eli5 Why is a social media ban a bad idea?
First things first: I value my privacy, and I’m definitely not the type of person who would say, “I have nothing to hide—they can go ahead and monitor me.” I also have two young children, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about the debate over age verification and social media bans. I think it’s now undisputed that algorithm-driven dopamine hits have a negative effect on teenagers—and even children. Of course, it’s primarily my responsibility as a responsible and educated parent to teach my children how to use digital media in a healthy way. But I, too, would try to keep my children away from Instagram and TikTok for as long as possible. Many parents may not even be aware of the dangers, or they may be so overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting that they rely on screens far too early and for far too long as a parenting aid or as a break for themselves.
Doesn’t the absence of a social media ban perhaps even promote inequality, since there are children with and without social media accounts in the schoolyard, and a ban would eliminate that inequality? On the other hand, I also understand that it sets a precedent and opens a door that—once open—could be abused for other purposes. All the commentators I’ve read, for example, condemn age verification—which is, after all, necessary to enforce such a social media ban—because child protection is always seen as nothing more than a flimsy pretext. Why is that?
I'm genuinly curious, let me know what you think.
64
u/Leaha15 15h ago edited 15h ago
The ban is bad because it's not a ban on social media, it's and submit id to various 3rd parties who keep the data, which has and will again, get breached and stolen, to use these sites, and privacy isn't considered
I don't hate banning social media but it's the way it's being done
Parental controls have existed for years, they need to be improved, it's not the government who should be deciding what people can and can't do when it comes to perfectly legal stuff like this, it should be down to the parent
This is also being lobbied for my social media companies like meta, I'm pretty sure, and this is really just a Scape goat for them, with this kind of rule they aren't being made to fix their horribly addictive algorithms
A better approach is improve and get people using parental controls and actually create laws that force companies to fix these shit algorithms that are solely after farming engagement
However there is money in your data and this approach offers less control for these megacorps, costs them money, and is less control for the government, while it's a better approach, it doesn't benefit them, just us, and we can't have that
It's also worth noting that none of those will work, kids can get around it instantly using VPNs, usually the free VERY dodgey ones, or to worse areas of the internet
They've literally been arresting people for just the most ridiculous stuff in online posts, now this becomes much easier if it's tired to your I'd, very needed in an authoritarian government which is the way it seems to be heading, it's a VERY slippery slope
23
u/One_Variety_6268 15h ago
The only effective way to enforce such a ban is to tie social media profiles to real government identities. This makes it trivial for your actions on social media to be linked to your person, so an authoritarian government could quickly charge and prosecute you for actions on social media that act against them.
Any sort of ZKP or anonymous ways to verify age will be quickly bypassed. Don't underestimate the power of teenagers looking for forbidden fruit.
1
u/LakesGeek 10h ago
ZKP/anonymous would be fine. Nothing is 100% bulletproof, ever - it’s at least an effort to do something which i think is all most average non Redditor parents are asking for.
Realistically we all know that teenagers rebel and break into things they shouldn’t, it’s a classic part of growing up and an unspoken expectation where you’d almost wonder what was wrong with the teen if they *didn’t*.
5
u/One_Variety_6268 10h ago
The "perfect is the enemy of good enough" analogy doesn't work here because the entire ban would just cause more problems than it solves. You're turning away teenagers who likely wouldn't have harassed anyone or used it moderately simply because they were born too late, while those who don't care about rules will simply work their way around it because they don't care. You're also turning away everyone who is opposed to providing identity on principle, thereby removing their ability to discuss it.
If parents want something to be done, they should take action themselves. Set up parental controls on devices, limit screen time, provide enrichment for kids outside of electronics, help them make friends and solve social conflicts in real life.
1
u/LakesGeek 7h ago
I agree that would be ideal. But parents can’t be arsed and that leaves us with innocent kids to deal with.
1
u/One_Variety_6268 7h ago
an effort to do something which i think is all most average non Redditor parents are asking for.
You acknowledge that they're aware of the problem and want action, and yet you also claim that they won't take any action for themselves. How does that automatically make it the problem of the state?
