Marsden
Eugen RochkoRE: https://phpc.social/@theshaunwalker/116753314614249073
As someone who found friends and community exclusively through the online world back when I was a teen, 💯
DCKIM [toronto tech blog]@Gargron if these are going to be the laws going forward, as governments across the western world seem to be taking identical lock-step action, what's left that can still be accessed for those young people?
They will need a completely decentralized social alternative with no corporation/centralizing element. This might actually turn out to be the catalyst that the internet needs to become fully decentralized.
I expect those young people will find a way forward, perhaps to benefit us all.
Flash Mob Of One@Gargron Some form of regulation is inevitable. All we had to worry about as kids were popup ads.
The product these kids are using is harmful and built that way deliberately.
I don't know what the right solution is, though. It would be good if parents were more active, but they're not. This problem persists because the vast majority park a child in front of a screen and leave them there.
The FrogIndeed, it needs to be regulated. This tech IS dangerous, as we've seen in Belfast. But I think where it misses the mark is by putting the onus users and their parents instead of disciplining the social media companies. Especially those providing tools to produce, for free, child sexual material.
Because at the end of the day, it does damage to grown arse adults too!
Noodlemaz@FlashMobOfOne @Gargron it's dealing with the companies that make the product. That made them harmful. On purpose. Knowingly.
We know Facebook/Meta has done and continues to do this.
The solution is not targeting the population for surveillance. It is fucking regulating these techbros who think they're gods.
Screens are not the issue. TV doesn't hurt, we have programming regulations in place, things like watershed, advertising laws. Social media giants should not be left to their own devices.
Aho
TC Won't Give In To Lies@Gargron
And we still can, as this legislation is targeted at the most dangerous and exploitative techbros.
Mastodon is a wonderful alternative and I'm so glad I found a community here.
Huge 👏 to you for making it happen.
mr.gentle@Gargron i don't know what it will cause to the youth exactly but what i know is in a way, these pedophiles are using childs in order to implement their survellience missions. it's kinda a humaliation and condescending ritual. not saying that there are no sheeps that needs observation but..
mossman@Gargron started chatting through ICQ with someone on the other side of the world 25 years ago. Moved on to voice (and occasional video) calls on NetMeeting shortly after. Progressed onto Skype after we arranged to meet up in IRL. Now been married 20 years.
Which is to say - our lives would have been totally different if either of us had to ID ourselves on any of those platforms in the beginning... The whole theme back then was the wild west - in fact our first conversation was about if we were talking to scammers or chatbots - ha ha ha!
So not only are we denying kids the freedom to find people and make friends, I'm pretty certain our younger selves would never have enjoyed that freedom either. Back then we enjoyed discovery through anonymous contact and neither of us would have registered with the Stasi at any stage. (And still won't! As internet old-timers we still use pseudonyms with no personal data as far as possible...)
fr0gIn fairness, it's only the big platforms that are being restricted. Although in terms of policy that just seems like kicking the can further down the road. Banning platform X and Y isn't really gonna do anything to truly solve the harms young people (and everyone else) may be exposed to.
Elric@Gargron Same. The forum communities I helped run were very welcoming to young people, and we always tried to treat them fairly, much like we had been treated fairly when we were younger.
And when I was a little bit older, and the US started to push their COPPA laws, children under 13 were suddenly ostensible banned from everywhere.
Things have been going down hill since then. Big Tech has fucked up the social fabric of the internet, and now draconian laws are here to deal the finishing blow.
Григорий КлюшниковI met most people I consider my friends right now thanks to VKontakte's "club1" app developer community, either directly or indirectly. I signed up for VK when I was 14 years old, and was active on various online forums way before that. I was also a socially awkward kid until my late teens. The internet helped me escape that uncomfortable reality. Without all that, I would definitely not have been the person I am now.
ocelot221@Gargron Unfortunately the internet is a much more toxic place than when we were teens.
Nini@ocelot221 @Gargron Though that isn't helped by certain large actors in the space making it that way. It's a blanket ban that only helps that toxicity spread because often the internet is the safe space, take that away and you're left with whatever hell social media saved them from.
Regulate the companies, not the kids.
AA
ij@Gargron I wonder why they didn't try to make cigarettes only smokeable by adults, rather than just saying children can't buy cigarettes? But then how do children afford smartphones anyway? It's the parents who should tackle these problems. #ageverification
Raj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)@Gargron
Contemporary social media has been engineered to prey on addictive habits that younger generations have already been acclimatised to (which is not to say our generation cannot also fall victim).
The simple truth is society should be regulating the producers and publishers, not the consumers. The answer is not banning children from online interaction (including through games), but unfortunately we have allowed the platforms to become too wealthy, powerful, and influential.
Guillotine Jones, Flâneur@Gargron
How about we ban Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the rest of the tech and media billionaires and give EVERYONE their life back.
How about we ban Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the rest of the tech and media billionaires and give EVERYONE their life back.
william ⁂ maggosimo social media isn't the problem but the algos are bad for everyone. are they considering chat rooms to be social media? I wish we'd all clearly distinguish the very public posting with boosts as social media, while calling most everything else social networking. I think my daughter did well chatting with friends while not being subject to corporate platforms.
Graeme 🏴@Gargron This is a BS policy from a weak desperate leader, pandering to the right. If he had a spine he'd do something to actually help people.
If he cared about child safety and had a spine, he'd regulate the SM platforms, make them responsible for bad content.
If he cared about child safety and had a spine, he'd regulate the SM platforms, make them responsible for bad content.
ĞÖKÜ👻👻™
Neil Moffatt@Gargron I grew up in the 1970s and had a great childhood with many connections with no electronic devices except TV and radio.
Phones can enable greater access but face to face is an order of magnitude different.
iris ✿ sandwalker@Gargron so why are you moving there then, by all means??!
@Irisherself This is a bit of a silly question when you think about it for a bit, right?
@Gargron 👀 if you're going to fix them then leave tomorrow 🤞
@Irisherself Have you ever moved country?
@Gargron yes a few times... continents too... I wish you well and apologise if you would think otherwise
@Irisherself Then you should surely understand how much time, effort, and money goes into it? And that it's quite impractical to turn everything around 2 weeks before move date because of something that just happened?
@Gargron but they (postbrexitUK) have been bad for so long now 😞
@Irisherself If you start following any country's politics you start finding stupid laws and politicians, what other anglophone country where some friends and family live do you think I should be moving to instead?
@Gargron Croatia, and nevermind other people or language 😅
@Irisherself really?
You think Croatia has no problems similar to (or worse than) the UK..?
Interesting/weird take
Good on some things bad on others - just like most places.
https://www.dw.com/en/in-croatia-resurgent-far-right-shifts-political-climate/a-74845315
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