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I would categorize HN as a news aggregator with a comment section, not social media.

by cooper_ganglia 6mo ago

LocalH 6mo ago
The various laws being proposed don't tend to agree with that
- cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
  Well, I don’t agree with any laws like that, they’re all silly. Nobody under 16 should be on social media for their own good, but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body.
  - latexr 6mo ago
    > but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body. The counter argument is that even if you want to do that as a parent, it’s hard when all your kid’s friends use the thing you’re prohibiting. It makes their life harder, and yours too in the process. It’s worth noting the first initiatives to gate kids from social media did come from parents, who organised locally and collectively agreed on a course of action.
    - cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
      As a parent, you have direct control over who your kid’s friends are. We used to say, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?”. Now we say, “Well, the kids are going to jump off a cliff anyway, I can’t stop them, so the government should make a law about it!” I don’t think that’s the way to handle things. Parents who are bad at parenting will raise kids that fraternize with kids who jump off of cliffs. Maybe theirs will too, one day. Unfortunate, but the kids at the top of the cliff, who were actually raised, will excel. Social Darwinism > Government Regulation
      - skithrowyouknow 6mo ago
        You do not have control of who your childrens' friends are unless you spend all hours with them. And most people are happy nobody can legally sell smokes, booze, and drugs to 12 year olds.
        cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
        Surely you can see how requiring ID for a physical cigs, drugs, and alcohol purchases is different from requiring ID to use a website? “Think of the children” is the exact tool fascists use to erode liberties. Governments worldwide salivate at the idea of having a registry of what every individual is doing online at any given moment.
roysting 6mo ago
I agree, the challenge still remains to classify social media if the objective is to arrest or reverse the negative effects, while possibly not depriving children of positives of things like forums like HN which are clearly also social media, even though it’s clearly not what people are primarily thinking of regarding this issue. I suspect there is not a clear or even uniform definition of what is and is not social media that would be banned for children. Usenet is attributed as being the first social media application from 1979. I presume many here would not include Usenet even though by the technical definition of social media HN and forums in general are in fact also social media, while also at the same time one could make the case that things like TikTok or YouTube shorts are not very “social”, while at the same time being part of the problem people are upset about. I agree that there is definitely a problem with children and the internet, but frankly, maybe the ban should be for smart phones in general for children, because the same kind of toxic behaviors that I think people are actually calling “social media” can simply just continue in things like telegram and iMessage; aren’t they social media too, especially now with video/image sharing? I preemptively apologize to anyone if my words are taken as flame bait or personal attacks on anyone that likes social media or smart phones for children, it’s simply my opinion and how I speak and if you don’t like it you can simply disagree and ignore what I say, even if yuppy are a mod.
- cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
  I don’t think the answer is banning phones (except in school, context dependent), it’s letting lazy, bad parents have natural outcomes for their children and allowing the rest to work itself out through the social free market. It sounds cruel, but if someone is set on allowing their children to be raised by strangers on the internet and the government, they need to be ready to accept any outcomes that come along with that.
  - roysting 6mo ago
    Although I agree with you directionally, reality simply is that at least speaking for the west in general terms, this approach does not strike me as feasible because it will always contact the pathological altruism of our current civilizational state that will be compelled to "help" and "protect". But there is also the issue of simply writing off the children of such parents is rather callous and simply not compatible with civilization. We are not individuals in a modern society/civilization; your notion of parents "accepting any outcomes" turns out to always result in society/civilization dealing with the effects like crime, loneliness, degeneracy, etc. As an aside; it is in fact the deepest of problems of the whole "libertarian" premise that we are all just individuals, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Do we want to be a civilization or do we want to be a conglomeration of wild animals where we just accept the "natural outcomes" of the consequences of things that was imposed on them in the first place? Frankly, (and no, I don't mean this as a flame bait, mods) I see it similar to when alcohol was introduced to the tribes of America, when they were genetically predisposed to both increased intoxication and addiction to alcohol; we introduced smartphones not only to a population that was simply not at all prepared for it psychologically (arguably, genetically too), but it was also introduced largely to the young through the adults, who were even more psychologically vulnerable to every single form of predation and things you would want to protect children from one could imagine. I know people who suffer from both the effects of smartphones and "social media" (some both, some each) in several ways too broad in scope to detail here now (but it is very bad in many ways), even though the irony in one case in particular that comes to mind, is that it is due to secondary effects from their parents' behaviors, actions, and inactions related to social media and smartphones. To your point, the saddest part is that it is not the "bad parents have natural outcomes..." it is the "children" who are suffering and having to recover from even things like grooming and psychological conditioning, and having to "reparent" themselves following a young life of neglect and what can easily be described as abuse from it. The challenge presents itself there that barring adults from "social media" and smartphones due to negligence, neglect, and various forms of abuse is a far more tricky issue and topic; especially when a double-digit trillion dollar industry is behind it that makes up what can be argued is the only remaining, functioning industry in America. I will have to stop here. It has given me an idea for a book. Thank you for spurring that.
pembrook 6mo ago
Your opinion is irrelevant. You've now handed that authority over to random career bureaucrats within the state to decide.

