I've been opposed to the teen social media bans because I think the evidence justifying them is undercooked, but at this point, I'm willing to instrumentally back any policy that hurts Meta for that reason alone.
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I'm honestly internally for them but feel like a hypocrite because having some socials as a teen was very formative to me and ultimately made me a better person but I know that's not the case for everyone.
What we need is third space Internet areas for kids to be kids like on old school forums without having to drag them into the flood of negative adults and media found on smplatforms.
Agreed. I know what free speech is and also what censorship is. The billionaires involved probably laugh at Steve Bannon behind his back -- God knows he's laughable -- but it's his old marching orders they follow: "Flood the zone with . . .," well, you know. And then Trump's boss: "go F yourself".
I'm sure I'm not the only American who wonders what Trump and Trumpism means for our children. I've marveled for nearly a decade at how some of my peers could support a person like him and look their children or grandchildren in the eye.
I whole heartedly agree. I think it’s destroyed our society. It’s addictive, it causes poor mental health, and it conveys misinformation at lightning speed. It needs to be regulated. FB for two minutes was marking posts as false but seems like they backed off that.
Sorry, I totally disagree with you about the US's proposed ban of teens in social media. Studies after studies, from prominent colleges and universities, even from global researches have proved that social media gravely affects teenagers learning abilities. Cheers.
I think there is evidence of increased suicide and loneliness and younger people having less intimate partners coinciding with the generation that grew up with social media. When I got social media I was already in college since you had to be to have Facebook. I actually think I was already 21.
I will never support any company that advertises on either FB or Insta, especially by clicking on anything. I’d dump both altogether but have a large spread out family that uses them to stay in touch. I don’t engage anyone but family or close friends. Hate both platforms.
I use it but only for DMs with people I know. And then it’s basically only when I want to send an MP3 or something that’s too big for regular text messages.
I understand there are groups on there, but never ventured out to investigate.
The solution is way easier. Social media companies need to require MFA if they want to actually enforce user age restrictions on content. None of them will do this, except youtube as far as I know, because none of them want to lose the user base and subsequent ad revenue.
There's no need for a ban, but there is an obvious need for real user verification, which requires MFA (multi factor authentication). MFA will not only get rid of half the bots and trolls immediately, it will also allow age restricted content to be actually restricted.
This vvv plus they finding out the New Orleans attacker cased Bourbon street beforehand wearing Metas smart classes just. Or connected to the internet doesn’t bode well. How many other nefarious acts will be preplanned with them?
Did you miss the whole Facebook data scientist whistle blower who said Meta knows unequivocally that social media is harmful to kids, particularly teen girls? Big whiff, dude.
You're right that the evidence is undercooked. I think a lot of people are just operating under assumptions based on their own experiences. I haven't seen any hard evidence that social media is bad for teens. I just know it's been bad for me in a lot of ways and figure it's worse for young people.
As a man in charge of aspects of media, you are not the person who should be calling for letting teens - who will mostly be female - back into social media to be preyed on. It is happening HERE on Bluesky NOW. You think your idea is the best solution? I don't.
undercooked, maybe, but it's clear to every teen who was raised with social media that it's effects are almost entirely negative. kids don't have the executive functions & media literacy necessary to navigate predatory services. social media harmed my development & it took me years to realise why
The only way to defeat darkness is to shine in to it… if u face darkness w darkness the darkness comes into u
When will people realize u can only affect positive w positivity and tolerance not opposition
My worry with teen social media bans is the enforceability just isn't there, the line on what even counts as "social media" is bad, plus I worry about just letting people grow up then dumping them into the cesspool of the internet is gonna still be bad on a wide scale
Everyone should be against bans because they are very transparently a stepping stone to mandatory IDs for internet access.
Anytime legislators are invoking the "think of the children" argument, that's a pretty big red flag that whatever they're talking about is bad for everyone.
Doesn't matter. You don't address that problem by saying "brain rot is okay when you turn 18" and demanding social media companies collect the ID of their users.
