> I am a 15-year-old girl.

[etchedpixels@mastodon.social]

@ahnlak @neil Looking at current social media behaviour in English language at least I fear it's more right now like banning unattended children from the park because the park is on Epstein's Island.

The park needs fixing.

Very good point on the pub analogy

[ahnlak@kavlak.uk]

@etchedpixels @neil for sure, it's that really dodgy park with all the broken bottles and needles - I'm not saying the park isn't a problem, just that banning minors rather misses the problem.

[agt@pnw.zone]

@neil

Social media is dangerous so ban children rather than blame the companies (and their founders) for dangerous products. Same tactic as plastic is dangerous so shame individuals into recycling rather than blame the plastic makers. Billionaires are good at making "consumers" responsible for their bad products.

[anygould@kind.social]

@neil Name and shame, I say - the problem isn't that they're young (I remember old warehouse guys throwing hissies about losing their girlie pics in the locker room decades ago). It's that they suffer no consequences.

[thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io]

@matus_chochlik @neil this

[pjpb@social.vivaldi.net]

@anyGould @neil
I tend to agree.

[osma@mas.to]

I am increasingly convinced social media ban IS the answer. Not a ban for under-16, but a total ban. Commercial social media just quite simply has to be burned to the ground, no one even tries to run it safely any more.
@neil

[pjpb@social.vivaldi.net]

@jima @neil
Which communities? The "friends" are not friends most of the time, they are digital relations, they ignore you as soon as the conversation is finished.
If you want to be part of communitie, join a group in real life, with people taking care of each other, where real interaction with body language is much more rich than a digital one.

[sheogorath@microblog.shivering-isles.com]

@neil It's a terrible argument for age restrictions. It's not good for adults either when this stuff flourishes. Get the law makers out there and regulate this shit. Make companies responsible if they don't find effective mitigations.

It's difficult to get the hands on these abusers. But the company can certainly work on this, block content with certain slurs.

If they can figure out how to differentiate a male from a female nipple, they can figure out verbal abuse especially in times of LLMs.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@PjpB @jima

> If you want to be part of communitie, join a group in real life

To each, their own, and if someone prefers away-from-keyboard people-meeting, that's absolutely fine, but online communities and friendships are definitely part of "real life" for me!

[hedders@mas.to]

@osma @neil The difficulty one runs into is how you define social media. It seems obvious, but it really isn't once you dig into it. What actually counts as social media? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc are all pretty obvious. Reddit, I guess. YouTube, presumably. Snapchat? WhatsApp? Yeah, maybe. Signal? Online forums? Usenet? Email lists? Anything where users can interact with other users? It gets tricky quite quickly.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@hedders @osma Quite.

Plus, a ban on human express / community seems draconian to me!

[hedders@mas.to]

@neil @osma Yes indeed. Although I see the two points as linked - the more broadly you define "social media", the more draconian the ban.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@hedders @osma Tricky - if social media was defined as "email" (for the sake of argument), it is narrower, but still draconian!

[hedders@mas.to]

@neil Fair - although I'd argue it's less draconian than if you defined it as "email and instant messaging and forums and usenet and matrix and smoke signals and carrier pigeons", inasmuch as it leaves more alternative options open.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@hedders

I think we agree in substance - all the measures may be draconian, but some more than others.

[mrs_malice@mastodon.world]

@neil Love how The Guardian could’ve run this exact article about online misogyny any time in the past ten years to make an argument against monetizing sexism and destroying the social fabric between genders. But now that the billionaires want a surveillance bubble, it’s truly their rag’s time to shine!

Ban abusers from public spaces, not their victims. It’s really not that complicated if we put our minds to it, but power loves to pretend.

Thank you for sharing this!

[robo105@mastodon.social]

@neil Feminism will win but it is a long road ahead

[aapis@mastodon.world]

@neil @blogdiva I hate that this is so common. I hate that girls and women are forced to see this shit day in, day out. I hate it as much today as I did ~20 years ago when I was a boy.

[darwinwoodka@mastodon.social]

@neil

There are many good reasons I use a male pseudonym