I would categorize HN as a news aggregator with a comment section, not social media.

LocalH 6mo ago

The various laws being proposed don't tend to agree with that

cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
Well, I don’t agree with any laws like that, they’re all silly. Nobody under 16 should be on social media for their own good, but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body.
- latexr 6mo ago
  > but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body. The counter argument is that even if you want to do that as a parent, it’s hard when all your kid’s friends use the thing you’re prohibiting. It makes their life harder, and yours too in the process. It’s worth noting the first initiatives to gate kids from social media did come from parents, who organised locally and collectively agreed on a course of action.
  - cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
    As a parent, you have direct control over who your kid’s friends are. We used to say, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?”. Now we say, “Well, the kids are going to jump off a cliff anyway, I can’t stop them, so the government should make a law about it!” I don’t think that’s the way to handle things. Parents who are bad at parenting will raise kids that fraternize with kids who jump off of cliffs. Maybe theirs will too, one day. Unfortunate, but the kids at the top of the cliff, who were actually raised, will excel. Social Darwinism > Government Regulation
    - skithrowyouknow 6mo ago
      You do not have control of who your childrens' friends are unless you spend all hours with them. And most people are happy nobody can legally sell smokes, booze, and drugs to 12 year olds.
      - cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
        Surely you can see how requiring ID for a physical cigs, drugs, and alcohol purchases is different from requiring ID to use a website? “Think of the children” is the exact tool fascists use to erode liberties. Governments worldwide salivate at the idea of having a registry of what every individual is doing online at any given moment.

roysting 6mo ago

I agree, the challenge still remains to classify social media if the objective is to arrest or reverse the negative effects, while possibly not depriving children of positives of things like forums like HN which are clearly also social media, even though it’s clearly not what people are primarily thinking of regarding this issue. I suspect there is not a clear or even uniform definition of what is and is not social media that would be banned for children. Usenet is attributed as being the first social media application from 1979. I presume many here would not include Usenet even though by the technical definition of social media HN and forums in general are in fact also social media, while also at the same time one could make the case that things like TikTok or YouTube shorts are not very “social”, while at the same time being part of the problem people are upset about. I agree that there is definitely a problem with children and the internet, but frankly, maybe the ban should be for smart phones in general for children, because the same kind of toxic behaviors that I think people are actually calling “social media” can simply just continue in things like telegram and iMessage; aren’t they social media too, especially now with video/image sharing? I preemptively apologize to anyone if my words are taken as flame bait or personal attacks on anyone that likes social media or smart phones for children, it’s simply my opinion and how I speak and if you don’t like it you can simply disagree and ignore what I say, even if yuppy are a mod.

cooper_ganglia 6mo ago
I don’t think the answer is banning phones (except in school, context dependent), it’s letting lazy, bad parents have natural outcomes for their children and allowing the rest to work itself out through the social free market. It sounds cruel, but if someone is set on allowing their children to be raised by strangers on the internet and the government, they need to be ready to accept any outcomes that come along with that.
- roysting 6mo ago
  Although I agree with you directionally, reality simply is that at least speaking for the west in general terms, this approach does not strike me as feasible because it will always contact the pathological altruism of our current civilizational state that will be compelled to "help" and "protect". But there is also the issue of simply writing off the children of such parents is rather callous and simply not compatible with civilization. We are not individuals in a modern society/civilization; your notion of parents "accepting any outcomes" turns out to always result in society/civilization dealing with the effects like crime, loneliness, degeneracy, etc. As an aside; it is in fact the deepest of problems of the whole "libertarian" premise that we are all just individuals, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Do we want to be a civilization or do we want to be a conglomeration of wild animals where we just accept the "natural outcomes" of the consequences of things that was imposed on them in the first place? Frankly, (and no, I don't mean this as a flame bait, mods) I see it similar to when alcohol was introduced to the tribes of America, when they were genetically predisposed to both increased intoxication and addiction to alcohol; we introduced smartphones not only to a population that was simply not at all prepared for it psychologically (arguably, genetically too), but it was also introduced largely to the young through the adults, who were even more psychologically vulnerable to every single form of predation and things you would want to protect children from one could imagine. I know people who suffer from both the effects of smartphones and "social media" (some both, some each) in several ways too broad in scope to detail here now (but it is very bad in many ways), even though the irony in one case in particular that comes to mind, is that it is due to secondary effects from their parents' behaviors, actions, and inactions related to social media and smartphones. To your point, the saddest part is that it is not the "bad parents have natural outcomes..." it is the "children" who are suffering and having to recover from even things like grooming and psychological conditioning, and having to "reparent" themselves following a young life of neglect and what can easily be described as abuse from it. The challenge presents itself there that barring adults from "social media" and smartphones due to negligence, neglect, and various forms of abuse is a far more tricky issue and topic; especially when a double-digit trillion dollar industry is behind it that makes up what can be argued is the only remaining, functioning industry in America. I will have to stop here. It has given me an idea for a book. Thank you for spurring that.

pembrook 6mo ago

Your opinion is irrelevant. You've now handed that authority over to random career bureaucrats within the state to decide.