Human rights chief warns against banning social media for kids
https://archive.is/2026.03.24-204653/https://www.politico.eu/article/michael-oflaherty-human-rights-council-of-europe-children-social-media-ban/

Ban the harmful algorithms of Big Tech social media instead.

#BigTech #SocialMedia #EU #Children

@leavex Do both - devices can displace vital face to face contact needed in healthy development.
@NicelyManifest @leavex Um, how about no.
@dalias @leavex Do you know the effects of loss of face to face connection in child development?

@leavex

FYI the "archive group" (.today, .is, .ph, .fo, .li, .md, .vn) is problematic: anyone clicking on their links is turned into a participant in a DDOS attack on someone the archive admin has a grudge against.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/

Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links

If DDoSing a blog wasn't bad enough, archive site also tampered with web snapshots.

Ars Technica
@leavex in my family people with mental problems intensified by social media were harmed by it as already adults. So yes, ban toxicity-promoting designs instead of drawing arbitrary line where person is "mature enough" to deal with poison.
@madargon @leavex Yeah. The adults are even more messed up by it and are the ones destroying everything the kids were supposed to inherit.
@madargon @leavex Talk of "protecting kids from social media" is utter bullshit until you address the primary way they're harmed by it: having it rot the brains of the adults who were supposed to be building a better and more just world for them and turning them into instruments of fascism.

@leavex

Agreed!

Quote:

"European countries should not rush into social media bans for children, human rights adviser Michael O’Flaherty told POLITICO.
...

Such bans are neither 'proportionate nor necessary,' said O’Flaherty, the commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights body, adding that there 'are other ways to address the curse of abusive material online.' "

@ahimsa_pdx @leavex What the EU does and it is disgusting, is they attack the rights of EU citizens first and then act either as if the rest of the world doesn't exist or throw petals at their feet. The EU is HOPELESS at standing up for citizens rights