Comment by RiverCrochet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RiverCrochet | Hacker News Reader

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> What part of these services have been designed to be inherently addictive do you have a hard time understanding?

None whatsoever. Parents that allow/enable their children to access such things when they are clearly in adults-only conduits should be held responsible. Attempting to preemptively eliminate everything addictive from life for adults does not reduce the amount of addiction and only enables profiteering via moral panics. At some point you have to MYOB.

> It's very strange that you can be aware of the fact that Facebook et. al. have been trying to get kids addicted and then pretend that there's no "specific action" to entice them.

> So you're okay with a model where private companies intentionally get your kids addicted to digital crack and can unilaterally sell all their personal information, advertise all sorts of harmful products and services to them, let predators target and contact them, etc.?

The model isn't affecting me because I'm not a bad parent who is letting my kids get on platforms without watching them. If we're going to allow basically any rights/norms/freedoms to be bypassed in the name of "think of the children," let's nip the problem in the bud and permanently separate them from bad parents who are committing negligence.

Whatever specific action(s) Facebook did to entice children using addictive techniques, they should stop doing that and be held accountable. But, if a parent is suing Facebook because of this situation, I find it hard to believe they didn't know Facebook was addictive for their child beforehand. Did the parent remove Facebook from their child's phone the moment they recognized harm? This doesn't place Facebook in the right. But the parents shouldn't get a free pass either if they were in any way part of it.

The selling of personal data and advertising ruins things for both kids and adults, and sensible regulation there would be great. Regarding predators, parents can and should restrict their children from using platforms that aren't trustable, like Facebook.

> The model isn't affecting me because I'm not a bad parent who is letting my kids get on platforms without watching them

In my opinion, being an arrogantly confident parent is only modestly better than being an ignorant or lackadaisical one.

Your children can be harmed by social media even if you (try to) monitor and regulate their use of it, or prevent it entirely.

If you got a call tomorrow that your child had taken his or her life because bullies had posted abusive content about them online, resulting in real-life ostracization, you might have a different perspective about how insidious these platforms can be, even when people aren't active users.

Note that, unless you're with your children 24/7/365, you can't fully regulate your children's' behavior. You might think your children aren't using social media, or don't even have a phone, only to learn that they had a second life you didn't know about. Because there is so much pressure on young people to be present on these apps.

Civilized society frequently regulates products and services that are known to be harmful to society and a threat to human health. The refusal to acknowledge that social platforms have been engineered to be addictive and their operators negligent moderators of abuse ironically only ensures that the measures proposed to deal with their wanton disregard for human well-being will be more and more dystopian.

> If you got a call tomorrow that your child had taken his or her life because bullies had posted abusive content about them online

This doesn't happen without clear signs beforehand or if you don't interact with your child at all. Competent parents pay attention to their children and these signs and provide a safe space for them to talk about these types of things. Negligent parents who don't are dangerous.

> Note that, unless you're with your children 24/7/365, you can't fully regulate your children's' behavior.

Maybe not, but parents are still fully responsible for their children's actions. I can't fully regulate my dog's behavior but I'm the one getting sued if he escapes and bites someone.

> Because there is so much pressure on young people to be present on these apps.

Until they pay for their own housing and food, the only pressure that should matter is what I as a parent put on them. Other children creating this pressure is a result of their parents failure to parent, and they also should be held accountable.

> Civilized society frequently regulates products and services that are known to be harmful to society and a threat to human health.

Regulate the product then, not the adult person. Products can be regulated via accurate labeling. Then, it is on you as a responsible to read the labeling and behave accordingly and keep your kids away from them. This works for dangerous chemical products like cleaning solutions. The products I buy in the supermarket that are restricted to 18+ don't require my ID to be stored in a database, I simply show the clerk. Even then it would be far better if 18s and under just weren't allowed in stores. Labeling works best for 18+ content. If you can't handle it, keep your kids away from phones and computers.

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