Social media sucks. I used to use it, and I do not use it now. And yet regulating it, off the back of a moral panic, is going to be significantly worse than not regulating it. The laws will overreach. This is a sensitive area where the government greatly benefits from overreach, and there's not enough public pushback to prevent it, on account of the moral panic whipped up by traditional media, who also stand to greatly benefit from overreach.
I am completely consistent in my beliefs on this. I was against all the anti-terrorism legislation too, being absolutely confident it would overreach - and I was completely correct, which brings me no satisfaction at all. Terrorism is obviously far more dangerous than all this 'teenagers seeing images online that harm their self-esteem' nonsense.
It's the traditional media that have a direct pecuniary interest in defeating social media, and no one questions their motives. I'm just some guy, but apparently I'm the ExxonMobil Chairman of Cigarettes and Opioids, just because I dare disagree with the narrative being peddled.
It's much easier to pretend like I'm some paid shill than accept that you're taking a huge gamble with your civil liberties when you push for social media laws. If I could somehow segment reality so you get to live in your restricted world, and I get to live in my free one, I would. But unfortunately I'm trapped in this world with you, and your pitchfork mentality consistently affects me, so I have to take on the utterly thankless task of convincing the mob to take a goddamn second to think about the obvious consequences of their own actions.
And then they don't listen. And then ten years later they come back with their tails between their legs, acknowledging I was right, but by then it's far too late to do anything about it. Deeply unsatisfying cycle.