Last fall, heavily influenced by Jonathan Haidt’s extremely problematic book, Australia announced that it was banning social media for everyone under the age of 16. This was already a horrifically …
I’m sorry, but that’s absurd. Pointing out a policy has flaws doesn’t mean that I must support problem it attempts to solve. There’s more shades than black & white, my friend.
Age verification and vpns, like uk laws, are t the in,y way to solve these problems. Fines for the companies hosting damaging content, rather than a free pass would be a good first step.
The UK laws are even worse. All they are achieving is creating a barrier that is too high for smaller services to reach. If you want to consolidate the internet into just a few services like facebook (who can afford the infrastructure to satisfy the new requirements), then I could not think of a more effective way to achieve it. Predictably, we are now seeing smaller services geo blocking the entire UK, because conforming is simply not a viable option. Oh and children have already foiled it on the larger established services.
We all understand what these laws are trying to accomplish, and I appreciate your reasons for supporting it. But as I said, I’m not convinced they will actually do what they intend, and having once been a teenager, I have a strong belief that it will push their online activity underground.
I do agree with you that fines for damaging content would be a good first step. But that’s not what people are concerned about here, and if the law stopped there it would be a nothing burger.
There is a problem with the Internet as it stands. Social media is a big part of that. Not holding people and corporations responsible for their actions is a big part of that. For companies we allow them to post content from ‘users’ but don’t hold them responsible for the content. This is despite the fact that they purposely magnify the engaging, controversial and emotive content.
Keeping kids safe means ensuring they only see content that is approved. It’s a very fixable problem. It just costs time and money to fix. Parents could have to approve what is suggested to their kids.
Some content could be moderated, responsibly, like on tv. Especially any content that is monetised. On fact, any monetised content should be subject to the same rules as tv or similar, for both the platform and the publisher. That would fix a lot.
I have kids. They use YouTube kids. I worry that it will show them inappropriate content. As a parent it is difficult to control their playlist as it offers different suggestions after each. So unless you watch with them or check every 5 minutes, it’s not doable. Doubly so with more than one kid on a seperate device.
I think the negative consequences will outweigh any perceived benefits.
Adolescents will either find their way around it or move to another less policed platform. Either way, then end result is less censorship than before.
Even if it could work, the verification process will come with a non-inconsequential cost to privacy of adults.
Only if we let big companies dictate the terms. YouTube, Facebook etc talk about how moderation is too expensive, but make billions in profit.
I’m sorry, but that’s absurd. Pointing out a policy has flaws doesn’t mean that I must support problem it attempts to solve. There’s more shades than black & white, my friend.
Age verification and vpns, like uk laws, are t the in,y way to solve these problems. Fines for the companies hosting damaging content, rather than a free pass would be a good first step.
The UK laws are even worse. All they are achieving is creating a barrier that is too high for smaller services to reach. If you want to consolidate the internet into just a few services like facebook (who can afford the infrastructure to satisfy the new requirements), then I could not think of a more effective way to achieve it. Predictably, we are now seeing smaller services geo blocking the entire UK, because conforming is simply not a viable option. Oh and children have already foiled it on the larger established services.
We all understand what these laws are trying to accomplish, and I appreciate your reasons for supporting it. But as I said, I’m not convinced they will actually do what they intend, and having once been a teenager, I have a strong belief that it will push their online activity underground.
I do agree with you that fines for damaging content would be a good first step. But that’s not what people are concerned about here, and if the law stopped there it would be a nothing burger.
There is a problem with the Internet as it stands. Social media is a big part of that. Not holding people and corporations responsible for their actions is a big part of that. For companies we allow them to post content from ‘users’ but don’t hold them responsible for the content. This is despite the fact that they purposely magnify the engaging, controversial and emotive content.
Keeping kids safe means ensuring they only see content that is approved. It’s a very fixable problem. It just costs time and money to fix. Parents could have to approve what is suggested to their kids.
Some content could be moderated, responsibly, like on tv. Especially any content that is monetised. On fact, any monetised content should be subject to the same rules as tv or similar, for both the platform and the publisher. That would fix a lot.
I have kids. They use YouTube kids. I worry that it will show them inappropriate content. As a parent it is difficult to control their playlist as it offers different suggestions after each. So unless you watch with them or check every 5 minutes, it’s not doable. Doubly so with more than one kid on a seperate device.