6 ms·

> As a parent myself, it definitely helps when you can collectively avoid having your kids on these platforms. I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict

> As a parent myself, it definitely helps when you can collectively avoid having your kids on these platforms. I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board. This pattern of thought is exactly the issue. Stop offloading parenting of your children to government! That won't end well for neither children nor adults.

arrrg 11mo ago
It takes a village to raise a kid. You cannot parent in isolation and outside of society. How society is structured has an huge impact on parenting. It is delusional to think of parenting as some kind of thing that exists in isolation separate from and not influenced by the rest of society. Parents often can only have little influence themselves. This is a value neutral description. Though I do think total parental autonomy in parenting is not a worthwhile goal and also not at all realistic. As parents you have to deal with society. What does that mean for social media bans? To me mostly: network effects are wicked strong and fighting against them as an individual parent is basically impossible. This can lead to parents only having bad choices available to them (ban social media use and exclude them from their friends, allow social media use and fry their brains). Are bans that right solution? Don’t know. I’m really not sure. But I do know that it‘s not as simple as „parent better“.
- lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
  In discussions similar to this I often see parents expressing their happiness with a state taking the role of a "bad cop" so that the parents can just wash their hands off telling their children it is state's fault they can no longer use TikTok ("I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board." from OP) instead of having a proper conversation about harms of social media with the children. This is literally a cop out for them from a proper parenting. From my point of view I'm already paying for their brats with higher taxes, now I will also have to gradually give my documents to random web sites more and more just to reduce the "burden" of parenting on lazy parents...
  - 5upplied_demand 11mo ago
    >I often see parents expressing their happiness with a state taking the role of a "bad cop" As an actual parent, I have never heard of this or seen it. Can you provide some real examples?
    - lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
      > Can you provide some real examples? How is the quote from OP's comment that is right at the end of the sentence you cited not a "real example"?
      - 5upplied_demand 11mo ago
        You said you've seen it happen "often" and provided no examples other than the one you are using to make your point. You implied that you have heard it multiple times in different contexts. I was asking for some of those contexts because as someone who is a parent and interacts with other parents frequently, it is not something I've encountered.
  - mlrtime 11mo ago
    You're missing the collective action problem. When 95% of kids have TikTok, telling your kid "no" doesn't just mean having a conversation about social media harms, it means making them a social outcast. Sure, you can be that parent, but you're choosing between your kid's mental health from algorithmic content versus their mental health from social isolation. Individual parents can't solve network effect problems, that's exactly what policy is for. This isn't laziness, it's recognizing that some problems require coordination beyond the family level.
immibis 11mo ago
This pattern of thought is exactly the issue. Stop offloading the responsibility for creating a reasonable environment! That won't end well for neither children nor adults. It's an extremely American religious belief that everything is an individual problem. Luckily, almost no other country has this religion.
- lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
  Firstly, I'm not from the US. Secondly, I don't agree that forcing bunch of random web sites and apps (i.e. not government or banking sites/apps) to demand ids from their users is a "reasonable environment".
  - p2detar 11mo ago
    It’s quite simple really - you have the choice not to use those services. I don’t get what the anger is about here.
    - lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
      You are being obtuse. The anger is about services I'm used to may be forced to demand my id in the future because modern parents can't be assed to configure parental controls on their brat's phones (or are too afraid to do that).
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
      - immibis 11mo ago
        I agree it would be more privacy-conscious to do the banning in the opposite way, by putting the banning logic on the end device, and mandating websites to send a signal that they are banned for minors. This header already exists (and for some reason it's a really long random-ish string). Someone should propose this to lawmakers. Since the law doesn't actually say how it should be implemented, it's compatible with existing law. Actually I wonder if simply sending the "I am 18+" header would already be legal in Australia. Probably not, on the basis that it doesn't actually work right now, but maybe they could convince a judge that it's actually the browser's fault it doesn't respect the header.
mx7zysuj4xew 11mo ago
Yeah except the guy is a kook and an enemy to a free and open society.
5upplied_demand 11mo ago
This is not "offloading parenting of your child to the government" it is acknowledging that a certain action can be far easier to take (getting a child off social media) if the government puts in laws to support those actions. Social media relies on network effects, this might weaken those effects and make it easier for individual parents to keep kids off those tools. Not sure why it upsets you so much. Are environmental laws are a way of off-loading all environmental care to the government? Are laws against violence a way of off-loading physical protection to the government?
- lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
  > This is not "offloading parenting of your child to the government" it is acknowledging that a certain action can be far easier to take (getting a child off social media) if the government puts in laws to support those actions. Compromising my privacy in order to allow you to omit having some tough but needed conversations with your child (i.e. _parenting_) regarding harms of social media is not a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Homer Simpson was supposed to be a parody on a bad father, not a role model with his "You're the government's problem now!". > Are laws against violence a way of off-loading physical protection to the government? Of course they are! I support government protecting me from violence in some capacity, although I don't support "chat control"-like laws since the cost/benefit doesn't seem to be favorable.
  - 5upplied_demand 11mo ago
    > to allow you to omit having some tough but needed conversations with your child regarding harms of social media As any parent knows, if you tell your kids that something is harmful, they will stop immediately. No questions asked. I've never met a child who did something their parents told them not to do, have you? > I support government protecting me from violence in some capacity So, you do like big government telling people what they can and can't do, as long as you feel it directly helps you. That said, laws against violence don't protect you from violence, the laws kick in after the fact. > I don't support "chat control"-like laws since the cost/benefit doesn't seem to be favorable. Possibly because you don't have kids and thus maybe not a full understanding of the cost/benefit? Perhaps, instead of lecturing actual parents about what parenting is like, you could ask questions about the cost/benefit you claim to be interested in.

