Summary
A YouGov poll revealed that 77% of Germans support banning social media for those under 16, similar to a new Australian law.
The survey found that 82% believe social media harms young people, citing harmful content and addiction.
In Australia, the law fines platforms up to AUD 49.5 million (€30.5M) for allowing under-16s to create accounts, with enforcement trials set before implementation next year. Critics
Urgh. This is a tough one. Social media has been a part of asymmetric warfare for at least the past ten years, and I don’t want my kids to be bombarded with propaganda from Russian and Chinese-funded far-right groups like the AfD.
At the same time, I understand how important it is for kids to explore the internet on their own.
If I had the choice, I would ban TikTok and Instagram.
But if that’s not possible – then honestly, ban everything. I will then work something out with my kids myself.
It used to be valuable to explore the internet but the internet has largely been corrupted by corporate greed.
By and large the experience Young folks have on the Internet is almost entirely through applications meant to abuse and take advantage of their underdeveloped brains. Behavior driven by algorithmic pressure.
This is bad news bears for society.
There isn’t a whole lot of exploring to be done for the grand majority of kids on the internet. Instead they will be classified bucketed and used for further financial gain by a select few corporations.
No more though. It’s more important that they spend time at the fresh air & play. The internet has become pretty useless outside of wikipedia & social media, and social media has become pretty toxic outside of a few spots (like we can hopefully keep lemmy).
I would absolutely support a 100% social media ban for all centralized networks (corporation controlled). Because they are used not only to damage the brains of children, but those of adults as well (see Eastern German elections). Only federated chat systems / social media should be allowed. But that’s where our fascist overlords have a conflict of interest - they desperately want to see everything we communicate - and chat control (literally, fuck you EU) is not possible in federated networks.
Oh, I have to disagree strongly. Precisely because the internet has gotten worse, it’s even more important for children to learn how to navigate it effectively.
Take my former colleague as an example: a 45-year-old downloading a “better zip tool” from a Russian website full of awful spelling and dubious claims.
Kids need to learn about ad blockers, VPNs, and how to identify fake news. Not teaching them these skills leaves them far more vulnerable to online threats than if they were taught how to handle these issues from an early age. And as many people tell you, the best way to truly learn about something is by doing it yourself.
The internet is only going to become more relevant in the future.
Okay, you have a point there. But in a way, that doesn’t refute my point - the opposite of “learning how to navigate it effectively” is letting children have access to it on their own. It would need to be taught in school, by qualified teachers (who don’t exist in sufficient quantity).
I am not so sure about this - because I have seen it evolve over the past decades, and as I previously pointed out, it’s become mostly ads, propaganda and bullshit. The only reason people spend more time online is because of the addictive mechanisms in most modern smartphone apps. Me, not using those, I find myself spending less and less time on the internet.
Of course, children need basic training on how to use the internet, and I know it’s going to be tedious, but I will explain to them why I think it’s not good for them to use TikTok and Instagram—at least until they’re 14, 15, or 16.
You will, and I would - but for every person who’s somewhat qualified to explain that, there will be dozens who aren’t :/ And even for those who are, the children might not listen because … well they’re children and peer pressure is high in school.
I would absolutely favor a complete ban on corporate social media just because it gives billionaire scumbags a direct algorithmic wire into the brains of the most malleable, most vulnerable part of the population. And you can already see it in how young men on average have become more toxic, misogynist and authority loving in Europe & the DS (divided states, get used to the acronym)
That’s sadly 100% true. I’m not against all corporate social media, at least not for now. For example, YouTube is my main source of entertainment, but I use NewPipe to avoid ads and algorithms. And I will try to teach my kids to do the same. My main concern is TikTok and Instagram.
That said, I’d rather see all corporate social media banned for children than continue as things are now. I would then tailor a solution for my kids that I see fit.
The problem with corporate social media is that things can go downhill very quickly - just look at shitter… Imagine youtube got bought by the same useless dipshit who was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and never invented anything…
Otherwise, we’re in full agreement, I guess :)
Oh God, please no.
Yeah, this was a very nice and fun conversation. :D
Side note.
Social media is now a theater of war, with adults and children alike being the weapons created by way of social media propaganda.
Children, who are the most likely to be affected and manipulated, who are also primary targets due to said vulnerabilities should be excluded from these platforms for this reason alone.
This is a problem that’s growing at a scale to affect entire countries. Countries with populations vulnerable to social media targeting propaganda, astroturfing, and manipulation are vulnerable on the world stage.
Making this a growing national security concern for any country.
True! That’s why I hate TikTok and Instagram so much. From my experience, these are the two worst offenders.
All the things you’re saying that kids need to learn about are things that they do not and cannot and will not learn about in closed wall garden environments ran by corporations. Which constitutes an ever-growing majority of children’s “experience” with the internet. “The Internet” to many is “Instagram” or “Facebook” or “Tic Tok”. It doesn’t mean anything else other than a portal to access their addiction through.
They won’t learn about online threats or how to critically think or how to avoid being manipulated.
