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Comment by krainboltgreene | Hacker News Reader

This kind of legislation is frankly just bad. Any TV station in america could have broadcasted the worst things in the world to thousands of people affecting their lives together. You know how we handled that? Legislation on the broadcasters. We didn't stop kids from watching TV.

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I'm not a fan of the law, but your argument is pretty weak. The dose makes the poison and all that. It seems rationale to believe that humans can construct an entertainment mechanism so addictive as to warrant safeguards. The debate is mostly around whether this is that point and whether the trade-offs are worth it.

> It seems rationale to believe that humans can construct an entertainment mechanism so addictive as to warrant safeguards.

Okay but the conversation isn't "Should we have safeguards" it's "How do we handle the poison?".

...yes? Humans love their poisons even if it's not in their best interest to love them. It's all about giving people a fighting chance to make conscious decisions about how they want to live their life. If we crush a fledgling brain with social media before it's learned to fend for itself then we're removing true freedom of choice.

To me, it seems pretty analogous to alcohol, etc. You don't prohibit alcohol. You define an age in which you're willing to declare people mature enough to tolerate letting them make their own decisions.

Bad content reaching kids is not the issue. (Well, it is part of it…) The whole thing is bad. We don't give cigarettes to kids either.

Actually, we don't stop kids from buying cigarettes, we punish stores that sell cigarettes to kids and are caught! That's my entire point! You just made my argument for me!

Despite the headline, does this law actually punish the children if they are caught with social media accounts? Or is the burden on the social media providers?

And the store does not use facial recognition and/or checking id to know if the potential buyer is a kid ? The only (huge) difference for me is the scale of the verification and how data are stored.

> And the store does not use facial recognition and/or checking id to know if the potential buyer is a kid?

They can just not serve cigarettes. In addition I think it's also insane to compare cigarettes, which are purely negative, to free internet usage which is massively net positive.

Key word is "broadcast". TV programming is not personally tailored to melt your specific amygdala.

An algo-driven feed is absolutely analogous to a broadcast and saying otherwise is absurd.

I have to assume this is a joke because that's absolutely ludicrous to claim and (if true) would mean the valuation of every social media company is so inflated as to constitute fraud.

I'm being dead serious. I have no idea what you're trying to get at.

TV the broadcast station was held responsible for the content they distributed and if they failed too much they would loose their access to the radio spectrum and unambiguous stop to exist.

The rules online is different. Not only are they not responsible for the content they distribute, but when they do break the law anyway the only punishment that they get is a small fine.

Around 30% of facebook advertisements are scams. That would not had worked with TV stations of old.

How do you compare a system where the communication channel goes only one way in a single country to a system where everyone potentially contributes to the content and is distributed over the world?

How does one country legislate the content of a company based in another country?

Do you think that censorship is a better solution?

Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far?

Exactly..

They will use any trick or loophole available to keep the reach and to exploit attention spans. Kids brains aren't correct really made for social media whatsoever. Ban is justified and the bar should be even higher than 15 years old, but it's a start.

I have a young baby and no way it touches anything smartphone related for many many years, same goes with TV to a certain extent (these things are like smartphones nowadays with all the apps and programme fighting for your attention and to enrage you). I am doing my part, I for sure expect the government does their thing as well. Exploitators should stay in check and at bay with any means necessary

> Oh how's moderating and legislating social media behemots going so far?

This feels like you intended to make it a gotcha question, but the answer is: America isn't really trying to do that at all. So we should just give up?

"Damn, handling biowaste is hard and dangerous, what we'll do is just prevent people from leaving their house."

I'm not in America nor would I rely on their legislators doing anything about it, especially with current admin. France, Australia and the likes (who are in process of implementing banning social media for kids) is the only way behemots will understand. Otherwise you're risking loopholes beig exploited, bureaucracy being slow while behemots move fast, etc. Ban is pretty much self explanatory and leaves little room for interpretation, at least not in a way where 100s of pages of moderation guidelines and potential ambiguity such docs create

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