4 ms·

This sudden coordinated worldwide effort to ban social media for kids (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop

This sudden coordinated worldwide effort to ban social media for kids (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop being so naive and stop supporting this.

pjc50 6mo ago
The coordination is incredible. It's been easier to ban kids from social media (and impose id verification at the same time) than it was to ban landmines.
- nonethewiser 6mo ago
  It's not surprising at all. Kids in soveriegn nations are banned from all sorts of things. There is no governing body over sovereign nations that can simply ban land mines. You're talking about countries promising to reduce a common war power.The Ottawa Treaty is a treaty (ie mutually agreed upon rules which can be exited) and not all countries have signed it.
nonethewiser 6mo ago
Speak for yourself. I want it banned for kids.
- afh1 6mo ago
  Do you think this is about kids? It's about online identity and government surveillance and control. Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Or you just want to tell other parents to raise their kids the way you want? Then tell them that, don't hide behind fascist police and justice system to force online ID for adults.
  - nonethewiser 6mo ago
    >Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Common but bad argument. You've misunderstood what the age verification control is for. It's to hold online services accountable for illegally providing services to minors. A parent being negligent doesn't mean Facebook should not be held responsible for breaking the law.
    - kmlx 6mo ago
      > illegally providing services to minors > breaking the law what law?
    - bbwbsb 6mo ago
      I can't believe that we've managed to escalate past seeing parents as negligent for letting their kids walk home from school or play outside. Is this the new normal? You are negligent if you let your kids ... talk to people online? I uh, am outraged. What if kids start having thoughts their parents don't approve of? Further, facebook users could chose to use platforms that don't exploit their users. By allowing facebook to benefit from the network effect, they are responsible for kids wanting to be on the platform. They give facebook power, and then facebook uses that power to exploit children. Yet facebook's adult users don't even see the need to defend themselves. To take responsibility. Some of these laws affect mastodon, so these laws are not a regulation of facebook. What exploitive features of mastodon deserve such a ban? Are children addicted to mastodon's default chronological feed? It seems like it would benefit facebook to establish a regulatory moat that smaller non-ad-driven competitors don't have the resources to comply with. It certainty doesn't seem to have affected their stock. Also there is reasonable suspicion that meta lobbied for similar laws: https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings So much for holding facebook accountable. Oh, also: https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
  - 1970-01-01 6mo ago
    You shouldn't be all or nothing here. To ignore the effect on teens is to be blatantly ignorant of social science itself. To ignore the implications of surveillance is to be ignorant of government surveillance. There is no value at either extreme.
  - hhjinks 6mo ago
    How so? We already have digital ID in Norway. How does providing that information to American corporations further Norway's surveillance goals?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
turtlesdown11 6mo ago
social media should be banned altogether
AnonymousPlanet 6mo ago
Seeing how surprisingly similar the wording and definitions are in every case, in even far flung societies, can send you a shiver down the spine. It's like someone gained unfettered world wide write access to legislation. It's also interesting how Windows 11 with it's hard dependency on TPM hardware just happens to be in place at the right time. And how a certain former Microsoft employee just happened to start working on a similar solution for Linux before this all started https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572
ben_w 6mo ago
> (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop being so naive and stop supporting this. It's partly because of the kids. It's also because social media is part of the USA's soft power projection, and many of us now consider this to be a threat. It's also because social media has a long history of manipulation for their own gain, against the users' interests, dark patterns, tracking, they fail to back down from and even file lawsuits to continue tracking when tracking itself required (under GDPR etc.) permission that e.g. Meta did not have: https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/28/report-facebook-building-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple-over-ios-14-privacy-features/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/28/report-facebook-building-anti... For "about the kids", consider: given kids have no direct purchasing power, what adverts can they possibly respond to in a way that actually provides gain for the buyer of the advertising slot? They cannot. Therefore, by fighting for the right to keep kids on their sites (despite the huge extra effort that needs to exist to keep them safe on their sites given the inherent ambient hostility that comes with giving everyone direct access to, in Facebook's case, a few billion other humans), at least one of two things must be true: (a) they think they can get kids hooked, and be able to convert them to profitability as adults, and/or (b) they are scamming the people who buy advertising slots, knowing full well the kids who see the ads cannot possibly buy anything. If a third option exists, I cannot guess it.
- lovelearning 6mo ago
  I find the coordination between nations suspicious. But what you said - "It's also because social media is part of the USA's soft power projection, and many of us now consider this to be a threat." - strikes me as the most plausible driver behind it, given how chummy Trump and the techbros have become. I agree with your other observations about SM. But they've all been true from many years. That's why this sudden urge by culturally diverse societies to act now feels suspicious, to me at least.
  - ben_w 6mo ago
    > I find the coordination between nations suspicious. You shouldn't. I mean, they talk to each other continuously. Them coordinating things is normal. The EU nations will be doing even more coordination, because the EU is a body for the coordination of those nations. > That's why this sudden urge by culturally diverse societies to act now feels suspicious, to me at least. We're not all that diverse, really. Ironically, social media may have brought us all together against social media. And it's not really all that sudden, this has been building for many years now. Similar things due to Trump trying to bully everyone, but specifically NATO, the EU, and the Americas (and all the international stuff DOGE cut) will have a lot more stuff like this, some of which will be coordinated, some of which will be everyone spontaneously making similar decisions. That too will take years… well, unless Trump actually picks a kinetic fight with a NATO country, then political years pass in a few weeks.
andrewla 6mo ago
> hint: it's not because of the kids Why the silly conspiracy theory? Can't something just be stupid and bad but well-intentioned? You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online? If anything, jurisdictions have shown that they are very interested in preventing the tracking of people's activity online, they just don't know how to do it!
- sunaookami 6mo ago
  >You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online? ...yes? Not so secret though. The internet gave everyone the power to take matters in their own hands and read up on different sources from different countries and people and to talk to more people. They don't want to lose power and want their citizens to be uninformed and not coordinate efforts to critizice them and hold them accountable. Not only online but also offline because more and more surveillance cameras get installed, police gets more powers, checks citizens without suspicion. Did you forget the Snowden leaks?
  - samsin 6mo ago
    The Snowden files that implicated US agencies and social media companies?
- procinct 6mo ago
  There are plenty of examples of law makers passing policy to make online and digital surveillance easier. See TOLA in Australia, the UK trying to backdoor iCloud, Lawful Access to Encrypted Data act. Surveillance is often sold with safety as the primary narrative.
insane_dreamer 6mo ago
it's common that countries borrow legislation from other countries, even down to the wording I don't know what makes this more "coordinated" (so there is some supra-national organization coordinating this between nations? starting to sound like the Utopia show) than other legislation that trends very quickly Anyway, as a parent I 100% support it. I really don't care whether people think it's because of the kids or not.
- sunaookami 6mo ago
  Thanks for ruining the world for everybody and supporting mass surveillance just because you suck at parenting.
  - insane_dreamer 6mo ago
    You’re welcome!