Young users funnel it into centralized corporate ran networks are abused for financial gain using carefully and intentionally crafted content designed over decades to take advantage of the human psyche algorithmically shoved down their throats until they are addicted.
This isn’t the internet children need to be on, it’s not the Internet, it’s just a corporate controlled environment that just so happen to exist along the same wires as the rest of the internet.
As such I don’t see where your argument has any room to stand.
Algorithmically & bot driven social media IS the “online threat” these days.
The only skills that they are learning are how to adapt to fit that corporate environment, which is a transitive state that often comes with the cost of actual life skills.
Kids need to be on the internet I agree with this but their use of the internet needs to be as romantically hued as you state it. Which is unfortunately not the reality we see today.
Yes, you need to teach your kids these things. Not the schools, because they don’t have the manpower; not the corporations, because they won’t do it. No, you must teach them.
You can try to keep them off social media for as long as possible, but they’ll eventually find a way. Use that time to teach them about all these predatory mechanics, so when they do go on social media, they’ll understand what’s going on.
I’m not sure what argument you’re making here yes of course parents should be teaching their children these skills instead of letting them go on social media.
How is that relevant to the argument that I’m making though?
This is obviously not occurring today so how do you expect it to occur tomorrow when we make no changes today?
You do realize that the children of tomorrow will be raised by the children of today right? And as we let the children of today become addicted to social media and don’t provide them with the tools skills and safety to protect themselves from social media how do you expect them to teach their children how?
Sure I may be cognizant of this but again, as stated previously in these messages…, this is a systemic problem. You cannot solve a systemic problem by putting the burden of solution on each individual involved in the problem. Systemic problems require systematic solutions, this is largely an inarguable point.
I think we’re talking past each other.
My Argument is basically if I could I would block Instagram and TikTok for everyone under 16. If that’s not possible then block rather everything then nothing. But I also think it’s neither wise nor possible to keep children away from social media. You can limit their exposure yes, but because of their friends, their school or even a relative they will access social media before the set age. Use this time of limited exposure to prepare them as good as you can. Otherwise they will still access social media and will be even more vulnerable to scams, algorithms and fake news.
It most definitely is possible in federated networks to be clear.
Federated networks are extremely vulnerable to bots. And “organic” online narrative is easily manipulated with bots and bot driven content.
We see this in centralized platforms like Reddit which have mature and centralized bot detection and control mechanisms which are largely ineffective in an ideal scenario for them to be the most effective.
The only saving grace for federated services right now is that they are simply far too small to be worth the time and money to manipulate narratives on. The user bases are infinitesimal in comparison to mainstream social media.
This changes if their popularity skyrockets. The only thing it takes to manipulate opinions and narrative is money and a vulnerable target. The fediverse is largely a vulnerable target and current mega corporations have more than enough money to do what they need done a million times over.
You misread my comment. I do agree that manipulation is possible in federated systems. What’s not possible is “chat control” / spying on individual communication on a large scale.
The True Problem, is that an actual-safe-space is required, for kids,
& that costs investment to produce, & to maintain.
We pay for kindergarten & schools to be safe-spaces, don’t we?
Children’s forming brains require healthy place, right?
Same is required for internet, for them.
So, a “walled garden” with wikipedia ( not the gore-centered stuff, & there seems to be some of that on there ), & TVTropes,
etc, is required for them to develop their minds healthy,
but the only “successful” walled-gardens were made with machiavellian intent, thus-far…
Apple’s walled-garden, Microsoft’s, AOL’s, Google’s, etc…
Nobody’s done a not-for-profit edition for humanitarian reasons…
Big Tech’d sabotage it any way they could, in order to “prove” it “doesn’t work”
( it’ll never be seen in Google News, Facebook may well disappear all references to it, Apple wouldn’t permit it on their platform’s App Store, etc… )
Exterminating-alternative is required when the stakes are world-possession, right?
NO competitor allowed, right??
Nobody’s got the spine to create the required walled-garden which simultaneously gives children
access to meaningful friends
lots of learning opportunities & learning-means
gamefied learning, like projects-done-together on interesting-to-them subjects, with real accomplishings, like Science Fairs can be, irl
systematic stomping of abuse, predators, bullying, etc…
systematic training them in sane privacy-habits, device-health habits ( update your apps weekly! Reboot your device weekly! Use antivirus! )
systematically training all children in critical-thinking, dismantling ideology-programming as completely as possible, from the next-generation
etc.
& if anybody did have the spine, then it’d be force-disallowed by Big Tech.
Humankind waited too long to care, & now the bad-guys own the whole “game”, it looks like, to me…
Human children never will know what honest, proper, supportive systematic-development through interesting challenges, & safe growing-up can be, because our-generations wouldn’t do what was required, when we had leverage to be able to do it.
“fighting over crumbs” is all that’s left, it looks like…
( lobbied “representatives” wouldn’t allow world-integrity to violate their owners’ interests, either, obviously… )
Sorry for my bitterness, but I’m old.
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