I'm pretty much at this stage too. The web/internet was a frontier like the Wild West. But those wild days are gone and are never coming back. Cyberspace has been settled.
If they can't be arsed to answer you, then you shouldn't be arsed to vote for them, at least in my opinion.
I’ve come to the conclusion the only thing you can really do is leave when you disagree with the direction of your country, but of course not everyone has the ability to do that.
That often is democracy: what's popular isn't always what's best.
When they do, they will change their mind (and probably protest loudly that they never wanted it in the first place).
See Brexit for a clear example.
Freedom and liberty should be the foundations of a healthy society. Democracy should be reserved only for those things that must be decided collectively and universally enforced.
What kids do on their phones doesn't even come close. Let parents and vendors decide what their kids and customers can do. I've met plenty of well-adjusted kids who aren't on social media because their parents don't let them.
If enough people feel strongly about it to go onto the street and wave placards, that starts getting noticed and has to be acknowledged.
Of course, the UK (and others) have started making protests illegal, because they are doing things that we should feel strongly enough about to go and wave placards at them.
I've had plenty of conversations recently where people say "yeah, but social media is harming kids. Banning it is good". People broadly see the headline "think of the children" and think, "yup, let's protect children".
To me, there's all sorts of downsides - the death of small discussion forums, pushing interesting online experiences out of the reach of teenagers, the creeping surveillance and, worst of all, the complete end of the open internet (when inevitably it doesn't actually work). But most non-tech people just don't see that.
The currently in place age verificaton system is a joke. It's trivial to circumvent them - not just via VPN, but also because there's countless websites that just don't care. The social media ban will bring more of the same - and then they'll have to ban VPNs and bring in website firewalls.
Who wins? The established tech companies, who have big enough legal departments to comply with increasing red tape. How is a new social network going to legitimately compete with Facebook now?
But when I say all this to people I know, they just don't see it. Most people are not tech people.
And because I don't have kids, I'm presumed to not have any skin in the game - like the websites are not going to ask me my age or something.
I also think there's more of what I'd call "grassroots British libertarianism" than you'd expect. It's just in tension with Daily Mail-ism, often in the same people. They just don't want onerous rules applied to them.
You can also recreate a smaller network and enjoy it as a silo, disconnected from the Internet, at times.
There's no need to be off the grid 24/7 to feel the relief.
It's deeply relaxing to pull the (Internet) plug (I do, literally, physically remove one ethernet cable from a switch right underneath my monitor and I've then got several machines happily communicating only on the LAN: no more Internet).
Maybe I'm having fun with my latest acquisition: modelling parts to fix stuff left and right around the house by 3D printing them (I bought a 3D printer for that: I had many things I needed to fix and I knew I'd be able to fix them properly by printing adequate parts). No need for the Internet to model, slice and 3D print.
Such an activity does feel like the computing of yore: it takes me back to a time when it was me and a 8-bit machine. Creating stuff "by code" (which now take physical form at home, which 11-years old me would have find utterly mindboggling btw).
> There are other things to do. Many books to read and places to go.
And hobbies. As a kid from the eighties I love cars from the late 80s/very early 90s: not much electronics, not spying on you. Sure they're a bit of gaz guzzlers but then half the fun is fixing stuff on them and the other half is talking about them with other enthusiasts: there's no need to drive 10 000 kilometers a year with those.
When you take time to disconnect a bit from the Internet, then I'd say when you're online (like I'm now) it all feels way more tolerable.
No need to go full luddite IMO but YMMV.
> Maybe I'm having fun with my latest acquisition: modelling parts to fix stuff left and right around the house by 3D printing them
Isn't California proposing to put you in jail for having a 3D printer without an internet connection to tattle on you and killswitch your printer if some unaccountable internet service decides you're printing something "bad"?
:sigh:
You cannot travel into the US without providing access to your Social Media accounts. Pretty likely you get denied if you say "I don't have social media".
It's either that or I just consider the internet dead and move on. It's nothing like it was 20 years ago anyway. There are other things to do. Many books to read and places to go. We had something really cool and we were lucky to experience it while it lasted, but it's gone now.