The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator.
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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto Corporations are more people than people
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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto The government & tech industry will ban children before putting in the effort to make parental controls that are actually useful.
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@androcat I think we still all agree that age-verification laws are major bad, though, right?
Maybe they'll only apply to the huge corporate sites, at first, but remember: they're trying to force this crap into our operating systems now, including Linux. "First they blocked kids from accessing the big evil sites, but we didn't care because they were big and evil and kids shouldn't be getting addicted to them anyway."
...and, not to defend Big Tech Social, but some network effects mean some people really depend on them (which is itself a problem, yes).
I mean, there's definitely some discussion to be had here, but... let's be sure we all agree there's a problem, yeah?
Oh, absolutely, Age Verification is just a massive ID theft, and absolutely nothing good about it.
It's just a little jarring to perceive a discourse of "How can we steal SoMe from the little darlings, like, that's abuse" (I know OP is not meant like that)
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@androcat @gabrielesvelto Um, it's called Mastodon.
Yes, the bans we're talking about on all the harmful things Facebook and the like do would render them completely and permanently unprofitable and would end them and we would be left with prosocial networking like we have here.
The way you get there is not by punishing young people and banning them from participation in the public life and information landscapes these platforms usurped.
I don't disagree.
Well, there's definitely harm on masto, also.
Like, zionists harassing palestinians under the protection of mods.
And all those places dedicated to harassment (kiwifarms, etc.)But overall, when people think "social media", they are not thinking of mastodon.
And the places they do think of should not exist in their present form.
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The goal should be to fix the actual problems, though. If politicians were introducing "protect kids by holding social networking companies accountable" legislation as often as they introduce "protect children by isolating them and introducing more surveillance" legislation, the corpos might have voluntarily created controls or at least better labeling by now.
The video game rating system is an example of an industry policing itself to avoid legislation. That's probably not the way to do social networking. The point is, back when government regulation meant something, just the threat was enough to get companies to do the needful.
That's where we need to be with this. Hold the perpetrators responsible. Saying "this is just how it is" is a little bit defeatist.
Kids need spaces to be themselves away from the eyes of their parents once they reach a certain level of maturity. All that shit is complicated and requires his parenting and a proper educational system to do well.
We have to keep pushing back on surveillance disguised as protecting kids, even if the alternative still sucks. I don't have "the answer". I just know that as an LGBTQIAS2 kid who didn't have access to those spaces (because they didn't exist yet), I was self-hating until my 30s when I finally found them. My awakening was ten years in the making on the Something Awful forums, a website known for infamous "goon meets", "do you have stairs in your house", Photoshop Phriday, Shmorky, tasteless memes, Zack Parsons' liminal horror, and Slenderman. It also had extremely active and diverse forums where I first met out LGBTQIAS2 people and learned that what I thought was normal was anything but. The site itself was not a safe space, but that forum was a lifeline.
Definitely.
We gotta hit all the problems.(and yea, age verification and "chat control" can go fuck off)
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I don't disagree.
Well, there's definitely harm on masto, also.
Like, zionists harassing palestinians under the protection of mods.
And all those places dedicated to harassment (kiwifarms, etc.)But overall, when people think "social media", they are not thinking of mastodon.
And the places they do think of should not exist in their present form.
@androcat @gabrielesvelto There are harms here, but the harms aren't the harms that come from capitalist social media platforms. They're things that are inherent to human interactions, that require active work to reduce/mitigate.
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@xjix @mgorny yes, absolutely, but like with social media minors end up still having access to alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs, only through illegal channels. It's one of those cases where a simple ban in absence of proper handling of the broader issue is just a convenient way for adults to ignore the problem instead of trying to fix its root causes.
far from being banned from today's
primary source of information and
connection, children and everyone else need to learn these social skills, to think critically, to check multiple sources of different kinds, to question, query, look for the logical inconsistencies, to be able to act effectively
in the world we have made -
The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
Why do we choose to punish our
dependent children for the crimes
of under-regulated mega businesses
and our own lack of time/energy/ability?
Many children, the most vulnerable, find their only friends, people like them with whom they can find kind belonging, on social media.
You don't want kids exposed to the evils and can't reign in those exposing them, give them good places online to participate
with each other, and, better, good places irl. -
The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto @jeromio Legit I think it’s about 80% anti-lgbtq moral panic bullshit.
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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto Our national broadcasting corporation is now sponsoring its second annual “21 Days Off the Mobile” initiative for minors. The program encourages children and adolescents to refrain from using smartphones and social media for three weeks. [...] Nearly two-thirds of the children who took part have since expressed their support for restrictions on social media use by minors, suggesting that many young people themselves recognize the benefits of reduced screen and online time.
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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto It is at its heart an attempt to track everyone online. We all have to identify ourselves to prove we are not children.
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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto Corporations have more money, so they're more important, and must take priority. Only #consumption and #profit matter.

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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
I mean, nobody ever went to jail for making a children' cartoon the mascot for Camel cigarettes either.
Even people who legitimately care about protecting children from harm aren't willing to actually confront the causes of that harm.
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I disagree with your opening statement
where did you get that idea? -
The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto As I started reading this, "prosecute the predators" that you were going to go off on abusers and pedophiles. Then you clarified you meant the billionaire corporate owners, and I was like "yeah, the abusers and pedophiles"
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@gabrielesvelto As I started reading this, "prosecute the predators" that you were going to go off on abusers and pedophiles. Then you clarified you meant the billionaire corporate owners, and I was like "yeah, the abusers and pedophiles"
@Option8 cue "They're the same picture" meme
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The idea of banning minors from using social media is at its heart an attempt to punish victims instead of going against the perpetrator. If minors are more easily victimized by the predatory practices of large tech corporations it's not their fault. The blame lies squarely on the corporations. They must stop using predatory practices. And that's doubly important because those practices hurt adults and minors alike.
@gabrielesvelto Well said. Big IT is taking no responsibilty for the negative outcomes (often deliberately driven by algorithms) that their platforms generate.
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