We can educate or change things at the population level, we just lack the political will to do so and it's disincentivized for the people in power to orient their efforts that way. I think it's worth taking a good hard look about why our Overton Window has ended up where it has on these issues.
There are also other ways to cope rather than outright bans or anarchy. We could study the physiology of the harm caused and require algorithm changes to demonstrate they don't cause biological panic reactions. We could require some knowledge in order to access social media rather than gatekeeping by age (for the record, I don't think this would work and it's probably not legal in America, but it's interesting that nobody seems to discuss it), etc. Even something as simple as requiring a representative age sample for groups addressing these problems so that we can have the perspectives of both those of us who grew up chronically online and people who have to adjust to this weird new techno world they don't understand since both groups need to live in society.
We could also go meta and ask why education has a low chance of success in adults. What of those variables could we influence? Would an economically secure population be easier to educate? Etc.
Exactly how most social media execs handle it with respect to their own kids.
Exactly. We're a decade into the social media experiment now, and it's absolutely clear that it in its current form it doesn't make us smarter, it doesn't make us happier, and it doesn't bring us closer. If anything, it makes people sick and it weakens the social fabric. The proposed solution of "more free speech better" is clearly not working in the face of organized, AI-fueled, nation-state manipulation efforts.
Hacker News is made up of people with a birds-eye view of social media technology. Most of us understand how it works and who operates it. I think it's important to know what an incredible position this is to be in, and to remember that most people aren't like us. Most people can't just say, "screw it, I'll get my information elsewhere."
I think we'll improve over time, but we're at least a generation away from any kind of widespread media literacy. What do we do in the meantime?
The old saying goes that knowledge is power; everyone here with deep knowledge of computers and the things they enable really are in a blessed position.
Not to mention the data collection.
> Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people.
Do you think that we should ban all the Chinese apps and also all the American apps?
America also generally allows businesses and media from foreign companies to take part, whereas China has no such reciprocity.
Security arrangements are real things that can't be merely handwaved away as something that "should" not exist in one's ideal world.
The likes of Tiktok operately strictly for Chinese interests, and Chinese interests do not align with western interests.
They operate for their own interests, which are almost always directly at odds with the interests of the people who actually live in the west.
[1] I have exactly as much evidence for this as you do for your claim.
The game of cutting off foreign players is a luxury only the few countries can afford right now, making it look like everybody else supports the US is disingenuous.
The price of association with the US is, as you say, US influence; however, US influence is much less restrictive and oppressive than many other major players today and historically. Our EU allies regularly criticize us in public forums; North Korea does not have the political freedom to criticize China and Belarus does not have the political freedom to criticize Russia to the same extent that United States' allies do today.
It's high time for global players to wake up from the ideal world where everyone can get along with zero tariffs or restrictions. The United States must do what is in her best interests and other states should follow her lead. I believe it is the US best interest that the world is more free, and should that eventual goal require some restriction of hostile foreign entities' freedom to operate on US soil, so be it.
Most countries criticize the US _and_ China _and_ Russia _and_ North Korea, make trade where they need to and make a balancing act with alliances and relations between all of these countries.
> It's high time for global players to wake up from the ideal world where everyone can get along with zero tariffs or restrictions.
The US have engaged into perpetual tariffs and restrictions from the day it had the power to do so. Are you assuming other countries thought they could stop that ? Or what are you even talking about ?
The way you weaponize the network against a populace is by censoring it. In this regard, Congress is the one doing that.
And it kinda signals to other countries they really should put critical effort in lowering dependence on the US and chalenging the dominance if they ever intend to thrive.
Foreign adversaries have learned exactly how to weaponize our free and open internet against our own people. Regardless of the fact that our kids are most vulnerable, the point is that China's seemingly made a point of outsourcing their most polarizing algorithmic decisions to the rest of the world but not to their own population, which is essentially a tacit admission of awareness of the dangers of social media to their own people.
At this point, I'd venture that politicians in the US are trying to grasp at whatever they can to mitigate the risk while still maintaining their election chances. Easier to "blame China" and get re-elected than it is to dump on their own constituents for not monitoring their kids' social media habits.
And frankly, I'm okay with that. Even if a parent does their best, there'll be second-hand influences through all the kids raised irresponsibly through their parents, and nothing can be done about that aside from homeschooling or going off-grid, which is unsustainable for nearly everyone.
I'm fine with a combination of the bill introduced + bills like the one passed in Utah placing curfews on kids since parents have proven to be so bad at parenting their own kids as to present the nation with an emergent aggregate risk to national security.