullying and sex trafficking. Banning something is however often the worst way of dealing with it (I can just imagine the next generation of kids getting a high by figuring how to bypass whatever security is in place; Kids are often the best people to figure out how to break some rule that was set by some dumb adult). On the otherhand, there are people who have used the internet to do genuine good. Ive learned a tonne from youtube videos, MOOCs and wikipedia. Ive also had a tonne of good meals thanks to cooking videos on tiktok. Quite frankly, the free access to information is great for equallizing the playing field. Today I dont have to be an MIT student to learn about the latest breakthroughs in AI. Social media is also a huge boon for small businesses (like a local bakeshop). It was instrumental in reconnecting with loved ones post a natural disaster. What we really need is to hold our big tech executives accountable. If facebook or google make money of a scam ad or sex trafficking scandal, then the executives of these companies should be charged for facilitating a crime (and charged with jail time not money). We are far passed the age where we need "rapid innovation" in this field. This should extend to cases where children are exposed to content that is inappropriate (theres no excuse now that we have the kind of AI models we have). The other very pressing thing to note is the mental health epidemic that has started because of social media (which is where I presume you're coming from). I personally do think that kids should not be uploading stuff (and parents should not be making money of their kids cuteness). However, Im not sure how youd enforce such a thing. Banning kids under 16 will simply open a blackmarket for IDs up. Public education could be one way to help mitigate the risks, but also I think stricter penalties for social media bosses will disincentivize them from being over eager to hyper-optimize your feed. Other possibilities include rules about frequency by which social media apps can send notifications and banning them from being pre-installed on consumer devices (though I feel both are overly draconian and there may be other creative ways of getting around them).