We used to hold parents liable.

Adults should be protected from these predatory services as well.

This is mindless paternalism.

Who gets to decide what is 'predatory' and why do those people have the right to make decisions in place of able-minded adults?

The mindless paternalism is the point! People like this want a Nanny State to enforce their own ideals, as they arbitrarily believe themselves to be morally superior.

That’s why these laws happen to begin with. It starts as “Think of the children”, and ends with the death of the anonymized internet.

Governments crave that, and scared, hapless citizens who refuse to learn how to raise a child want Daddy Gubament to do it for them, and so push these laws into existence.

Why stop at removing restrictions on social media, why have laws at all, they're just mindless paternalism! why should we have seatbelts? why have laws against murder? Mindless paternalism is all those laws are!

Not all laws are are meant to protect people from themselves, most laws aren't.

Murder isn't illegal because we want to protect people from the results of their actions, it's illegal because we want to protect people from the actions of others. (Or, failing to do that, punish the aggressors in response) Surely you see the difference?

Basically, the argument is that people's liberty should only be restricted up to the point of defending the liberty and rights of others. If an action hurts no one other than its actor, the state has no right to restrict them. People should be free to live in line with their wishes and conscience up to the point of not violating the rights of others.

With regard to seatbelt laws, I would ask the same question, as I do think that the seatbelt laws are also paternalism and morally wrong.

That would be fine if people had symmetric information and strong education

Anything less is exploitation

But no one, including the government, is omniscient. This turns all agency into "exploitation", and the only logical conclusion is that all decisions for all people should be made by the most informed. Surely you don't argue that would be a good thing?

Can you give an example for this?

"Parental responsibility laws in all 50 states"

https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/PARENTAL-...

an excerpt from above:

"Almost every state has some sort of parental responsibility law that holds parents or legal guardians responsible for property damage, personal injury, theft, shoplifting, and/or vandalism resulting from intentional or willful acts of their un-emancipated children."

"Parental responsibility laws are one vehicle by which parents are held accountable for at least a minimal amount of damage caused by their children as a result of intentional acts or vandalism"

Using social media is not a crime. I think what we’re talking about here is child welfare or child protection laws (which all 50 states probably also have).

if disallowing social media use below the age of 16 becomes a law (like the article's proposed bill), and a kid breaks that law, this seems like a perfect example of holding the parents liable?

but also yes, child welfare laws and such are also pretty fitting examples. i dont think the person asking for an example was really asking in good faith, anyhow.

My understanding in this case the social media company is liable for allowing a child to access social media. So is not a crime for a child to use social media.

> Children cannot be left with the responsibility for staying away from platforms they are not allowed to use. That responsibility rests with the companies providing these services. They must implement effective age verification and comply with the law from day one

From the original press release https://www.regjeringen.no/en/whats-new/norwegian-social-med...

sure, that sounds right for how it is currently. my parenthesis above is probably wrong.

but the whole point of my example was showing that its absolutely possible to hold parents accountable for their childs actions. there are dozens of laws that do so already. so there is no excuse why a social media ban could not be written in the same fashion as those laws, rather than moving parental responsibility onto tech companies.

Laws hold parents accountable for their childrens' crimes, not their noncriminal actions. Nothing about this is saying that accessing social media is a crime -- that would be more similar to drug possession laws, firearms licensing, etc.

If your child is drinking: they are violating the alcohol possession age limit themselves; you are liable for their crime plus child endangerment if you gave them the alcohol; and whoever sold or supplied them the alcohol is violating a separate law. Sounds like we're trying to apply the same structure to social media, except (so far) with no possession/usage law.

I don't really see how that is relevant? Isn't that law making a parent responsible for actions their child commits that hurt others? Child protection laws like preventing child labour, not selling alcohol/cigarettes, etc aren't this.

how is it not relevant?

its an example of holding the parent responsible when the child breaks a law.

if accessing social media below 16 becomes illegal, this is a literal perfect example of holding parents accountable for their kids illegal activity. you can't possibly get more relevant.

there is no reason to shift parental responsibility onto tech companies. we have existing laws that can be used as templates for social media bans.

Correct me if the US is different, but in the country I live in the onus is on the bar or liquor store if they sell alcohol to a child, not on the parent. Why would it be different for a social media ban?

in your country, who is responsible if a 12 year old keeps getting drunk at home and the parents do nothing to prevent it?

do they go after the liquor store and just ignore the parents letting their kids drink?

Oh man where I'm from they'd probably just laugh and put them to bed. jkjk

To be honest I did some brief searching and couldn't find anything! The parent will be liable if someone at your home drinks and drives home drunk, but I couldn't find anything specific about children consuming alcohol alone. It is only illegal to sell alcohol to minor, underage alcohol consumption is explicitly legal if supplied and supervised by an adult.

Now I'm sure if the child were to be young enough other child abuse laws could come into play, but it looks to be exceedingly rare.

okay, so we now have: parent/homeowner responsible if someone drives home drunk, parent responsible if child gets drunk via abuse/neglect laws, and parent responsible for other crimes and damages caused by a child via dozens of individual laws.

is that enough examples to satisfy your initial request?

(which was a request for examples of the extremely broad statement: "We used to hold parents liable.")

So I asked for examples because there is a large difference between "We used to hold parents liable" meaning "we used to, socially, hold parents accountable for raising well adjusted humans" (which I would mostly disagree with) vs. "we used to persecute parents for normative laws" (which I mostly agree with).

I know your point is talking about point 2, but I believe OPs comment was about point 1. But I also still don't know what the "used to" means in the original, do we not anymore?

This is one of those situation where both things can be true at the same time.

Social media companies have shown that they do not give a shit about the mental health of their users, quite the opposite seems to be true. Yes, parents are responsible for teaching their children about the reality of modern social media, but they can only do so within the limits of their abilities and understanding. It's similar to smoking. Yes parents are responsible for teaching their children about the dangers of smoking and encourage them not to, but no one thinks removing the age restriction from tobacco is a sane idea.

I think this is not a sensible position.

One one side you have big companies paying huge amounts of money to super smart people to get teens hooked on their products.

On the other side you have parents who on average dont understand how social media algorithm works or in some (too many cases) they cannot follow the logic to a second order effect.

Even here we have comments saying something like "be smarter and teach your kid to be smarter than big social media companies" not understanding that addiction cannot always be defended by improved IQ. Geniuses can have addictions too.