Restricting social media for children

[[Ars]Hellheart]

Having been on the receiving end of more than my fair share of bullies during elementary and jr high school, I can tell you: this isn't how it works. Children are plenty good at separating social spheres and their actual behavior: the bully you meet at school is not the same person you will meet should you encounter them on the other side of town or at church: remove their friends and they become perfectly firendly. Indeed, it's the social situation that creates the bully; ultimately, it's a power game: the bully isn't doing this because he enjoys humiliating people, he's doing it because, by picking on someone lower in the social heiarchy, he's able to intimidate others and raise his position in the social heiarchy. It's a way of climbing a social ladder by using low-status people as rungs to be stepped on while climbing.

So the identity-separation portion of that post was referring to how the victim is affected by the situation, rather than how the bully might behave in other venues. A bully who acts differently in another social sphere is still actively terrorizing their victim, because the few children who can fully compartmentalize what happens to them are very likely to suffer from DID or dissociation. Bullies who are being nice are actively harming their victims still, whether or not they understand this to be the case. Hell, bystanders who are being nice can actively harm the victim. It can get very ugly.

I understand the confusion here because I transitioned into potential bully behavior in the same paragraph. What you can even get from the friends-and-family of the victim side of this is "hey, I saw this anonymous message threatening your kid and I'm really concerned," like the worst bullies work in groups and utilize social strategies that they often experience in their home lives.

Groups of bullies often follow the mob mentality, where it is very much about humiliation and control and damage. The individuals might act differently in some situations where there can be a passing of the baton, but the pressure from the group itself remains constant. Social media amplifies this, as it allows them to effectively egg each other on, share what's being done with each other, and anonymously collaborate on harmful content.

 

[JonTD]

If you have to resort to adding unprecedented restrictions against the abuse of your law, to convince yourself that it isn’t a bad idea, it’s probably a bad idea.

My suggestion there has nothing to do with this specific use case. I'm just over lenient laws that companies can openly ignore because the profits outweigh the punishment for everyone involved. Data privacy isn't unique in that regard. Nor is the tech industry. Every major social media company already knows your likely age range and actively abuses that information, but I guess none of you care because they didn't validate it with an ID.

If we don't start throwing people in jail and seizing assets when companies openly flout laws we are just going to continue our speedrun into kleptocratic oligarchies taking over every single democratic government.

 

[breze]

My suggestion there has nothing to do with this specific use case. I'm just over lenient laws that companies can openly ignore because the profits outweigh the punishment for everyone involved. Data privacy isn't unique in that regard. Nor is the tech industry. Every major social media company already knows your likely age range and actively abuses that information, but I guess none of you care because they didn't validate it with an ID.

If we don't start throwing people in jail and seizing assets when companies openly flout laws we are just going to continue our speedrun into kleptocratic oligarchies taking over every single democratic government.

I’d be fine with adding 4 on to most tech related laws, but I don’t think 1-3 are acceptable without it (then again I don’t think 1-3 are acceptable with it , so…).

Anyway, why include it if it isn’t really specific to this use case? It seems like a derail of your own idea.

 

[AverageDutchGuy]

It is a different environment now. We have delayed the development of kids because of our own fear (and media creates and enforces some the fear). The social media further delay or even stun kid mental development by telling them how to think.

I took bus to middle school by myself and my parents only need me to get home by dinner. We also have open campus, so we would have lunch outside of school most of the time. It is my understanding that Japan kids would go to school by themselves as young as 7-8 years old.

I walked to school by myself (about a 5 to 10 minute walk) at about age 7 I think (in the Netherlands). This was (and still is afaik) common.

 

[SnoopCatt]

It looks like France is about to pass a law banning under-15s from having accounts on social media. If passed by the upper house, it would become law by September 2026.

 

[DarthSlack]

One the one side we have busy parents with children.

On the other side we have multi-billion dollar corporations hell bent on spending every dime necessary to hook kids into social media as soon as they possibly can so they can spend their lifetime being a profit center.

It's not a fair fight in any way, shape or form and governments need to do everything in their power to tip the scales in favor of the parents. Yeah, age verification is a pain and easy to get around, but that's mainly because the social media companies have no incentive to follow them. If there are some consequences to their bottom line, they might take it more seriously.

We need to elect people who are willing to get fines to the levels where they hurt.

 

[flere-imsaho]

We also need to elect more people who actually understand how technology works, instead of the usual septuagenarians and octogenarians. When a tech exec says "oh, that thing can't be done with technology" we need people who can say "you're lying", confidently, and then make them do it.

 

[concernUrsus]

Dont couple of countries already link real-ID with the online ID? My understand is you need real-ID to setup MMO account in South Korea?

 

[flere-imsaho]

From the front page article today:

Other allegedly damning documents showed Meta seemingly bragging that “teens can’t switch off from Instagram even if they want to” and an employee declaring, “oh my gosh yall IG is a drug,” likening all social media platforms to “pushers.”

Similarly, a 2020 Google document detailed the company’s plan to keep kids engaged “for life,” despite internal research showing young YouTube users were more likely to “disproportionately” suffer from “habitual heavy use, late night use, and unintentional use” deteriorating their “digital well-being.”

I don't know about the rest of you, but this sounds exactly the same as what tobacco companies said behind closed doors for decades about their products.

 

[Carewolf]

I walked to school by myself (about a 5 to 10 minute walk) at about age 7 I think (in the Netherlands). This was (and still is afaik) common.

Same in Denmark. I walked 10-15 minutes from one end to the other of town. My mom arranged for other adults I wouldnt recognize to keep an eye on me the first two day to ensure I didn't do anything stupid.