They recently did this in Australia. The method just doesn’t work. Most kids weren’t banned at all, other kids figured ways around authentication, and the ones that were banned just use their family accounts or use the services logged out.
What makes it worse is that kids who now access the services by getting around the ban are being exposed to content aimed at adults like gambling adverts.
I’m not opposed to the concept, but the fact is that there is no realistic way to enforce it. It’s an impossible ban but they attempted it anyway by putting the onus on the companies that have no interest in the ban.
There’s too many articles appearing in papers here in the UK praising the social media ban in Australia but absolutely none giving any opposing view. It’s genuinely concerning. The establishment here seems hell bent on copying Australia ignoring the absolute disaster that was the online safety act or that teenagers can and will find ways to circumvent this or the fact that teenagers use social media to socialise because guess what, we’ve made it even harder for them to socialise IRL.
It doesn’t need to work completely. It just sets a precedent that makes it easier to follow as a parent. If 95% of children have social media (which they do at age 13 in UK) then your hands are tied. You can ban your kid from social media but you’re putting them into that 5% of weird kids, which is unfair and probably more damaging than the social media in the first place.
If a law comes in, and 50% of kids circumvent it, then it doesn’t really matter. It changes the game. It becomes the parent’s call, and the good parents will keep their children off it.
That’s such a poor way to say that you support blanket bans. Even if it worked, this approach has technological and egalitarian problems which are clearly missing from the scope of such laws.
It is important to highlight that we have teens grouped in there not just the children, so infact this kind of law will be doing more harm than good. But even if the law is rooted on ageism and discrimination, it is clear that all age groups are being violated of their human and youth rights.
Technologically, this blanket ban has no real effect, it has been proven that local parental controls for children and maybe for teens is way more effective - leaving the whole internet ageism free. In reality the internet should be safe for everyone rather than a select minority - taking half approaches like this is just an excuse to further segment the already segmented internet.
In addition, politically, these type of laws should be transparent. No matter what its aimed to do, non-transparent laws shall not be trusted. Open democracy was also what is missing from these laws.
I don’t support a blanket ban because there’s no way for that to work. I do support the concept of separating developing minds from predatory media.
How do you do it? I don’t know. It’s easy to say the answer is parental supervision, but if it were that easy it would be an already solved problem.
The way social media works means that by the time you identify predatory behaviour, it’s already too late to prevent it. The way the government has gone about it is ignorant and embarrassing.
Unfortunately not. There are many individuals which are dissapointed due to the failed efforts of the blanket bans, but ultimately stand for them.
Aside from that, this problem is defacto already partially solved. As you said parental supervision - parental controls are proven to be extremely effective at what they do, if they are utilised correctly.
But even so, you are highlighting the need for separation of developing minds even if that statement has no basis on age. If you’re serious about it, then the whole internet should be designed to be safe for everyone.
They recently did this in Australia. The method just doesn’t work. Most kids weren’t banned at all, other kids figured ways around authentication, and the ones that were banned just use their family accounts or use the services logged out.
What makes it worse is that kids who now access the services by getting around the ban are being exposed to content aimed at adults like gambling adverts.
I’m not opposed to the concept, but the fact is that there is no realistic way to enforce it. It’s an impossible ban but they attempted it anyway by putting the onus on the companies that have no interest in the ban.
There’s too many articles appearing in papers here in the UK praising the social media ban in Australia but absolutely none giving any opposing view. It’s genuinely concerning. The establishment here seems hell bent on copying Australia ignoring the absolute disaster that was the online safety act or that teenagers can and will find ways to circumvent this or the fact that teenagers use social media to socialise because guess what, we’ve made it even harder for them to socialise IRL.
It doesn’t need to work completely. It just sets a precedent that makes it easier to follow as a parent. If 95% of children have social media (which they do at age 13 in UK) then your hands are tied. You can ban your kid from social media but you’re putting them into that 5% of weird kids, which is unfair and probably more damaging than the social media in the first place.
If a law comes in, and 50% of kids circumvent it, then it doesn’t really matter. It changes the game. It becomes the parent’s call, and the good parents will keep their children off it.
That’s such a poor way to say that you support blanket bans. Even if it worked, this approach has technological and egalitarian problems which are clearly missing from the scope of such laws.
It is important to highlight that we have teens grouped in there not just the children, so infact this kind of law will be doing more harm than good. But even if the law is rooted on ageism and discrimination, it is clear that all age groups are being violated of their human and youth rights.
Technologically, this blanket ban has no real effect, it has been proven that local parental controls for children and maybe for teens is way more effective - leaving the whole internet ageism free. In reality the internet should be safe for everyone rather than a select minority - taking half approaches like this is just an excuse to further segment the already segmented internet.
In addition, politically, these type of laws should be transparent. No matter what its aimed to do, non-transparent laws shall not be trusted. Open democracy was also what is missing from these laws.
I assumed it was clear what I meant,
I don’t support a blanket ban because there’s no way for that to work. I do support the concept of separating developing minds from predatory media.
How do you do it? I don’t know. It’s easy to say the answer is parental supervision, but if it were that easy it would be an already solved problem.
The way social media works means that by the time you identify predatory behaviour, it’s already too late to prevent it. The way the government has gone about it is ignorant and embarrassing.
Unfortunately not. There are many individuals which are dissapointed due to the failed efforts of the blanket bans, but ultimately stand for them.
Aside from that, this problem is defacto already partially solved. As you said parental supervision - parental controls are proven to be extremely effective at what they do, if they are utilised correctly.
But even so, you are highlighting the need for separation of developing minds even if that statement has no basis on age. If you’re serious about it, then the whole internet should be designed to be safe for everyone.