Why is the blame on people for what is made available to them? This wouldn't be 'protecting people from their own mental and moral malleability,' this would be preventing others from making this which abuse those malleability for profit.
The same type of argument you have made here could be made for legalizing ponzi schemes. People _should_ know that there is no quick rich scheme and the history of these schemes are full of fraudsters. Is it wrong to ban this type of abuse because their victims made the choice to engage in the first place?
And, to preempt the "ponzi schemes are different" response, I ask for a response of this type to qualify it with how those differences matter.
- If it is in legality, that only applies until a law is made about addiction-intended media and is circular (it is wrong because it is legal <--> it is legal because it is wrong).
- If the difference is in the intent of the ones perpetrating it, both perpetrate primarily for monetary gain. I don't believe a ponzi-scheme's primary intent is ever malicious (with the qualifier that I'm not assuming pursing monetary gain is malicious in of itself), nor do I believe this about social media.
- If it is the directness of ponzi schemes in their fraud versus social media, I don't view that is very relevant... I think it would be reasonable to not blame someone for being the proximal cause of an issue if they didn't know beforehand, but the abusers in this case know by now that they are at _least_ a proximal cause.I do believe our own actions are the only thing we have absolute control in life. In a perfect world, maybe such efforts would be more effective. I take in account the subjectivity of human actions and behavior in that case. The amount of safeguards you would need to put in order to protect people in that scenario would leak into many other areas, or create an eternal conflict at minimum (it isn't like we don't have one already...). I believe that education and knowledge is the path to solve such issues, because it creates a mechanism for people to deal with them (like a vaccine), not to never see them.
> The same type of argument you have made here could be made for legalizing ponzi schemes. People _should_ know that there is no quick rich scheme and the history of these schemes are full of fraudsters. Is it wrong to ban this type of abuse because their victims made the choice to engage in the first place?
People should be educated about it. It wouldn't solve all the problems immediately, but it is more efficient if people protect themselves from these issues. Ponzi schemes are illegal and they still an issue, the same would happen to other regulations in my opinion. Companies always find a way to profit.
Social media is a moneymaking machine, and data is valuable. It's not just internet fun, it's serious business. In a way, i don't think they are too far apart. I dislike social media and haven't used it in many years. You could apply regulations, is not that it is wrong, it's just ineffective against underlying issues and the problem itself in the long term. The effort should be more towards a long term solution. The line here is blury, that's what happen when you deal with humans. You could go towards the "protect people from harm" or "give them tools for self-protection" idea, i honestly prefer the latter.
Drugs are regulated for the very same reason. While prohibition may be a polemic topic, regulation is not.
I agree that the problem should be resolved, but those methods are only put in place to please shareholders and the law. The hard path, of education and compromises (and possible lower revenue) no one wants to take. Those services exploit "mental and moral malleability", and for that there will never be enough regulation to solve unless you take down all services.
Do they?
>Protecting people from their own mental and moral malleability and ignorance is futile,
Where are you from? I'm guessing some first world country that has all kinds of consumer protections.
They do. Can they be influenced? Yes. Can they be coerced trough social pressure? Yes. Can they fall for targeted advertisement and/or manipulation? Yes as well. Does this exclude the responsibility of their own actions? I don't think so. We can argue that this problem was born because of their parents or their own lack of knowledge/critical thinking later in life.
> Where are you from?
I am brazilian.
I've worked in education, and spend a good deal of time working with folks who are in dire straits.
The hard fact that a community where our 'median commenter' is above the median in the general population hates to realize is that roughly 1/3 or so of all people are just not remotely the type of person who can do the abstract meta-cognition to see they're being manipulated.
No amount of education will actually make them see something to abstract for them to grok.
True! This is a complex subject that i have been interested in a long time. It all boils down to 'digital inclusion' (making services dumber/simpler to be easier for the average person) for profit, and it's long term effects. But that's another whole can of worms.
There is no easy solution for that problem.
We are pretty clearly in a world where people who understand computers are a new scribe class who have mountains of power over others, and hesitate to admit as much because it burdens us with the responsibility think about and be mindful about how we use that power.