4 ms·

Everyone should get off the engagement driven platforms, but the government shouldn't have a single thing to do with it.

• psychoslave 5mo ago
  Formally the same as stating "Everyone should get off the addiction driven drug cartel, but the government shouldn't have a single thing to do with it."
  • Nasrudith 5mo ago
    To be fair for the literal example prohibition is what creates the drug cartels in the first place so it is more coherent than it sounds at first blush. Enforcement is effectively a subsidy to those who don’t get caught. For social media it is a whole different problem from it being entangled with protected speech. We don't want 'arrested for spreading misinformation defined as anything which contradicts the offical line' to be a thing.
    • AmbroseBierce 5mo ago
      Except social media is the full opposite, you can't even mention Palestine on TikTok.
    • psychoslave 5mo ago
      We don't agree here. To my mind greed and will to monopolize resources by virtual scarcity is what create a cartel. Prohibition might help such a scenario, yes. but gouvernement don't need to regulate with extrem policies like prohibition which indeed often prove counterproductive. Permitting legal sell under certain quality control, honest information and education on known outcomes, regulation on who can produce, sell, buy and use in which proportions.
  • kgwxd 5mo ago
    Yes. They don't actually care about the drug part anyway, beyond the excuse it gives them to operate outside their jurisdiction. We already have sane laws to cover the other crimes a "cartel" might do.
• fyrabanks 5mo ago
  good parenting, as always, remains the best solution
  • Anduia 5mo ago
    for those with parents yes
  • AmbroseBierce 5mo ago
    Yeah, tell that to those parents with 3 jobs and can barely make any time with their kids that they have to keep an eye on even more things, things that weren't even a thing in their childhood or their predecessors.
    • iamalizard 5mo ago
      Wouldn't the correct solution be to empower those parents with subsidies or free child care? If you have to work 3 jobs, parent or not, there is something wrong with how we've structured our society. Banning social media in your example seems like a bandaid put on a person with external and internal bleeding. You'll stop some of the bleeding but the person will still suffer and die.
      • AmbroseBierce 5mo ago
        Yeah, there is almost always better solutions to all problems than the one society goes to, but history has taught us that that a lot of times if we wait for the "better solution" we end up years and even decades without either solution.
        • iamalizard 5mo ago
          But this solution has several negatives that likely make it net negative. It normalizes age verification online which will likely lead to a less free internet. We could wait for decades until a really privacy-preserving way of age verification will come but what will happen is we'll have to give up our privacy and anonymity to a few large governments and companies. It opens to door for regulating any kind of communication channels amongst the people. It will start with big social media but it will likely expand to any kind of forums, chats and even open protocols like AT. It will normalize the government interfering in all kinds of online activities. These may seem distant and abstract to most people but the people in power want or will want to get power over every kind of communication. We should oppose this now, not when it's normalized and has happened for "platforms bigger than X users". The people should be able to form any kind of group where they communicate freely. If you want to regulate commercial addictive algorithmic content suggestions... OK, maybe, sure. Do it. Don't regulate where people communicate, how they do it, what they talk about and what they share. People who can use the internet, even children, need a way to share their ideas and concerns. They need to be able to belong to whatever community they please.
• sucrosesucrose 5mo ago
  You have too much faith in the masses.
• AmbroseBierce 5mo ago
  Why? If asbestos is killing us we ban it, if hipotericllly some new form of asbestos is more harmful to young people than the rest we ban it too, why put the pressure of that responsibility in already stressed out population. Corporations know this very well, that's why they love when people have the opinion you just shared here.
  • iamalizard 5mo ago
    From what I know, asbestos is bad when it gets airborne. If it's installed correctly, if workers wear PPE when handling it and if there are periodic checks for cracks, leaks and so on, it's safe. From what I've read, at least - I'm not an expert by any means. I've removed asbestos from a few old buildings but wore PPE. It was very uncomfortable to have the masks and suit on. I even threw away the cloth bags I had to my tools in, just to be safe. We disposed of the asbestos as per regulation. I feel safe and would do it again. So maybe banning asbestos altogether is overkill. I'd love to be proven wrong. I don't have any financial interest in asbestos besides the few jobs I've done over the years removing it.
    • lesuorac 5mo ago
      Yeah and C yields bug free performance software when used correctly.
      • iamalizard 5mo ago
        I get what you're saying but installing asbestos correctly is much easier than writing an app that could have security implications in C, is more easily detectable where things go wrong and it affects less people if things go wrong. And the people using asbestos in their homes, or buying homes with asbestos, are endangering themselves. How likely is that an improperly installed or maintained asbestos is going to affect a whole neighborhood?
        • chucksta 5mo ago
          If the neighborhood was all built around the same time or by the same developer, I would say high