They recently did this in Australia. The method just doesn’t work. Most kids weren’t banned at all, other kids figured ways around authentication, and the ones that were banned just use their family accounts or use the services logged out.
What makes it worse is that kids who now access the services by getting around the ban are being exposed to content aimed at adults like gambling adverts.
I’m not opposed to the concept, but the fact is that there is no realistic way to enforce it. It’s an impossible ban but they attempted it anyway by putting the onus on the companies that have no interest in the ban.
This generations morale panic. It was games then before that TV and before that music, all apparently corrupting our children to greatly they would never come out as functioning adults, except strangely no ban was required. Social media hysteria is all just the same thing, the long list of inventions that the elderly didn’t understand and made bold claims about corruption of society that never came to pass. These things go a long way back and sometimes they are deadly (like witches) and sometimes just ridiculous (like short form stories).
Social media is having a negative cognitive effect though. It isn’t just panic about something new. It’s affecting all users. It’s a worthwhile discussion to have.
social media is re-wiring adult brains too. it creates a delusional sense of reality for those who are deeply into it and that distortion filters out to everyone else. i can’t talk to social media users anymore because they live in a pocket universe in their heads and they are terrified to interact with people outside of the bubble.
music, movies, games, are all fictional. they aren’t distorting reality for most people the way social media is.
social media is also algorithmically driven to push your worse fears, anxieties, and other psychological triggers to keep you hooked. video games aren’t like that. nor is music or comic books or other new media.
Or, and I know this is going to sound crazy, regulate the social media companies to make them responsible for the content on their websites.
Banning kids doesn’t work. They simply use a workaround. Do law makers not remember what it was like to be a kid, or adults telling them not to do something.
make them responsible for the content on their websites
How to kill the internet
Only the social media part of it…nothing of value lost.
That’s like making ISPs responsible for content passing through their network. Not a fan of this approach.
Yes but this would require intelligent legislature and risks pissing off Big Tech. Far easier to make a few vague proclamations and then throw public funds at more useless age verification tech instead.
Why wouldn’t it be okay to piss off Big Tech? That’s part of the point. They can either change their ways or fuck off. Governments and people are not the playthings of Big Tech. Intelligent legislature and legislation that is applicable to future technology would be a sensible approach rather than just the tech of current times.
To be clear, I was being sardonic.
Doing things the right way is difficult, and I don’t trust governments to do things that might piss off Big Tech because of all the money tied up in that sector. Politicians seem more interested in appeasing the Musks and Zucks of the world than in actually helping people. So it goes.
Oh let’s absolutely piss off big tech, starting by removing anti-circumvention laws.
I highly doubt kids these days are as tech literate as kids 20 or 30 years ago.
they are as tech literate as boomers are, according to most studies.
they are used to be spoonfed information and entertainment and can’t distinguish between either.
Such a lazy answer to the problems of the day. Banning is dumb. Teach how to spot misinformation, enforce empathy, and fucking get rid of the class system to remove interpersonal inequality. But no, England doesn’t do what it’s supposed to; only what it can to get by for now.
ban social media for people over 50
ban social media for people between 23 and 46
