5 ms·

I am a bit confused by that comment. Are parents social responsible to prevent companies from selling alcohol/guns/cigarettes to minors? If a company set up sho

by belorn 8mo ago

I am a bit confused by that comment. Are parents social responsible to prevent companies from selling alcohol/guns/cigarettes to minors? If a company set up shop in a school and sold those things to minors during school breaks, who has the social responsibility to stop that?

gleenn 8mo ago
Not responsible for selling to all minors, just theirs.
regularfry 8mo ago
The school, in loco parentis.
estimator7292 8mo ago
Companies are legally prohibited from marketing and selling certain products like tobacco and alcohol because they historically tried to. Parents are legally and socially expected to keep their kids away from tobacco and alcohol. You're breaking legal and social convention if you allow your kids to access dangerous drugs. Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Somebody should be held responsible for that, and the legal and social framework we already have for dealing with people who want to get kids addicted to shit works fairly well.
- trueismywork 8mo ago
  So we should ban social media is what you're saying but not what OC is saying.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    At least give it a try.
  - jatari 8mo ago
    All "social media" that uses recommendation algorithms should be unavaliable to children.
  - rtpg 8mo ago
    Banning access to social media for kids under 18 similar to how tobacco and alcohol is banned to underage people would be the more direct line. This argument is quite close to what gov'ts are "trying" to do here! And I tihnk you'll find very few people ammenable to the idea that we should allow cigarettes to be sold to underaged people (even if in practice they still get access). The argument on the "don't do the social media ban" side is quite an uphill battle if you dig into this metaphor too much
- pembrook 8mo ago
  > Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Most actual studies done on this topic find very little evidence this is true. It's a run-of-the-mill moral panic. People breathlessly repeating memes about whatever "kids these days" are up to and how horrible it is, as adults have done for thousands of years. I expect some emotional attacks in response for questioning the big panic of the day, but before you do so please explore: [1] Effects of reducing social media use are small and inconsistent: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560325000714 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032... [2] Belief in "Social media addiction" is wholly explained by media framing and not an actual addiction: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2 [3] No causal link between time spent on social media and mental health harm: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/14/social-media-time-does-not-increase-teenagers-mental-health-problems-study https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/14/social-media-t... [4] The Flawed Evidence Behind Jonathan Haidt's Panic Farming: https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evidence-that-social-media-is-causing-the-teen-mental-health-crisis/ https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evide...
  - logicchains 8mo ago
    [flagged]
- nephihaha 8mo ago
  "Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Somebody should be held responsible for that, and the legal and social framework we already have for dealing with people who want to get kids addicted to shit works fairly well." They work hand in hand with governments around the world, that's why they get the tax breaks. In return they hand over details about your opinions, social networks and whereabouts, not to mention facial recognition data via Facebook. They aren't remotely capitalist in any real sense since they have a bad business model.
honkycat 8mo ago
ISPs and OSs should be the ones providing these tools and make is stupid easy to set up a child's account and have a walled garden for kids to use.
- blindriver 8mo ago
  You must not have kids if you think it's easy to keep children off things that are bad for them.
  - squigz 8mo ago
    It's really not some Herculean task to do so either, though.
    - metadat 8mo ago
      Maybe you don't have kids of your own. Once you have 2 or 3, it is quite challenging to manage everything, especially over time.
      - blindriver 8mo ago
        Especially if they are older, like 8+ years old. They are resourceful, sneaky and relentless.
        aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
        > They are resourceful, sneaky and relentless. ... and honest: - they will honestly tell you that they'd be very happy to see you dead when you impose restrictions upon them (people who are older will of course possibly get into legal trouble for such a statement) - they will tell they they wish you'd never have given birth to them (or aborted them) - they will tell you that since they never wanted to be born, they owe you nothing - ...
        squigz 8mo ago
moffkalast 8mo ago
Well the parents entrust their kids to the school, so they would be the ones responsible for what goes on on their premises. In turn, school computers are famously locked down to the point of being absolutely useless.