How about, I don't know, REGULATING THE PLATFORMS?
We have techno-fascists operating in plain sight, how about we start there.
If by regulate you mean kill everything they are today then sure. If we're to have it then we need to have original facebook or myspace, no algos, and no profit. So basically destroy social media as it exists and as we know it.
Nobody needs any of this bullshit. Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and X and even Bluesky could blink out of existence entirely tomorrow and the world would only get objectively better.
Teen social media restrictions can be beneficial. It is essential for children to engage in the joys of childhood, as this phase of life is fleeting. They will have ample opportunity in the future to navigate the complexities of social media and its influences. 😷
I keep wondering how people square “social media doesn’t harm teens’ mental health” with “social media has made us all lonelier, contributed to the rise of global fascism, flattened all artistry into content, etc etc etc”
My kids have strict access controls on their devices (Apple)
* screen time with passcodes and blocks on all social media apps
* restricted gaming time
* content restrictions on chrome/safari
* EERO and chrome profiles with content restricted
Less and less so now that it's becoming more like facebook. Meta is more irrelevant by the day and this is Zuckerberg scrambling for favorable treatment from the administration.
This is so very, very important! Facebook as well as other social media organizations are so very bad in many ways. I so support banning access for our children and grandchildren, only made more important by MZ choice today to become a Trump puppet. This needs to stop!
I'm for doing anything which dents their revenue base.
So continuing to not try to revive my FB account which they keep taking away for no good reason, and only to check in on the new account to find out what I need to here (the village gossip runs on FB)
Well data will be coming in soon from the rest of the world from places which have banned it. The large population cohort studies which follow will tell us for certain in about 2 yrs or less….
considering the Russian disinformation machine that has consistently invaded social media and the Russian backed podcasters that the teens love so much i'm sort of for it. The only problem is that most of these teens and young adults are on YouTube.
Old lady here who still uses FB but wants a more BlueSky-esque forum on which to share pics and stupid memes with friends. Is that IG now? Can I learn a new trick? All I know is I don’t want to support any billionaire-run platform anymore
Use a social media that supports suggestions of video content and see how long it is before you're watching something extremely violent. The level of violence on display is traumatising to youth. Teaching them self control is useless at that point in time.
Social media affects everyone, not just kids. A blanket ban doesn’t teach safe usage. Exposure to different views helps adults decide what to engage with. Plus, SM content exists beyond the platforms—it’s not confined there.
That's exactly what the rich think ranks want to hear. Social media has become the primary tool to politicize, create illusions,take control and distort reality. There has to be guardrails and accountability. It's been destabilizing the entire world the past 6+ yrs and ongoing.😔
I’ve seen people say that there’s potential for this TikTok thing to open up potential to regulate Meta, but I really don’t think that’s how political power or regulation actually works, so I’m worried there’s a lot of misguided ideas going around.
There’s no benefit to kids being on social media (I was a teen on social media). My school would’ve been a better place, our mental health wouldn’t have been as impacted and we wouldn’t have been so distracted. I’m for the social internet being 18+
When your teens start self-diagnosing depression and neurodivergence, because their TikTok algo constantly feeds them false content, you will change your stance on Social Media bans. Add massive amounts of cyber bullying and you have a teen suicide epidemic fueled by TikTok.
To hurt Meta, use corporate shame--apply unrelentless shame to their sponsors. Every corporation who spends money helping him target kids and lie is enabling and should be treated as such. This is how we fight back.
The evidence is not undercooked at all, and the bans are justified. However, the methodology in getting them implemented is where the legislation falls down
The slop and misinformation on Facebook are features, not bugs. They want to turn brains to mush so people will spend more passive time in front of their screens generating ad impressions. They are actively trying to make our politics and culture worse to make money. That is the business model.