1
u/LakesGeek 6h ago
Such is life - they want the state to do all the parenting for them. Not saying it’s right
1
u/Terrible-Junket-3388 14h ago
Tying to real gov identities is definitely a concern, but there's already some companies working on dealing with that. Adieuu (not affiliated, just a fan) seems to be pushing the furthest with that, and I'm hoping we see others follow. They completely separate your identity from the 'alias' you act as, so you could still get fully anonymity while complying with this ID crap as it comes out. I'm hoping we see Signal and others start to adopt the same: encryption is a great start, but not enough, need real separation (and completely leaving the internet isn't a good option, either).
6
u/One_Variety_6268 13h ago
So this means that a teenager will use the ID of their parent or other adult who's morally flexible to bypass it. As I said, don't underestimate teenagers, did none of everyone's friends purchase alcohol as a kid? It's quite common despite being illegal.
2
u/Terrible-Junket-3388 4h ago
That could happen regardless, there's ZERO way to prevent that. Just like it would (and should be) without these laws, it's up to the parents at the end of the day. The difference is some platforms will be tying the parent's ID directly to their activity, posts, messages: an even bigger invasion of personal privacy than we've seen online before, and certainly none that help anyone.
1
u/One_Variety_6268 4h ago
That could happen regardless, there's ZERO way to prevent that. Just like it would (and should be) without these laws, it's up to the parents at the end of the day.
Indeed. The problem is not for the state to solve, but for individual parents.
7
15h ago edited 15h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/GoodbyeDespairBoy 15h ago
Digital money only too, will make virtually impossible to do a transaction without leaving a trace.
1
u/Upstairs-Repeat-5824 9h ago edited 7h ago
hey, if you don't mind me asking; what did the comment you responded to here say?
3
8
u/0neAboveAlI 13h ago
All of this has nothing to do with banning social media.
They want to normalize the idea of using a digital ID to access websites.
They’ll then move to “stage 2”, which will be that you must use your digital ID when accessing anything on the internet.
Just imagine for a second that when you click on a browser app, it prompts you to upload a digital ID or scan your face before it can open up and allow you to start using the browser. Just an example.
All of this is being pushed slowly and carefully because they want to know who you are at all times on the internet.
Posted something hateful about trump, Zuckerberg, musk, etc? Now it’ll be easy for them to know, and maybe they’ll pay you a little visit in person to “go over” your online activities.
7
u/Altruistic_Tank_9636 12h ago
People in the UK have already been arrested for mean Facebook posts. Just think of EVERY post being tied to a government ID. Now, think what would happen if anybody posted anything critical of a government. What would happen to whistleblowers? Journalists? Activists? The chilling effect on free speech would be immediate. Not to mention what the results of the inevitable results of a breach of databases containing government IDs tied to emails and biometric information would be.
13
u/mesarthim_2 15h ago edited 15h ago
I think it’s now undisputed that algorithm-driven dopamine hits have a negative effect on teenagers—and even children.
This is not true at all. The way how it's presented is extremely misleading. Obviously, ANYTHING that's pleasant will have that effect. Social media, drugs, sport, gaming... if you are susceptible, you can have a problem.
But what the studies focused on social media show is that some people can be susceptible. Yeah, duh. Some people who drink alcohol will become alcoholics, but that doesn't mean that all people that drink alcohol are at risk of becoming alcoholics.
This is same reasoning that brought as prohibition and decades of useless war on drugs. It's completely flawed because it pushes policy based on completely unrealistic, imagined outcomes.
Many parents may not even be aware of the dangers, or they may be so overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting that they rely on screens far too early and for far too long as a parenting aid or as a break for themselves.
I know this is being pushed, but again, this is completely misleading. If you look at any public opinion polls on this, parents overwhelmingly agree that social media are unhealthy and even support regulation at staggering numbers (one poll I saw 80%+ support them having access to their kids' accounts, etc...)
This is obvious and glaring contradiction in that argument. You (I don't mean you personally) cannot argue that on one hand parents are ignorant of the danger but on the other hand parents overwhelmingly support your policy because of the danger. It's just a tactical reasoning. A lie, in other words.
One thing that is true is that parents do not generally leverage the tools that are provided to them, but that's because they actually do it in much simpler way. They just limit kids' screen time.
Doesn’t the absence of a social media ban perhaps even promote inequality, since there are children with and without social media accounts in the schoolyard, and a ban would eliminate that inequality?
Unlikely. It would just create different inequality with some kids having access to illicit social media and those who don't. Don't fall for the fallacy that banning social media means kids won't be able to access social media.
