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Comment by ElProlactin | Hacker News Reader

This comes up in every discussion but the argument rests on pretending that we live in a fantasy world.

1. Parents can't monitor their children 24/7.

2. The evidence leaves little doubt: social media platforms have been designed to be ridiculously addictive, with the companies running them choosing to ignore the harms they know they cause.

3. Because these platforms are highly addictive, many parents themselves are addicts and probably ignorant to or in denial about the harms they and their children are being exposed to.

4. Even children who don't use social media can be bullied on social platforms by their peers, and not being allowed to have a phone or social media is itself a characteristic on which children might be bullied.

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Children not on social media can be bullied by those on social media? No they can't because they are not there.

Kids can talk about other kids when they are not in the room but can't bully them.

That's like saying you can bully Brad Pitt because you and your wife are talking about them.

Kids can bully kids in real life for not being on <app>.

They are bullying in real life. People are bullied over anything you don't have the right app, shoes are the wrong brand, wrong skin color. I don't see how not being on twitter or facebook is going change bullying. You could make the point that not being online means less bully and wider social circles.

Clearly, you didn't even look up what I suggested.

I don't know how old you are but one of the many things you seem to be missing is this simple fact: the internet, and social media in particular, provides more opportunity for bullying and amplifies the effects.

It has never been easier to target someone for abuse and execute various forms of abuse online, at scale, and to even do so without having to put your name on it.

If you were born before the internet, you didn't have to worry about pictures of you being taken without your consent and posted for all posterity. You didn't have to worry about insults and abuse directed at you reaching potentially thousands upon thousands of people in an instant. You didn't have to worry about people turning you into a meme or creating AI content using your likeness. You didn't have to worry about people setting up fake accounts under your name and with stolen photos. And so on.

> You could make the point that not being online means less bully and wider social circles.

Not being online does not stop people from posting things about you, working to turn your friends, acquaintances and colleagues against you, and causing you to be isolated from friends, family and social groups.

Again, read Olweus's work on bullying and then you'd at least have an informed perspective on which to make an argument because the widely-accepted definition of "bullying" doesn't require you to be present in the room. "Bullying" isn't just the actions people take against you, it's the effects those actions have on you.

You could have no internet and wake up one morning to discover that your friends are distancing themselves from you, your classmates think you did something you didn't do, social groups are now excluding you, etc. all because of things that were posted about you online when you weren't even there to see them. That is bullying.

Rumors can happen online or offline and provides the same effect. Tell a group of 4 people in a school a lie can spread to the entire school population in an hour.

Your saying social media and the internet in general makes this effect worse. I agree it can speed up the messaging but it always starts from those same 4 people. And the same people turning on you because of an online post are the same group who will turn there backs on you for an offline rumor.

In both cases its bullying.

On the other hand the same internet and social media allows you to connect with other kids from outside of your local groups enabling a wider social net.

If you don't want to acknowledge how social platforms allow this type of abuse to be accelerated, scaled and amplified, directed in ways not possible offline, and recorded permanently (with no possibility of deletion), I can only conclude that you're being intellectually disingenuous.

> Children not on social media can be bullied by those on social media? No they can't because they are not there.

You should read up on the work of Dan Olweus.

You do not need to be present for aggressive behavior directed at you to be considered a form of bullying.

Things like spreading rumors, turning friends and acquaintances against you, and deliberate exclusion can all meet the definition of "bullying" and they don't require you to be in the room.

Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so.

That's not a fantasy.

It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy.

> Both Android and iOS allow parents to block social media apps and web access to individual websites or the entire web, if they choose to do so.

You ignored three of my points:

1. These platforms are highly addictive, and designed to be highly addictive. Just because these are digital services doesn't mean they can't and shouldn't be regulated like, say, addictive substances.

2. Many parents are themselves addicted and don't understand the harms or choose to ignore them. There are numerous areas where society decides that regulation is appropriate because a product or service is so detrimental and/or being offered predatorily.

3. Even children who don't use social media can be harmed by these platforms. Very few people want to acknowledge that these platforms are being abused in ways that allow users to cause immense harm to non-users.

> It's also a much less restrictive option than forcing EVERYONE to give up their privacy.

You already have no privacy online and these social platforms are among the biggest privacy violators. Why do so many people pretend this isn't the case?

Facebook, for instance, has "shadow profiles" of non-users created based on the collection of data from tracking tools (like Meta Pixel) that the vast majority of people don't even know exist. If you're pro-privacy, would you support laws that ban companies from doing this?

> 1. These platforms are highly addictive

So block them.

> 2. Many parents are themselves addicted and don't understand the harms or choose to ignore them

People are allowed to make choices others find objectionable.

> 3. Even children who don't use social media can be harmed by these platforms.

Bullying predates social networking and happens even without internet access.

> You already have no privacy online

If EVERYONE has to submit an ID before they are allowed to communicate on the internet, it becomes a much more dystopian world.

Stop trying to control EVERYONE and educate parents on existing tools that are available to protect their own children, if they choose to use them.

The only people living in a fantasy world are the ones that want mandatory online age verification for social media, adult content, private messaging, video games, and things of that nature.

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