Banning Social Media for Everyone Under 16

[Leonardo17]

I’ve never been a pro banning thing things person but things in this area seem to be getting out of control rather quickly:
 
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/boys...-128611202
 
How do 13 year olds generate naked pictures of their also 13 year old classmates on snap chat, not be punished (because snapchat erases images within a few minutes and the victim eventually gets kicked out of school for attacking another 13 year old who was viewing her AI generated nude images?
 
So now Australia is banning all social media platforms for everyone under 16. The EU is working on similar laws. And China has already limited social media usage to everyone under 18 to 1 hour / day or something like that:
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp9d3ddqyo
 
   Personally, I was never into these things from the very beginning. If I have old friends, I call them with the telephone. I rarely browse their profiles on facebook. Twitter is so infested with social media trolls that I only use it if someone sends me a link from watsapp or something like that. I use Instagram to view places or advertisement about local bars, music groups and other stuff like that. And that’s about it. And I am not really “old” or anything like that either
 
   On the contrary, I even used to be a nerdish kid on technological issues as a kid. I grew up with a commodore 63. I even owned a soviet-made PC at some point. So I really love technology and the internet even more.
  
   Still: time being a precious resource, I never even understood the whole logic behind social media. With kids generating naked pictures of their pairs I don’t see any problem even with restricting them to flip-phones until they are 15-16 years of age or something like that?
 
Don’t you agree?

[Paraselene]

We always thought telly would rot our brains. Turns out, social media does a better job of it.

[Paleophyte]

Personally, I was never into these things from the very beginning. If I have old friends, I call them with the telephone. I rarely browse their profiles on facebook. Twitter is so infested with social media trolls that I only use it if someone sends me a link from watsapp or something like that. I use Instagram to view places or advertisement about local bars, music groups and other stuff like that. And that’s about it. And I am not really “old” or anything like that either

"I'm an old Luddite and we should close the interweb! Damned kids!"
  - translation provided by Google

[Mr Greene]

Welcome to law of unintended consequences and alterior motives...

Australia has introduced a ban on social media for under 16s, now figure out which sites you visit match the legal definition of 'Social Media'.
UK brought in a requirement for age checks (id) on any website that might contain 'adult images'.

Result 1; Various software including games were able to spoof the age checks.
Result 2; Sites could either add the pricey and potentially vulnerable age check software, or just blanket block all UK ip adresses including sites like Imgur and various streaming services.
Result 3; 3000% increase in use of VPNs in UK since introduction of legislation.
Alterior motive; The lobbyists pushing for this are funded by online bookmakers and casinos facing advertising bans from social media due to possibility of children gambling.

[Leonardo17]

Greene:
 
I’m not talking about the internet in general. The only way to decrease pornography is through a better sexual education and demystification of the whole thing. When they raided bin Ladin’s home in Pakistan they discovered laptops full of all sorts of pornography.
 
Also: Sexual should happen in the real world. I’m not going to say anything luddite about cybersex either. But it’s not safe. If you take and send some naked pictures of yourself to your boyfriend-girlfriend, how do you kow if some older pervert does not have access to these pictures in all of these platforms?
 
So we need some enhanced safety and (yes) some sort of restriction there.
 
As I said. Life should happen out there. Not inside some miniature silly box don’t you agree?   

[Leonardo17]

Here is a nice report on France 24:

 

 

   What’s happening here is that you don’t really want to give out too much of your time to this “digital space”. And don’t get me wrong. Already in my generation we had this dilemma. The question was there: How much of your time are you willing to invest to TV (which was already referred to as a “dumb box) to video games (we already had PC’s, game boys and play stations) or to electronic game centers (yes they were out there already).

   The logical answer was already that we ourselves had to reduce the time invested into these screen activities and spend more time with our friends, families, books, sport clubs etc.

   What is actually happening is that people working in the creation of these “digital activities” are coming up with new methods of hocking us back into these screens so that they can get more adds and make more money out of it.

   So yes: I even believe that adult usage of smart phones, computers and other devices should be restricted in sport clubs, working or even educational environments. Because what we are dealing here is the insane aspect of capitalism. That’s profit for a very limited number of people who actually get rich without doing anything useful.

 

I admire the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for instance. But what about the likes Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg?

 

/So until people get smart about these things, I think there should be limitations and greater government involvement about these things. And yes: There should be nothing digital inside schools. How can anyone learn anything without touching physical books and writing with real (material) pens and other objects.

 

That’s really the cruel aspect of capitalism. Even digital screens are complete profit oriented inventions. What’s wrong with plastic pens and teachers writing on the blackboard with plastic pens or even chalk pens?

 

In good capitalism, people should invent things that we truly need instead of trying to replace old stuff that actually work better than the new just because it looks more fancy or more modern.

[Paleophyte]

The government has instead decided to ban everybody over the age of 15 from accessing the internet, seeing as how they were the problem.

[Paraselene]

The government has instead decided to ban everybody over the age of 15 from accessing the internet, seeing as how they were the problem.

Which is why now I use a VPN to bypass their stupidity.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Greene:
 
I’m not talking about the internet in general. The only way to decrease pornography is through a better sexual education and demystification of the whole thing. When they raided bin Ladin’s home in Pakistan they discovered laptops full of all sorts of pornography.
 
Also: Sexual should happen in the real world. I’m not going to say anything luddite about cybersex either. But it’s not safe. If you take and send some naked pictures of yourself to your boyfriend-girlfriend, how do you kow if some older pervert does not have access to these pictures in all of these platforms?
 
So we need some enhanced safety and (yes) some sort of restriction there.
 
As I said. Life should happen out there. Not inside some miniature silly box don’t you agree?   

I’m not convinced that decreasing pornography is the best idea. Not to mention that banning things never, ever works.

Boru

[Leonardo17]

Paleophyte:
 
Who banned the internet to everyone over 16?
 
Brian Boru:
 
I’m not an expert on that. But I recently watched an interesting video that stated that mental-image or fantasy-based masturbation was actually healthier than subscription-based orgasms.
 
Besides: That’s not how real sex happens. Again: it’s not going to happen inside the screen. You need to get out and find someone. That’s the way sex works
 
- So here is another very clever move from the UK:




 
They are banning junk food commercials. They’ve already banned single use plastic and one-time use e-cigarettes and Ireland was the first country to ban all tobacco products in the year 2004.
 
On the other hand China has very strict rules on computer and internet usage that go back 20 years or more. You might think they are very smart. But they have smoking bans only since 2010. In the 90’s the government was even encouraging regular tobacco usage.
 
So I don’t think that banning some stuff is anti-democratic and/or anti-dictatorship either. It’s just that we know stuff now that we didn’t truly understand just 20-25 years ago. So we are starting to have laws on these things now.
 
I also think that’s how real climate action will probably start happening in the future. Right now people just don’t get it.