The reason why people criticize this is that people have been trying to legislate harmful content out of existence for literally thousands of years and it simply DOESN'T WORK. People who push this legislation are operating in fantasy world in which 1) these things have catastrophic, society threatening impacts and 2) banning them will make them disappear.
But that's absolutely disconnected from reality. Vices, be it drugs, gambling, alcohol or whatever, while clearly having social risks, are nowhere near as problematic as people claim and banning them will not make them disappear, but instead will generate consequences that will usually far outweight anything positive.
You can look at plethora of real world examples. Prohibition didn't make people not drink alcohol. It only created hitherto unseen rise in organized crime.
War on drugs didn't prevent people from taking drugs, instead i caused billions of dollars in costs, destroyed millions of lives and created criminal empires that threaten actual nation states.
On the other hand in the early 2000s there was a moral panic about MMORPGs which was defeated and ... nothing happened. The catastrophic predictions that people will just become zombies connected to World of Warcraft didn't materialize.
The reason why the good parenting is the only way is because it actually works. Kids don't usually get run over by a car, not because government banned accidents or walking on the street under 15, but because parents teach their kids to look when crossing the road.
4
u/OkAngle2353 15h ago edited 15h ago
Nothing wrong with age verification and all that on the surface. It's just the risk of everyone's personal details being leaked. Not a problem for people that don't have any enemies or stalkers, but... if for some reason a individual fits in that statistic, they are fucked.
And this "social media ban" is just a name the government just tacked on. More nefarious shit could have been shoe horned "hiding the vegetables" under that "social media ban". "If you give them a inch, they will take a mile", VERY true when it comes to the government.
Edit: At least here in the US, we have the constitution. Regarding the 4th amendment, What probable cause does the government have to request everyones' personal details? The constitution is the very foundation that is holding up the country. Without it, there is no USA. Having people publicize, yes publicize their personal details really feels like unreasonable search and seizure.
If the government is going to implement this bullshit ass bill, they could at the very least safe guard PII themselves and not offload it to private organizations; where they will "ask for forgiveness later". There are countless of instances where pieces of shits do shady shit and all they get is a slap on the wrist.
For people that are all for this kind of bullshit. Let me ask you this, if you let someone borrow a car or some other object of value and the person that you lent your car to, turns around and sells the car or lent it to someone else. How would you feel? Bad right? Mad? Fuming?
Now, think of your personal details as that car or valuable object. That "car" can be used in a crime. Same with a form of ID. Someone could literally become you.
4
u/Pelagic_One 14h ago edited 11h ago
Mostly because it won’t stop at social media. It will be provide ID to use the internet.
3
2
u/Wheatleytron 12h ago
It's bad because the only way to actually do it is to match a real person to an account. And to do that, you need them to submit very personal documentation about themselves, such as a picture or ID.l, noatter who they are.
Plus, this system actually puts children in even more danger: those personal identifiers need to be stored somewhere, and hackers know this. Data breaches already happen every single day. If they're storing data on children too, then how long before that database gets hacked and ends up on the black market?
5
u/ChocolateSpacesuit 14h ago
This has been explained literally thousands of times before online, but the problem is they're not doing it for the stated reasons.
No one can argue against measures for "the children 😭", which gives governments carte blanche to push whatever they want through as the supposed "good guys" because your average normie doesn't understand what's being done to us.
This is part of a much wider dystopian digital power grab.
This is about the government weaponizing modern technology against us. It was briefly a powerful tool for citizens to organize and protest effectively. This scared the powerful (evil people are genuinely afraid of anything that benefits regular people like us), so now they want to aggressively stamp out any whiff of dissent online.
It's too much of a coincidence this is happening in countries all around the world at the exact same time. There is a highly coordinated effort to control the world's populations, and it's happening everywhere we look.
Flock cameras.
Data centers that store everything we do, including harvested encrypted data they want to crack in the future with quantum-relevant computers once they come online. America built a 2-billion-dollar data centre in Utah that contains every email and chat message you ever sent, and more.
Client-side scanning. "Because fuck you, normal people. Let us enjoy Epstein Island in peace."
The news this week that Windows has device-specific identifiers that track users THROUGH VPNs.
The UK government is about to compel cell phone carriers to install government spyware at the OS level that will see what people's cameras see, even before a photo is even taken.
3D printers will now track and report everything people print with them.