- HeWhoLurksLate 8mo ago
  That's really a district-by-district / school-by-school thing, some are significantly more locked down than others
briffle 8mo ago
when I was a kid in the early 90's, my state (and many others) banned cigarette vending machines since there was no way to prevent them being used by minors, unless they were inside a bar, where minors were already not allowed.
- unethical_ban 8mo ago
  The problem is, doing the analogous action with the entire internet is a privacy nightmare. You didn't have to tell 7-11 every item you bought at every store in the past 2 years and opt-in to telling them what other stores you go to for the next 5. There is no digital equivalent of "flash an ID card and be done with it" in the surveillance state era of the internet. Using a CC is the closest we have and even then you're giving data away.
  - Y-bar 8mo ago
    You do not need to control the entire internet. Put time limits on connected devices. Use parental controls. Talk to your kids about what they do online. Set clear boundaries. Reward good behaviour. Talk to other parents to align these limits to avoid social issues among the kids.
    - unethical_ban 8mo ago
      We may be agreeing, I'm saying there is no battle tested, privacy safe technical method of verifying age online, and this the controls need to be in the physical environment and setting social standards for social media and phone use.
  - ndriscoll 8mo ago
    The analogous action is to only require age-restricted sites (or parts of sites) to check ID, not the entire Internet. e.g. no one is calling for mathisfun.com to check ID. I'd expect most parts of the web are child-friendly and would not be affected. Just like how almost all locations in physical space don't need to check ID. Additionally, the laws I've read mandate that no data be retained, so you have stronger legal protections than typical credit card use, or even giving your ID to a store clerk for age restricted purchases (many stores will scan it without asking, and in some states scanning is required).
Quarrelsome 8mo ago
I think the argument is more around it being illegal so as to not be forced into playing "the bad guy". It's hard to prevent a level of entitlement and resentment if those less well parented have full access. If nobody is allowed then there's no parental friction at all. Its unfortunate that the application of this rule is being performed at the software level via ad-hoc age verification as opposed to the device level (e.g. smartphones themselves). However that might require the rigimirole of the state forcibly confiscating smartphones from minors or worrying nepalise outcomes.
- philipallstar 8mo ago
  But it's not playing the bad guy. It's playing the good guy.
  - Quarrelsome 8mo ago
    in the abstract but in the social of the home you have to be the bad guy. While good parents manage that, the bar is too high for society in general.
    - philipallstar 8mo ago
      The bar isn't that high at all. It's just what norms you decide to set. You could make this argument for any particular parenting decision, from washing hands before food to saying no to the next desired purchase. It doesn't make sense to special-case this. At some point you're setting rules, and it's not that difficult. Just don't buy the device.
      - Quarrelsome 8mo ago
        sorry but I feel like your standards are a bit higher than the average here. The bar is, and has to be extremely low, to hope for compliance.
        philipallstar 8mo ago
throwawayk7h 8mo ago
Parents can't easily prevent their kids from going to those kinds of stores once they're at the age where the parent doesn't need to keep an eye on them all the time and they can travel about on their own. The difference though is that parents are generally the ones to give their kids their phones and devices. These devices could send headers to websites saying "I'm a kid" -- but this system doesn't exist, and parents apparently don't use existing parental controls properly or at all.
- srmatto 8mo ago
  Or people who aren't parents are yet again sharing strong opinions that are not based in reality. Plenty of parental controls are deployed, how long they last against a determined child is the real question. Here's a concrete example for you. Spotify has a web browser built in so that you can watch music videos, kids have figured out a way to use that to watch any video on YouTube--a 12 year old told me this. If you search on this subject you'll quickly learn this is well known and is generally being ignored by Spotify. Why not allow parents to disable the in-app web browser / video function? It's not as easy as you may believe to prevent that type of access.
- Forgeties79 8mo ago
  So what’s the alternative? Pretend we don’t live in a digitally connected society and set our kids up for failure when they get one years after their peers?
  - ajam1507 8mo ago
    Keeping your kids off social media is setting them up for success.
    - Forgeties79 8mo ago
      I’m talking about phones specifically. Agree re: social media.
      - 8mo ago

by belorn 8mo ago

gleenn 8mo ago

Not responsible for selling to all minors, just theirs.