pjc50 6mo ago

The coordination is incredible. It's been easier to ban kids from social media (and impose id verification at the same time) than it was to ban landmines.

nonethewiser 6mo ago
It's not surprising at all. Kids in soveriegn nations are banned from all sorts of things. There is no governing body over sovereign nations that can simply ban land mines. You're talking about countries promising to reduce a common war power.The Ottawa Treaty is a treaty (ie mutually agreed upon rules which can be exited) and not all countries have signed it.

nonethewiser 6mo ago

Speak for yourself. I want it banned for kids.

afh1 6mo ago
Do you think this is about kids? It's about online identity and government surveillance and control. Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Or you just want to tell other parents to raise their kids the way you want? Then tell them that, don't hide behind fascist police and justice system to force online ID for adults.
- nonethewiser 6mo ago
  >Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Common but bad argument. You've misunderstood what the age verification control is for. It's to hold online services accountable for illegally providing services to minors. A parent being negligent doesn't mean Facebook should not be held responsible for breaking the law.
  - kmlx 6mo ago
    > illegally providing services to minors > breaking the law what law?
  - bbwbsb 6mo ago
    I can't believe that we've managed to escalate past seeing parents as negligent for letting their kids walk home from school or play outside. Is this the new normal? You are negligent if you let your kids ... talk to people online? I uh, am outraged. What if kids start having thoughts their parents don't approve of? Further, facebook users could chose to use platforms that don't exploit their users. By allowing facebook to benefit from the network effect, they are responsible for kids wanting to be on the platform. They give facebook power, and then facebook uses that power to exploit children. Yet facebook's adult users don't even see the need to defend themselves. To take responsibility. Some of these laws affect mastodon, so these laws are not a regulation of facebook. What exploitive features of mastodon deserve such a ban? Are children addicted to mastodon's default chronological feed? It seems like it would benefit facebook to establish a regulatory moat that smaller non-ad-driven competitors don't have the resources to comply with. It certainty doesn't seem to have affected their stock. Also there is reasonable suspicion that meta lobbied for similar laws: https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings https://tboteproject.com/git/hekate/attestation-findings So much for holding facebook accountable. Oh, also: https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
- 1970-01-01 6mo ago
  You shouldn't be all or nothing here. To ignore the effect on teens is to be blatantly ignorant of social science itself. To ignore the implications of surveillance is to be ignorant of government surveillance. There is no value at either extreme.
- hhjinks 6mo ago
  How so? We already have digital ID in Norway. How does providing that information to American corporations further Norway's surveillance goals?
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