There's a post about Josh Allen's "mansion in West Seneca" that's there every time I log in. It's 1,000% false and yet, older folks in the family belive it true.
this has long been a problem of consumer capitalism, but the degree to which the tech world relies on destroying the very fabric of humanity and society while claiming they're inventing the future is both terrifying and deeply sick.
America is a great experiment. No one ever said it would be permanent or perfect. 250 years is nothing in human time. Stop despairing and let's get back to it.
Hard agree. Divesting from teaching the social sciences, history, civics, etc. as is happening everywhere and only investing in STEM fields will make this worse. Just because technology allows us to do something doesn't mean we should...
Facebook is openly telling everyone that they will let MAGAs post any garbage they want to confuse those like themselves. Just to please Trump!
Truth is going to become a rare commodity. Meta is muck.
Exactly. The more indistinguishable the rest of your feed is from the ads, the more you’ll click ads and the more profitable it is to sell ads on your feed
People were justifiably worried about television back in the day on the same grounds — never, ever forget that reality TV brought us Trump — but Zuckerberg is doing things your garden variety, cigar-chomping network TV exec couldn't dream of.
The TV execs took at least a certain amount of pride in the quality and prestige of the content on their platforms. Social media execs aren't, for example, getting an dressed up to go to annual galas celebrating the best meme or AI slop posts.
Tv execs never ran a product that
A. Is always with the viewer
B. Gives the impression the viewer is controlling the content
C. Can't be sued for publishing damaging and false content
Wasn't around for the first round of discourse on the AI profiles, but this is evil, and we can expect to see more ideas like it as long as the social media and AI firms feel like they can get away with them without too much backlash.
If you're talking about LLMs, you can't teach them, because they can't learn. They don't know anything beyond slapping together fragments of their training data to form plausible sentences. To break AI, you have to break the power of the people pushing it on us.
I get that the world can be dangerous for kids, but my gay granddaughter and my non-binary grandchild both found community and support on social media. It was lifesaving for the non-binary child, now 19 and safe. They have not yet declared if they are trans, but they are safe to express themselves.
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https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/priorities/youth-mental-health/social-media/index.html
Definitely the least toxic of the lot though.
I understand there are groups on there, but never ventured out to investigate.
Do you even know what MFA is?
I hear varying opinions like, cost relevance, etc but I’m not sure myself.
It’s like the gun manufacturers in that they have 0 accountability for what their product does. change that… we’ve got lift-off.
My $.02
Meta announced they will no longer fact check literally b/c Trump says it it's censorship. That's not just Facebook but all companies owned by Meta.
Dana White, MAGA daring from the UFC joined Meta's Board of Directors.
When will people realize u can only affect positive w positivity and tolerance not opposition
I actually have more faith in kids being able to spot mis/disinformation than adults.
Anytime legislators are invoking the "think of the children" argument, that's a pretty big red flag that whatever they're talking about is bad for everyone.
think of humanity, really.
How about, I don't know, REGULATING THE PLATFORMS?
We have techno-fascists operating in plain sight, how about we start there.
Nobody needs any of this bullshit. Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and X and even Bluesky could blink out of existence entirely tomorrow and the world would only get objectively better.
Loving BlueSky for real truth
Unbelievable
* screen time with passcodes and blocks on all social media apps
* restricted gaming time
* content restrictions on chrome/safari
* EERO and chrome profiles with content restricted
I'm for doing anything which dents their revenue base.
So continuing to not try to revive my FB account which they keep taking away for no good reason, and only to check in on the new account to find out what I need to here (the village gossip runs on FB)
https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/
I read that TikTok is the only platform that's majority left / women / BIPOC so that really makes me wonder...
Not rocket science.
Teens DAMN SURE aren't getting full time jobs.
for 2 decades.
Truth is going to become a rare commodity. Meta is muck.
A. Is always with the viewer
B. Gives the impression the viewer is controlling the content
C. Can't be sued for publishing damaging and false content
How do we reprogram AI and teach it that it’s wrong?
And that’s terrifying: an AI that can’t learn!? How is that even AI?