arrrg 11mo ago

It takes a village to raise a kid. You cannot parent in isolation and outside of society. How society is structured has an huge impact on parenting. It is delusional to think of parenting as some kind of thing that exists in isolation separate from and not influenced by the rest of society. Parents often can only have little influence themselves. This is a value neutral description. Though I do think total parental autonomy in parenting is not a worthwhile goal and also not at all realistic. As parents you have to deal with society. What does that mean for social media bans? To me mostly: network effects are wicked strong and fighting against them as an individual parent is basically impossible. This can lead to parents only having bad choices available to them (ban social media use and exclude them from their friends, allow social media use and fry their brains). Are bans that right solution? Don’t know. I’m really not sure. But I do know that it‘s not as simple as „parent better“.

lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
In discussions similar to this I often see parents expressing their happiness with a state taking the role of a "bad cop" so that the parents can just wash their hands off telling their children it is state's fault they can no longer use TikTok ("I can’t express how much easier it is to restrict it and not seem like a kook when authorities are also on board." from OP) instead of having a proper conversation about harms of social media with the children. This is literally a cop out for them from a proper parenting. From my point of view I'm already paying for their brats with higher taxes, now I will also have to gradually give my documents to random web sites more and more just to reduce the "burden" of parenting on lazy parents...
- 5upplied_demand 11mo ago
  >I often see parents expressing their happiness with a state taking the role of a "bad cop" As an actual parent, I have never heard of this or seen it. Can you provide some real examples?
  - lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
    > Can you provide some real examples? How is the quote from OP's comment that is right at the end of the sentence you cited not a "real example"?
    - 5upplied_demand 11mo ago
      You said you've seen it happen "often" and provided no examples other than the one you are using to make your point. You implied that you have heard it multiple times in different contexts. I was asking for some of those contexts because as someone who is a parent and interacts with other parents frequently, it is not something I've encountered.
- mlrtime 11mo ago
  You're missing the collective action problem. When 95% of kids have TikTok, telling your kid "no" doesn't just mean having a conversation about social media harms, it means making them a social outcast. Sure, you can be that parent, but you're choosing between your kid's mental health from algorithmic content versus their mental health from social isolation. Individual parents can't solve network effect problems, that's exactly what policy is for. This isn't laziness, it's recognizing that some problems require coordination beyond the family level.

immibis 11mo ago

This pattern of thought is exactly the issue. Stop offloading the responsibility for creating a reasonable environment! That won't end well for neither children nor adults. It's an extremely American religious belief that everything is an individual problem. Luckily, almost no other country has this religion.

lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
Firstly, I'm not from the US. Secondly, I don't agree that forcing bunch of random web sites and apps (i.e. not government or banking sites/apps) to demand ids from their users is a "reasonable environment".
- p2detar 11mo ago
  It’s quite simple really - you have the choice not to use those services. I don’t get what the anger is about here.
  - lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
    You are being obtuse. The anger is about services I'm used to may be forced to demand my id in the future because modern parents can't be assed to configure parental controls on their brat's phones (or are too afraid to do that).
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - immibis 11mo ago
      I agree it would be more privacy-conscious to do the banning in the opposite way, by putting the banning logic on the end device, and mandating websites to send a signal that they are banned for minors. This header already exists (and for some reason it's a really long random-ish string). Someone should propose this to lawmakers. Since the law doesn't actually say how it should be implemented, it's compatible with existing law. Actually I wonder if simply sending the "I am 18+" header would already be legal in Australia. Probably not, on the basis that it doesn't actually work right now, but maybe they could convince a judge that it's actually the browser's fault it doesn't respect the header.

mx7zysuj4xew 11mo ago

Yeah except the guy is a kook and an enemy to a free and open society.

5upplied_demand 11mo ago

This is not "offloading parenting of your child to the government" it is acknowledging that a certain action can be far easier to take (getting a child off social media) if the government puts in laws to support those actions. Social media relies on network effects, this might weaken those effects and make it easier for individual parents to keep kids off those tools. Not sure why it upsets you so much. Are environmental laws are a way of off-loading all environmental care to the government? Are laws against violence a way of off-loading physical protection to the government?

lII1lIlI11ll 11mo ago
> This is not "offloading parenting of your child to the government" it is acknowledging that a certain action can be far easier to take (getting a child off social media) if the government puts in laws to support those actions. Compromising my privacy in order to allow you to omit having some tough but needed conversations with your child (i.e. _parenting_) regarding harms of social media is not a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Homer Simpson was supposed to be a parody on a bad father, not a role model with his "You're the government's problem now!". > Are laws against violence a way of off-loading physical protection to the government? Of course they are! I support government protecting me from violence in some capacity, although I don't support "chat control"-like laws since the cost/benefit doesn't seem to be favorable.
- 5upplied_demand 11mo ago
  > to allow you to omit having some tough but needed conversations with your child regarding harms of social media As any parent knows, if you tell your kids that something is harmful, they will stop immediately. No questions asked. I've never met a child who did something their parents told them not to do, have you? > I support government protecting me from violence in some capacity So, you do like big government telling people what they can and can't do, as long as you feel it directly helps you. That said, laws against violence don't protect you from violence, the laws kick in after the fact. > I don't support "chat control"-like laws since the cost/benefit doesn't seem to be favorable. Possibly because you don't have kids and thus maybe not a full understanding of the cost/benefit? Perhaps, instead of lecturing actual parents about what parenting is like, you could ask questions about the cost/benefit you claim to be interested in.