regularfry 8mo ago

The school, in loco parentis.

estimator7292 8mo ago

Companies are legally prohibited from marketing and selling certain products like tobacco and alcohol because they historically tried to. Parents are legally and socially expected to keep their kids away from tobacco and alcohol. You're breaking legal and social convention if you allow your kids to access dangerous drugs. Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Somebody should be held responsible for that, and the legal and social framework we already have for dealing with people who want to get kids addicted to shit works fairly well.

trueismywork 8mo ago
So we should ban social media is what you're saying but not what OC is saying.
- fuzzfactor 8mo ago
  At least give it a try.
- jatari 8mo ago
  All "social media" that uses recommendation algorithms should be unavaliable to children.
- rtpg 8mo ago
  Banning access to social media for kids under 18 similar to how tobacco and alcohol is banned to underage people would be the more direct line. This argument is quite close to what gov'ts are "trying" to do here! And I tihnk you'll find very few people ammenable to the idea that we should allow cigarettes to be sold to underaged people (even if in practice they still get access). The argument on the "don't do the social media ban" side is quite an uphill battle if you dig into this metaphor too much
pembrook 8mo ago
> Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Most actual studies done on this topic find very little evidence this is true. It's a run-of-the-mill moral panic. People breathlessly repeating memes about whatever "kids these days" are up to and how horrible it is, as adults have done for thousands of years. I expect some emotional attacks in response for questioning the big panic of the day, but before you do so please explore: [1] Effects of reducing social media use are small and inconsistent: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560325000714 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266656032... [2] Belief in "Social media addiction" is wholly explained by media framing and not an actual addiction: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-27053-2 [3] No causal link between time spent on social media and mental health harm: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/14/social-media-time-does-not-increase-teenagers-mental-health-problems-study https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/14/social-media-t... [4] The Flawed Evidence Behind Jonathan Haidt's Panic Farming: https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evidence-that-social-media-is-causing-the-teen-mental-health-crisis/ https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evide...
- logicchains 8mo ago
  [flagged]
nephihaha 8mo ago
"Capitalist social media is exactly as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco. Somebody should be held responsible for that, and the legal and social framework we already have for dealing with people who want to get kids addicted to shit works fairly well." They work hand in hand with governments around the world, that's why they get the tax breaks. In return they hand over details about your opinions, social networks and whereabouts, not to mention facial recognition data via Facebook. They aren't remotely capitalist in any real sense since they have a bad business model.

honkycat 8mo ago

ISPs and OSs should be the ones providing these tools and make is stupid easy to set up a child's account and have a walled garden for kids to use.

blindriver 8mo ago
You must not have kids if you think it's easy to keep children off things that are bad for them.
- squigz 8mo ago
  It's really not some Herculean task to do so either, though.
  - metadat 8mo ago
    Maybe you don't have kids of your own. Once you have 2 or 3, it is quite challenging to manage everything, especially over time.
    - blindriver 8mo ago
      Especially if they are older, like 8+ years old. They are resourceful, sneaky and relentless.
      - aleph_minus_one 8mo ago
        > They are resourceful, sneaky and relentless. ... and honest: - they will honestly tell you that they'd be very happy to see you dead when you impose restrictions upon them (people who are older will of course possibly get into legal trouble for such a statement) - they will tell they they wish you'd never have given birth to them (or aborted them) - they will tell you that since they never wanted to be born, they owe you nothing - ...
        squigz 8mo ago

moffkalast 8mo ago

Well the parents entrust their kids to the school, so they would be the ones responsible for what goes on on their premises. In turn, school computers are famously locked down to the point of being absolutely useless.

