[bluegatty]

Your local library has age and ID requirements.

Your local 'town square' has 'some rules'.

Parents are entirely able to overcome any of this if they so choose - including feeding their kids alcohol, guns etc. - and so the freedom does materially exist.

Social Media isn't a place for free expression - it's mostly toxic - like exposing your children to the most vile, inauthentic people.

The more genteel places, frankly, won't have much in the way of age restrictions.

Entire nations are banning social media for kids because it's just not healthy - the teachers want it, the parents want it, the data seems to support it.

I think you're right to be (very concerned) but this is a necessary discussion. As a teacher.

[Telaneo]

> Your local library has age and ID requirements.

It literally doesn't (at least not if I don't intend to borrow a book and take it home; if I stay there and read, I can do so without any ID. I only need ID to get a library card, and I don't need that to enter and read a book).

[bluegatty]

It literally does - and you just admitted it.

The point is that 'even the local library' enacts rules and social conventions - not that they're exhaustively and acutely enforced in all corners.

No 4chan section in the library?

You might wonder why it doesn't have vast array of avant guard adult content, porn or art with really aggressive themes and people calling each other the n-word?

In society we have 'age related' conventions all over the place ... including your Library.

This is the absolute worst of HN, where people dissolve into Reddit-like discussions of bad meatphors and totally out of context hair splitting.

I just can't believe anyone here has any relationship with the reality of children, teaching or parenting whatsoever. It's the same argument made by the 'drugs should be legal and accessible' crowd - completely oblivious to the instantaneous massive health epidemic we'd have with opioids and fentanyl, or the 'anti vaxer' crowd - narrow ideological arguments about expression disconnected from any kind of reality or nuance.

There's a variation of social media that will be fine for the kids, they can be exposed to more into their late teens. Parents that want to opt out, will de facto be allowed to - and there is always a slippery slope with every law.

[dv_dt]

My local librarian did not restrict my books to the kids section when I was a kid. Also librarians have fought civil legal battles to keep reading activities anonymous. Libraries are unlike the restrictions and risks of the proposed legislation being discussed for social media

[bluegatty]

?

--> Your local library fought for your right to read literature of some kind.

---> They did not fight for your right to gang up on others and call them the n-word, to spread lies and slander about people, to harass children and expose them to creeps and pedophiles, to inundate children with hyper-targeted advertising, or 'Andrew Tate 'how to beat women' seminars'.

Nobody is pushing for a ban on social media so that the kids will be stopped from reading 'Judy Bloom' stories about a girl's 'first period'.

It's disingenuous to suggest that this has anything to do with the causes your librarians stand for.

Literally the opposite - your librarians are creating essentially 'safe spaces' for kids so they can read and be civil.