[not_a_bot_4sho]

> This isn't about children, and never was.

This is 100% about children.

At the moment, there is world wide pushback on children using social media. Ex countries pursuing this right now: Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, France, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Greece, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, South Korea, and Thailand. I'm sure I missed a few too.

And in the US, no federal efforts (yay dysfunctional legislature!) but at the state level; Florida, California, Tennessee, Utah, New York, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Vermont, and Ohio are all pursuing different forms of age restriction.

The science is pretty clear at this point: social media is terrible for mental health, attention, and addictive behaviors.

Now how to effectively restrict it without trampling on privacy rights? That's a very difficult question requiring some compromise. (I don't have the answers...)

[tencentshill]

The answer is to define and regulate addictive design, and ideally outlaw algorithmic feeds. Companies holding personal data must consider it a liability, not an asset to monetize.

[idiotsecant]

There is absolutely no need to regulate 'addictive design'. That's what parents are for.

[aand16]

Isn't the synchronised effort suspect to you?

Porn is arguably as damaging and addictive as social media. How do you explain the inaction regarding child access to porn in the last 25 years?

[JumpCrisscross]

> Porn is arguably as damaging and addictive as social media

I haven’t seen evidence for this. Which is why I’ve personally pushed for social media bans on under-14s and restrictions on under-18s. But have not particularly cared to agitate similarly for any restrictions on porn.

[toast0]

> Isn't the synchronised effort suspect to you?

People bring this up, but these efforts aren't very fast and they cause a lot of noise, and social media has been terrible for people and children for a while now so... If I'm a politician and I hear of someone proposing something about it elsewhere, I'm going to do it too. If it works out, there's a race to claim credit; if it fizzles out, no harm for being the one to bring a fizzly bill; if it ends up terrible, you still get name recognition, so it's not so bad.

> How do you explain the inaction regarding child access to porn in the last 25 years?

Legislative bodies have tried lots of things in the last 25 years, just nothing terribly effective.

[mopsi]

The brainrotting effects of social media are increasingly being recognized. The effects of porn are not as noticeable in schools and workplaces.

[idiotsecant]

So if it's unhealthy for children, let parents regulate it. It's not the role of the state to destroy my civil liberties so that parents don't have to think too hard about what to allow their children to interact with.