In my opinion, these governments haven't implemented 'effective' bans (though maybe chilling, as you say) but primarily created awkward new grey markets for the personal data that these policies rely on for theatrics. Remember when China 'banned' youth IDs from playing online games past 10PM? I think a bunch of grandparents became gamers around the same time...
Making something difficult to do actually works to _curb_ behavior.
It's infantilizing and dumb. Grown adults should be allowed to smoke tobacco if they so wish and smoking rates are already way down due to marketing and alternatives. Noone needs to be prosecuted.
Just see how many people already go through that trouble to source illegal drugs...
If you think taking tobacco away from consumers is infantilizing, why yes, yes it is. We are dealing with children's futures. Adults get to continue smoking, children less likely to even want to smoke as the social acceptance goes down and with that there is less and less desire to smoke. Nicotine doesn't do much other than get you addicted, no one is chasing after a pronounced high with it, people start smoking because it's perceived as cool.
I can't imagine an adult wanting to start smoking, most adults get addicted in their teens.
I think you have have an import ban, and a black market, and still see significant gains in eroding the demand. I do not think people should be prosecuted for possession, but the UK will probably make some bad decisions there, but that doesn't mean the overall policy is bad.
I just noped out of it entirely.
I think the government should invest in giving parents the tools to control their child’s online access. Tools such as DNS blocklists, open source traffic filtering software which parents could set up in their home, etc.
[0]: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-onl...
When I was first getting online, the expectation was that you at least had to be bright enough to lie about your age. Now I have to occasionally prune my timeline after it fills up with "literally a minor." Even an annoyance tax might have some positive effect. Scare the pastel death-threats back into their hole...
So kids get a social media "license," maybe.
Almost all parents either don’t care or opt for the second option (which I also think is the better one), but the dynamics today are that between 10-12yo the pressure to get your kid a smartphone will mount and you have to give in at some point. Being able to wait till 16 would be much better IMO.
It's interesting how every generation seems to decry new forms of media as eroding the fabric of society. They said it about video games, television, music, movies, etc. I'm sure we're right this time, though.
Whether you agree or not that they’re “eroding the very fabric of a society” (I would argue they are), it should be acknowledged that almost all the downsides predicted have come to pass, and life has gone on not because these things didn’t happen, but in spite of them having happened.
Video games are typically fiction, so the ability to pass propaganda through them is usually a little more limited. It isn’t impossible, just different.
Social media is a pretty bad news source for contentious issues. We should be pretty alarmed that people are getting their news there.
Plenty has been written already on the ravaging effects of social media on society and it's pretty plain to see.
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-me...
> Rates of sexual activity have been in decline for years, but the drop is most pronounced for adults under age 25 (Gen Z).
> For Gen Z, a rise in sexlessness has coincided with a decline in mental health.
> Sexual activity can boost mood and relieve stress and may serve as a protective factor against anxiety and depressive disorders.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-myths-sex/2022... missing-out-the-benefits-sex
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiat...
I only changed 2 words for 1.
To me, the only way out of this is by changing one nightmare for another giving the gov't the decision of allowing/denying access. Human nature is not a simple thing to regulate since the desire for that regulating is part of human nature
I agree that neither solution is perfect, but exchanging an imperfect but undoubtedly free system of communication for one that is explicitly state-controlled censorship is an obvious step backwards.
"Thinking about the children" should also involve thinking about what kind of a society you want to build for them. A cage is not the answer, especially not with fascism creeping back into our politics.
Social media has long since past just being a means of communicating with each other, and you come across as very disingenuous for putting this out there.
I don't deny that kids can get into trouble and find shocking or dangerous things online. But kids can also get in trouble walking down the street. We should not close streets or require ID checks for walking down them. Parents should teach their kids how to be safe online, set up network blocks for particularly bad sites, and have some kind of oversight for what their kids are doing.
Maybe these bills should mandate that sites have the ability to create "kid" accounts whose history can be checked and access to certain features can be managed by an associated "parent" account. Give parents better tools for keeping their kids safe, don't just give the government control over all internet traffic.
I've suggested no such thing. In fact, I described putting regulations in place as a "nightmare". Parenting alone will not work. Self regulation from the socials will not work. The entire situation is a nightmare of our own making. There is no simple solution. These tendencies of human nature were present long before social media. It was just fuel for the fire for the worst qualities.
They won't engage on this topic in a fair and balanced manner. I've tried. They want unlimited ability to push agendas and incite strife and they just throw out keywords and thought-terminating cliches when criticised; diversity, marginalisation, fascism, they just gaslight and gaslight and gaslight.
I mean, don't stop trying, but you'll be very frustrated
No, it's not about that either. It's the algorithmic nature of social media apps which rewire the brain's mechanisms in unnatural and unhealthy ways. Predators are a minor concern besides this one. See https://www.afterbabel.com/archive?sort=top
People said the same thing about age restrictions for smoking, alcohol, movies, and on and on and on.
It's not some unsolvable new problem just because it's the ad-tech industry.