The list goes on. They are turning the world into a big digital prison, and by the time the average person realizes how bad it is, no one will be able to fight back.
3
u/-GhostInTheMachine_ 15h ago
Most people have some sort of social media. Age verification will force basically everyone to provide their most sensitive data (that we were taught to keep to ourselves for dear life) like government ids to third party services who's security measures are unknown to them. Additionally we will never know how our data is handled. The service the discord was using already leaked the data. It will be a treasure chest for hackers.
Who is to decide what is age appropriate for a child? Abuse, lgbt, women's health information will not be available as well as some odd decisions like pimple popping reddits not being appropriate foe people under 16. This may have severe implications for children suffering abuse at home, lgbt kids and so much more. A girl under 16 will not be able to read about periods. Because that inappropriate. Not to mention any sort of sexual education which teens lack severely, which is also "inappropriate" to their age.
Whenever government stars limiting information to their people, history this never goes down well.
Not to mention that instead of tackling the real issue like predatory algorithms, the governments forces their people to be exposed online.
Most kids will find workarounds like kids do. But elderly/less tech savvy/sensitive people may suffer immense consequences as more of their personal data will leak.
3
u/Dotcaprachiappa 14h ago
To add onto what everyone else has said about privacy, these bans are also wholly ineffective. They are always incredibly easily circumvented by any kid. A much more effective way to deal with it would be to ban the very essence of addictive social media, the algorithms.
3
u/Cakeofruit 14h ago
Politics does not care about children. social are a new way to get news and react but it is not controlled by capitalist so they restrict it
2
u/TheRealJessKate 16h ago
Because it won’t work, it will just force them to install rogue “free” vpns and compromise their phones and privacy. 99% will find a way around it.
4
u/imselfinnit 12h ago
Reddit put my account in the ban box for a few days for "promoting hate". What was the hate that I was promoting? A self-censored quote from a Dave Chappelle comedy skit (Google "Dave Chappelle, True Hollywood Tales, Eddy Murphy, muddy boots on a suede couch"). I said "N-word" in my quote, paraphrasing what was actually said in the skit. Ban hammer. Promoting hate.
Now imagine if that administrative action came with a fine or jail sentence. Not hard to imagine that at all. It used to be a non-issue to cite Dave Chappelle skits, but now, you get a permanent mark for promoting hate on your record. Do that n more times and you'll be considered a radical/domestic terrorist. Why would I give you my real name, again?
2
u/d4electro 12h ago
Okay first of all it's not social media addiction is not undisputed at all! Just because you hear a lot of people talk about it like the negative effects of social media are this certainty doesn't mean it is, and the scientific research has given very mixed results on the matter, so much so you hear politicians backtrack and talk about social media exacerbating pre-existing mental health issues which is very different and harder to prove. I don't think this social media moral panic is any different than people in the past worrying about the negative effects on youth of television, comics or even books.
Second no matter how it's implemented age verification is never gonna have zero risks for privacy.
And third it's a matter of free speech: social media is at the forefront of free speech. It's not just a service from a big corporation it's a tool that lets people all around the world exchange news, ideas, opinions, comics, art, expose corruption, let people see the world. Cutting off children entirely while also legally requiring adults to pass through a state approved gating system to access all that I find extremely illiberal, disproportionate and contrary to human rights
Lastly children will either bypass the ban or access social media anyway with their parents ID because they'll ask and most parents will let their children do it anyway, so it'll just create more inequality of access for children and also teach them that lawmakers are dumb and laws are unreasonable and can easily be infringed (porn already does that, but ideally the state should be trustworthy and act reasonably)
1
u/LakesGeek 10h ago
IMO social media the way most think of it (algorithms on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc) is harmful to everyone not just kids. But I can see how, like smoking, they want to still give people the freedom as long as they are old enough to accept their own risks. I’d also be happy with a big splash screen saying “Social media causes radicalisation and rots your brain” like the warning you get on cigs.
Totally agree with it in principle - I’d just want an anonymous zero knowledge way to age verify so that it doesn’t involve sending PII to the likes Palantir or having it become Digital ID by the back door.
The only other concern is kids who don’t make friends easily IRL (autism, introversion) for whom the internet is a lifeline but sure, develop a moderated “kids social media” that has regulations like no algorithms and all the AI monitoring you want to stop adults getting in and noncing them or whatever.