HeWhoLurksLate 8mo ago
That's really a district-by-district / school-by-school thing, some are significantly more locked down than others

briffle 8mo ago

when I was a kid in the early 90's, my state (and many others) banned cigarette vending machines since there was no way to prevent them being used by minors, unless they were inside a bar, where minors were already not allowed.

unethical_ban 8mo ago
The problem is, doing the analogous action with the entire internet is a privacy nightmare. You didn't have to tell 7-11 every item you bought at every store in the past 2 years and opt-in to telling them what other stores you go to for the next 5. There is no digital equivalent of "flash an ID card and be done with it" in the surveillance state era of the internet. Using a CC is the closest we have and even then you're giving data away.
- Y-bar 8mo ago
  You do not need to control the entire internet. Put time limits on connected devices. Use parental controls. Talk to your kids about what they do online. Set clear boundaries. Reward good behaviour. Talk to other parents to align these limits to avoid social issues among the kids.
  - unethical_ban 8mo ago
    We may be agreeing, I'm saying there is no battle tested, privacy safe technical method of verifying age online, and this the controls need to be in the physical environment and setting social standards for social media and phone use.
- ndriscoll 8mo ago
  The analogous action is to only require age-restricted sites (or parts of sites) to check ID, not the entire Internet. e.g. no one is calling for mathisfun.com to check ID. I'd expect most parts of the web are child-friendly and would not be affected. Just like how almost all locations in physical space don't need to check ID. Additionally, the laws I've read mandate that no data be retained, so you have stronger legal protections than typical credit card use, or even giving your ID to a store clerk for age restricted purchases (many stores will scan it without asking, and in some states scanning is required).

Quarrelsome 8mo ago

I think the argument is more around it being illegal so as to not be forced into playing "the bad guy". It's hard to prevent a level of entitlement and resentment if those less well parented have full access. If nobody is allowed then there's no parental friction at all. Its unfortunate that the application of this rule is being performed at the software level via ad-hoc age verification as opposed to the device level (e.g. smartphones themselves). However that might require the rigimirole of the state forcibly confiscating smartphones from minors or worrying nepalise outcomes.

philipallstar 8mo ago
But it's not playing the bad guy. It's playing the good guy.
- Quarrelsome 8mo ago
  in the abstract but in the social of the home you have to be the bad guy. While good parents manage that, the bar is too high for society in general.
  - philipallstar 8mo ago
    The bar isn't that high at all. It's just what norms you decide to set. You could make this argument for any particular parenting decision, from washing hands before food to saying no to the next desired purchase. It doesn't make sense to special-case this. At some point you're setting rules, and it's not that difficult. Just don't buy the device.
    - Quarrelsome 8mo ago
      sorry but I feel like your standards are a bit higher than the average here. The bar is, and has to be extremely low, to hope for compliance.
      - philipallstar 8mo ago

throwawayk7h 8mo ago

Parents can't easily prevent their kids from going to those kinds of stores once they're at the age where the parent doesn't need to keep an eye on them all the time and they can travel about on their own. The difference though is that parents are generally the ones to give their kids their phones and devices. These devices could send headers to websites saying "I'm a kid" -- but this system doesn't exist, and parents apparently don't use existing parental controls properly or at all.

srmatto 8mo ago
Or people who aren't parents are yet again sharing strong opinions that are not based in reality. Plenty of parental controls are deployed, how long they last against a determined child is the real question. Here's a concrete example for you. Spotify has a web browser built in so that you can watch music videos, kids have figured out a way to use that to watch any video on YouTube--a 12 year old told me this. If you search on this subject you'll quickly learn this is well known and is generally being ignored by Spotify. Why not allow parents to disable the in-app web browser / video function? It's not as easy as you may believe to prevent that type of access.
Forgeties79 8mo ago
So what’s the alternative? Pretend we don’t live in a digitally connected society and set our kids up for failure when they get one years after their peers?
- ajam1507 8mo ago
  Keeping your kids off social media is setting them up for success.
  - Forgeties79 8mo ago
    I’m talking about phones specifically. Agree re: social media.
    - 8mo ago