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Comment by worble | Hacker News Reader

Thank you, it's been infuriating reading these social media bans for children, as if when kids suddenly turn 16 or 18 or whatever magical nimber the courts come up with, they are suddenly immune to the psychological tricks from multi million dollar companies hiring the best psychologists with no morals money can buy.

Social media needs to be heavily regulated to the point where it's safe for everyone, or banned entirely. I don't understand why there's this belief it should have a right to exist when basically everyone agrees it's a net negative to society.

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I don't think there is that agreement that it is in total a net negative to society.

That said, with bans upcoming or in force in a lot places, what measures should we monitor to see improvements in wellbeing etc. (screen time isn't one there, I'd say)? What do we do if those do not go up noticably?

I agree that the positive effects of Social Media is understated, and probably on purpose.

Social Media allowed ordinary people to challenge on a global scale the oficially-sanctioned narrative. A generation has already grown with full distrust on what they learn from traditional media.

With that picture, addressing the (undeniable) negative effects of Social Media is only the sales pitch for introducing new legislation. The true goal of the legislation however is not to "save the children", but rather to ensure that the next generations will be obedient and meek.

> Social Media allowed ordinary people to challenge on a global scale the oficially-sanctioned narrative.

Hasn't been true for a while. Now it grants people with money and state actors unprecedented control over what ordinary people are allowed to see and mold them to desired narratives.

It is still true. People with money and state actors have always had unprecedented control over what ordinary people are allowed to see... before the internet they were the ones controlling all of the corporate media. You don't think the press was molding people to desired narratives back then?

But it's obvious that social media also still allows grassroots action and organization in ways that simply weren't possible under old media. We need to be careful when talking about regulating or banning social media outright that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - we will be losing freedoms when we lose it and centralizing control of media and communication with governments and corporations (even more so than with the big social media silos now.) And freedoms lost aren't easily gained back.

It still cuts both ways. Almost seemingly the entire internet was talking about the Epstein files non stop for months on end. Pre social media that anti establishment narrative wouldn’t have taken hold to nearly the same degree in my opinion. Unfortunately a lot of the discourse was complete nonsense, and misinformation was rife, but it still put the US government under A LOT of pressure, to the point where the AG was fired.

Then again, as I’m writing this, how much of that was due to manipulation and promotion by adversarial powers… almost nothing is truly organic anymore, or at least you can’t tell if it is, and I suppose that’s what you’re getting at.

> almost nothing is truly organic anymore, or at least you can’t tell if it is, and I suppose that’s what you’re getting at

Yes, but over time, even pre-Internet generations have learned to be skeptical of everything watched or read online. Children growing up in this environment will almost certainly adapt and learn to do the same.

So, at best, laws restricting Social Media are a nanny state overreach, and at worst dystopian Big-Brother-style narrative control.

We have witnessed a similar overreach in the distant past with printing-press regulation laws [1]. But at the time, they power structure was different so they could instate an outright ban without hiding behind "think of the children" or the Red Scare.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_166...

Yeah it allowed them to challenge traditional narratives like the earth is not flat and getting the measles vaccine is a good thing.

For starters, what's "social media"? It's kind of a undefinable phrase. Obviously Facebook and Instagram are agreed to be "social media".But is Youtube social media? How about HN? Or any website with a comment section?

Or WhatsApp? Or Matrix? Or SMS? Or the telephone network? Or email? Or Google Docs?

I'd argue that generally speaking, the problematic social media tend to be ad-supported websites that focus on user-generated content.

so Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Reddit are all social-media, because all are ad-supported, and all are focused on user-generated content. HN is focused on user-generated content, but not ad-supported (okay, technically HN is 'advertising for YC', but in practice, the site isn't optimized to get you doom-scrolling so you click on more ads), and a website with a comment section, if it's like a blog or something where the majority of the content is generated by the website owner, isn't focused on user-generated content.

The combination of user-generated content + advertising, however, seems to create websites that will try to get their users addicted to the site, which can harm the lives of their users.

The problem is capitalist companies using heavily gamified psychology to prey on people.

Mastodon doesn't have this problem.

Pixelfed doesn't have this problem.

Lemmy doesn't have this problem.

Peertube doesn't have this problem.

But "social media laws" would hit all of these as well.

They are fundamentally different because they are not centralized and, if they are going to be centralized at some point, they will need to find a revenue stream because giving access for free to the whole world, literally, is technically impossible.

You basically restated that its all about profit, and centralization.

> giving access for free to the whole world, literally, is technically impossible.

Again, this is what Mastodon is doing. This is also how email works.

And its not technically impossible. Its impossible when you have investors who demand 30x growth at all costs.

Its a capitalism issue, with game theory pushing worse and worse solutions to extract smaller percentages of profit.