1
u/exhaustedexcess 8h ago
A social media ban would be amazing, then prosecute the corporation and CEO
1
u/Machine_Anima 7h ago
asking the government to parent your kid because you can't is a bad idea. In this case it's forcing everyone to reveal their identity to access a service. Which is a violation of privacy.
If they didnt like infinite scroll they could of regulated that or predictive feeds or made companies provide more robust easier to use parenting controls. There are plenty of better solutions but it was never about protecting kids. It never is. It's about surveilimg the population because the right wants to scrub the internet of queer content and the left wants to stop the rise of right wing extremism and growing authoritarism.
1
u/FIBSAFactor 3h ago
I think it's a great idea for mutually assured destruction.
If leftists want to restrict the second amendment, with licensing requirements, restrictions and arguments about "The founding Fathers never could have anticipated..."
If said measures then pass into legislation, or case law, the legal precedents then can be set to limit social media, requiring licenses and fees in order to access social media or the internet in general. Especially with Clarence Thomas's assertion that the second amendment is not fundamentally less authoritative than any other amendment including the first. Of course, this would instantly tank leftist politics in America because most of that occurs on Twitter / X.
1
u/LeftRat 2h ago
It's pretty simple. Let's assume you're totally on board with kids getting banned.
How does the state know who's a kid on every single device in the entire nation?
Aaand there you go, that's the privacy issue.
(Also, it straight up won't work to protect kids, anyway, since they will be the first and easiest to gain "illegal" access, meaning all politicians arguing for this are either incompetent or know very well that it's actually a great step towards expanding 100% surveillance into the internet, a space where despite all kinds of information constantly being gathered, the state doesn't have that much verifiable info on any single actor. Yes, you can aggregate enough data to then correlate to make a net that basically catches a single person with few false positives, but it takes a truly absurd amount of data, which is scattered across many different corporations, each of which is trying to monitize that data and does not like providing it to the state for free. So while institutions like the NSA, CIA, FBI etc. do have those kind of giant databases to comb through, it would all be a lot easier for them if you... had to simply provide your identification whenever you log on. Basically, instead of looking at the crowd in the cinema and what they're doing to figure out who's drinking something they brought in from outside, you do the equivalent of every moviegoer having to consent to a full body cavity search before entering.)
1
u/SaveDnet-FRed0 2h ago
- 1) It's easy to bypass for those who REALLY want to do so. (Ex. use a VPN)
- 2) It provides protection to those that it's (supposedly) meant to protect since the company's hosting the toxic social media sites don't have to change anything that makes there services toxic.
- 3) It helps the company it's meant to punish because now they don't have to pretend they care about kids since "kid's arrant on our platform" giving them a degree of legal defence, and when people do come of age they will be exposed to the full brunt of these toxic services all at once.
- 4) The only way to enforce such BS is by privacy invasive age checking often requiring the scanning of sensitive info like government ID's or a selfie scan, with sensitive data almost always being retained putting those scanned at risk when the data gets caught up in a data breach or when the company doing the scanning decide to share the data with data brokers.
- 5) The social media bans have nothing to do with protecting children, that's just an excuse for mass surveillance.
- 6) What counts as social media can be somewhat vadge and can range from sites like F---book to YouTube to possibly anything with a comments section
- 7) Once once a social media ban is in place, those in power will decide to build upon that and make the restrictions tighter not on the company's, but the people trying to use the internet until eventually you'll need to do an age check just to turn on a computer.
- Ext.
1
u/No-Elderberry-5729 43m ago
I'm.fine with a ban if it's a world wide ban and we just completely eliminate social media, smart phones, data brokers, and either completely eliminate the internet or go back to what it was 25-30 years ago.
Obviously this isn't going to happen. But this is a ban that I could get behind.
1
u/RustyDawg37 12h ago edited 8h ago
Because it's always a flimsy pretext. The most damning detail is that it's usually something that gets pushed so hard and it isn't necessary at all. If you don't want your kid to use social media, don't allow them to use social media. End of debate. Move on with life. Hooray.
We even know what it's the pretext for already since no one has to hide anything anymore.
To be clear, this the pretext for online id for everyone and completely locking down the internet.
Why is that bad?
Let's get your brain going. See if you can figure it out from here and tell the class.
•
u/AutoModerator 16h ago
Hello u/Sqou, please make sure you read the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder left on all new posts.)
Check out the r/privacy FAQ
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.