[phyzix5761]

I'm against all those things as well but placing a ban on them is the same mechanism as banning anything. People should have the freedom to do things we disagree with. I haven't used social media (other than HN if it counts as one) for almost 20 years. I think they're toxic and a waste of time. But that doesn't mean other people shouldn't be allowed to use them. If people want to watch brainrot all day its they're life and I have no say in that. This is so my own personal freedom is preserved.

[BigJono]

You can't have freedom if a few people have a microphone that reaches hundreds of millions of people have zero responsibilities for how they use that microphone.

If you actually haven't used social media recently then I get why you'd be confused, because back in the day Facebook had a chronological timeline of people you specifically added in. The way a modern social media recommender algorithms work is completely different. If you, for example, say "I want to hear everything that Bob has to say" by "subscribing" to Bob or whatever, you "might" see when Bob says something, or instead you "might" see Mary's post from the other side of the world that has some strangely aggressive opinions about someone the billionaire platform owner happens to hate.

Social media companies have decided by buddying up to the US administration that they get to decide what everyone around you sees or hears. If a couple of billionaires decide that they don't like phyzix5761 you might just get lynched by an angry mob. That's not gonna do much for your freedom, in-fact it's kind of the opposite.

[gherkinnn]

I also want people to make their own mistakes.

This position fails when these mistakes, in this case social media, purposefully and knowingly override our monkey brains and when widespread adoption of these mistakes allow severe negative outcomes to emerge.

Lastly, it is extremely hard for most people to escape the pull of (ostensibly) social networks and doing so anyway comes with social cost.

[amelius]

A society without rules is not really a society.

[tomasGiden]

It is easy to say that we shouldn't limit what a person is allowed to do. That a person should be allowed to use their free will. That sounds nice because nobody want to be controlled by anyone else. But let's turn it upside down and instead say that we disallow companies from doing certain things.

- Instead of saying that a person may not install unsafe wall sockets, we can say that companies are not allowed to sell unsafe wall sockets. - Instead of saying that a person may not take any job they like, we can say that companies must provide workplace safety. - Instead of saying that people are not allowed to smoke or use social media, we can say that companies are not allowed to sell addictive products.

So it is a question of perspective where both viewpoints are valid.

And of course addictive is a scale from nicotine to deep fried chicken to infinite scroll. And then it is a question about the customer's ability to see through and make rational choices which of course depend on age, knowledge, existing alternatives etc. It is not that easy for a teenager to resist the works of thousands of engineers and data statisticians who are working on increasing retention.

So just saying that it should be allowed because of Free Will is to ignore all the complexities around it.

[phyzix5761]

I wouldn't want my child to access social media but when we say we want to ban all children from accessing these things we're effectively saying we know better than their own parents. Its a sense of superiority that drives these regulatory policies where we believe parents are not knowledgeable or capable enough to make decisions for their own kids.

This is a dangerous mindset and precedent. It means that one day someone else will come along and have the ability to tell us what we can and can't do with our own children. If the next administration thinks it must be mandatory for every child to participate in social media for 4 hours every day now they have the legal and social precedent to impose something like that.

We shouldn't use government to force our own ideas and beliefs on others. Instead, we should set up boundaries that allow each individual to freely choose what they want for themselves and their families as long as it doesn't directly harm the freedoms of others.

[hdgvhicv]

Some platforms are good at giving parents control. Apple is pretty good at this when you’re in their eco system.

To get any type of parental control on Minecraft took me the best part of a day, and I’m presumably more tech savvy than average.

Nintendo, Microsoft, Xbox, ea accounts, none of which I use as an adult. It’s a mess, no wonder many parents just don’t bother.