turtlesdown11 6mo ago

social media should be banned altogether

AnonymousPlanet 6mo ago

Seeing how surprisingly similar the wording and definitions are in every case, in even far flung societies, can send you a shiver down the spine. It's like someone gained unfettered world wide write access to legislation. It's also interesting how Windows 11 with it's hard dependency on TPM hardware just happens to be in place at the right time. And how a certain former Microsoft employee just happened to start working on a similar solution for Linux before this all started https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572

ben_w 6mo ago

> (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop being so naive and stop supporting this. It's partly because of the kids. It's also because social media is part of the USA's soft power projection, and many of us now consider this to be a threat. It's also because social media has a long history of manipulation for their own gain, against the users' interests, dark patterns, tracking, they fail to back down from and even file lawsuits to continue tracking when tracking itself required (under GDPR etc.) permission that e.g. Meta did not have: https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/28/report-facebook-building-antitrust-lawsuit-against-apple-over-ios-14-privacy-features/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/28/report-facebook-building-anti... For "about the kids", consider: given kids have no direct purchasing power, what adverts can they possibly respond to in a way that actually provides gain for the buyer of the advertising slot? They cannot. Therefore, by fighting for the right to keep kids on their sites (despite the huge extra effort that needs to exist to keep them safe on their sites given the inherent ambient hostility that comes with giving everyone direct access to, in Facebook's case, a few billion other humans), at least one of two things must be true: (a) they think they can get kids hooked, and be able to convert them to profitability as adults, and/or (b) they are scamming the people who buy advertising slots, knowing full well the kids who see the ads cannot possibly buy anything. If a third option exists, I cannot guess it.

lovelearning 6mo ago
I find the coordination between nations suspicious. But what you said - "It's also because social media is part of the USA's soft power projection, and many of us now consider this to be a threat." - strikes me as the most plausible driver behind it, given how chummy Trump and the techbros have become. I agree with your other observations about SM. But they've all been true from many years. That's why this sudden urge by culturally diverse societies to act now feels suspicious, to me at least.
- ben_w 6mo ago
  > I find the coordination between nations suspicious. You shouldn't. I mean, they talk to each other continuously. Them coordinating things is normal. The EU nations will be doing even more coordination, because the EU is a body for the coordination of those nations. > That's why this sudden urge by culturally diverse societies to act now feels suspicious, to me at least. We're not all that diverse, really. Ironically, social media may have brought us all together against social media. And it's not really all that sudden, this has been building for many years now. Similar things due to Trump trying to bully everyone, but specifically NATO, the EU, and the Americas (and all the international stuff DOGE cut) will have a lot more stuff like this, some of which will be coordinated, some of which will be everyone spontaneously making similar decisions. That too will take years… well, unless Trump actually picks a kinetic fight with a NATO country, then political years pass in a few weeks.

andrewla 6mo ago

> hint: it's not because of the kids Why the silly conspiracy theory? Can't something just be stupid and bad but well-intentioned? You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online? If anything, jurisdictions have shown that they are very interested in preventing the tracking of people's activity online, they just don't know how to do it!

sunaookami 6mo ago
>You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online? ...yes? Not so secret though. The internet gave everyone the power to take matters in their own hands and read up on different sources from different countries and people and to talk to more people. They don't want to lose power and want their citizens to be uninformed and not coordinate efforts to critizice them and hold them accountable. Not only online but also offline because more and more surveillance cameras get installed, police gets more powers, checks citizens without suspicion. Did you forget the Snowden leaks?
- samsin 6mo ago
  The Snowden files that implicated US agencies and social media companies?
procinct 6mo ago
There are plenty of examples of law makers passing policy to make online and digital surveillance easier. See TOLA in Australia, the UK trying to backdoor iCloud, Lawful Access to Encrypted Data act. Surveillance is often sold with safety as the primary narrative.

insane_dreamer 6mo ago

it's common that countries borrow legislation from other countries, even down to the wording I don't know what makes this more "coordinated" (so there is some supra-national organization coordinating this between nations? starting to sound like the Utopia show) than other legislation that trends very quickly Anyway, as a parent I 100% support it. I really don't care whether people think it's because of the kids or not.

sunaookami 6mo ago
Thanks for ruining the world for everybody and supporting mass surveillance just because you suck at parenting.
- insane_dreamer 6mo ago
  You’re welcome!