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Comment by dmos62 | Hacker News Reader

Social media is not inherently predatory. Even between different providers Instagram/Facebook/TikTok/Youtube you find extremely different approaches in respect to that. Instagram is the worst, in my experience. You can bake in algorithm behaviors that uplift, educate, help you not become addicted. Chinese TikTok for kids was once rumored to be like that.

And, yes, you can regulate cocaine too. There's nothing stopping us from taking the business away from drug-dealers and having actual health professionals distribute it in sensible ways.

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"don't do drugs, kids" is essentially my message, do you agree or not?

idc how potentially beneficial screens may be, in the future (now?) we will start treating screens like smoking

Some of us are still in the "smoking can be good for you stage"

I disagree. I don't want kids to abbuse drugs, smoke, drink, or doomscroll. But, what do you accomplish from saying "don't do it"? You don't want to take away anyone's agency, right? Further, this is not only about kids, people of all ages are susceptible to these patterns of behavior.

My message is basically, make it non-taboo, educate, give people tools to manage their behavior, prosecute predatory behaviors. To regulate social media, we can heavily regulate ads in social media; make ad algos, feed algos, recommendation engines transparent by law, in a way inspectable by individuals as well as journalists; put legal constraints on what these algos can do; use cryptography to get rid of fake accs and bots, without compromising anyone's privacy.

"Don't take away agency!" proceeds to recommend the government take away agency

the best thing that can be done right now, rather than waiting for a broken government to fix our problems, is to admit to ourselves and parents that kids should not receive phones or iPads

it's not a good thing! taboos serve a purpose and it absolutely should be a cultural taboo.

I don't consider it a violation of agency if you forbid abuse of others. Agree to disagree.

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