But email is not centralized, and it grew when Internet was really different. Mastodon - which was born in this new Internet - is used by a very small fraction of Twitter/IG/TikTok/Facebook users. I mean, TikTok and Mastodon started both in 2016 and see the difference now...

> But email is not centralized, and it grew when Internet was really different. Mastodon - which was born in this new Internet - is used by a very small fraction of Twitter/IG/TikTok/Facebook users. I mean, TikTok and Mastodon started both in 2016 and see the difference now...

Email and mastodon and pixelfed and peertube are all federated. Everyone can run their own server, pay others, or join others.

Federated services can still work today.

And yes Tiktok started in 2016 along with Mastodon. Ok. Mastodon's success isnt bound up in venture capitalism or hockeystick growth or 100x returns. Its completely organic growth that doesnt have anything to do with money. People share and talk about stuff all the time, and there's no profit motive in nearly anything. No advertisements, no upsells.

And enshittification and extractive "growth" applies strongly to Tiktok, and that smell pervades everything about it. Advertisements, making usage worse, worse payouts to user/advertiser/influencer. Everyones there for the views and the quick dollars. But they attract more people BECAUSE of the predatory pirahna-dollar water, and the hopes of making it big.

Yeah, and that's exactly the point: they should be regulated if they are ads driven and focused on engagement at all cost.

Now, how to properly regulate and enforce it in a way that's not going to undermine other rights and freedom, that's not an easy task for sure.

Ignoring the capitalism and the money, those still can have the bad effects of social media, just perhaps not amplified for money extraction.

irc doesn't have this problem

Some nitpicker will probably come with "and what about...??" because we are on HN but I think you basically nailed the definition.

And yes, they are toxic. And yes, just as other toxic products (i.e. cigarettes or alcohol) there should be an ongoing discussion on its regulation for both adults and teenagers. Even if it's not 100% enforceable.

I’d start with “platform on which it’s possible to become an Influencer” and work backwards.

So all platforms. Unless you have a definition of "influencer" more rigid than "person with some degree of influence." Because that includes Hacker News.

When I had to fill up the ESTA form to enter the US, this is what was in the "social media" drop down list:

- ASKfm

- Facebook

- Flickr

- GitHub

- Google+

- Instagram

- JustPaste.it

- LinkedIn

- Tumblr

- Twitter

- Vine

- VKontakte (VK)

- YouTube

This is obviously outdated but it can give an idea.

That's interesting - Github as social media? That's an idea of would never have thought of in a million years. Personally, I'd be glad if a child of mine hung out there - not at all like something like Instagram or Facebook.

I was also surprised, but it makes sense.

It is based on user-generated content, it has a comment system, followers and stars (similar to "likes"). There is even an attention economy, and some gamification.

Social media doesn't have to be bad, it just needs to be social.

github's original tagline was "Social Coding".

I would like to recommend a book where the author explains with scientific fundaments why lower age kids are more damaged from social media exposure.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-anxious-generation-how-the-...

Many things are harmful for everyone, yet we only ban them for children because banning them for everyone would create huge uproar. Make tobacco illegal and then we can talk about social media.

Tobacco is legal because of large numbers of addicts which would create a huge market for illegal supplies. The UK plans to phase out tobacco by raising the age at which it can be legally bought every year.

In any case, this is whataboutery. There are lots of harmful things that adults are allowed, but lots that are banned for everyone. There are lots of things that cannot be sold without meeting safety standards (cars, electricals), or that are only sold subject strict controls (prescription drugs, guns). We do not allow adults to have whatever they want.

Case in point. There is no chance tobacco would be declared legal if it was invented today. Don't you agree?

How do you reconcile this idea with the fact that marijuana is being legalized all over the place?

Marijuana is not a recent invention

1. Marijuana was not invented today. 2. Marijuana is not tobacco.

Tobacco wasn't "invented" any more than was marijuana, both are naturally occurring plants which have been cultivated and used for thousands of years.

Not really. The US has widely legalized gambling of various forms (sports, prediction markets, etc) in recent years. I'd argue that even more so than nicotine there is zero benefit to gambling.

People don't actually think that's the case. However it is obviously an age in which we believe kids can start to have more agency over their own lives and make bigger decisions because they have matured (hopefully) enough to do so.

We therefore then tack other restrictions to those age brackets.

> Thank you, it's been infuriating reading these social media bans for children, as if when kids suddenly turn 16 or 18 or whatever magical nimber the courts come up with, they are suddenly immune to the psychological tricks from multi million dollar companies hiring the best psychologists with no morals money can buy.

This is sort of true, but there is definitely a scale of development that means the most harm will be done the earlier you start. Same with access to pornography. People's brains don't suddenly become immune to it at 18, it's just that that's the age of legal responsibility that ties in with other things.

Men who turn 18 don't suddenly become disposable meat-based gun-holders in times of war, and yet we still treat them that way.

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