<story><title>Lawmakers Ask Zuck to Drop &apos;Instagram for Kids&apos; Since App Made Kids Suicidal</title><url>https://gizmodo.com/lawmakers-ask-zuckerberg-to-drop-instagram-for-kids-aft-1847683217</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>&amp;gt; As others have pointed out, we don&amp;#x27;t need to &amp;#x27;ask&amp;#x27;, we need to legislate.&lt;p&gt;Legislate what, specifically? I always see calls for more legislation around social media, but I rarely see any actionable suggestions.&lt;p&gt;Frankly, I’m kind of shocked at the degree that tech communities are rushing for legislation on this topic. When I was growing up I remember the big issue being violence in video games. Politicians went on crusades to demonize video games and demand that we pass legislation to protect the kids from any exposure to violent video games, lest the video games turn them into school shooters.&lt;p&gt;With video games, the online tech communities rallied against any legislation and wrote volumes about how kids were smart enough to manage themselves and not let violent video games influence their thinking. With social media, tech communities are doing the opposite: Writing volumes about how kids are incapable of managing themselves and will succumb to social media destroying their mental health.&lt;p&gt;The major difference between the two is that tech people (on average) like video games but they don’t like social media. So video games get a pass, but social media must be attacked with everything we’ve got. The secondary subtext buried in most of these articles is that young girls, specifically, are most vulnerable to social media issues, whereas violent video games were largely an issue for young boys. Apparently we’re okay letting young boys handle difficult content but we don’t give the same credit to young girls. The more I watch all of this play out, the more hypocritical it all feels.&lt;p&gt;I also suspect that if anti-social-media politicians see success that we’ll see a revival of the anti-violent-game politicians. After all, we need to regulate what the kids consume, right?</text></item><item><author>c54</author><text>Here in the US we think that freedom from government oversight is the only kind of freedom. We make the mistake thinking this means that the free market is actually the antidote to government, and as long as we have the free market we will be free.&lt;p&gt;In reality, companies operating within a market is perfectly capable of imposing intrusive and arbitrary power on citizens, and collective action &amp;#x2F; government intervention is needed in order to protect our freedoms.&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, we don&amp;#x27;t need to &amp;#x27;ask&amp;#x27;, we need to legislate.&lt;p&gt;Congress will have a hard time passing legislation against this not only because of the filibuster (which encourages minority rule), but because of this fundamental confusion. Why would a Senator or Congressperson who believes only in the first type of free market freedom and is blind to the second type of freedom make moves against a corporation?&lt;p&gt;Anyways I just started reading this great book called Freedom From the Market, points are 100% lifted from there:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thenewpress.com&amp;#x2F;books&amp;#x2F;freedom-from-market&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thenewpress.com&amp;#x2F;books&amp;#x2F;freedom-from-market&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gchamonlive</author><text>&amp;gt; With video games, the online tech communities rallied against any legislation and wrote volumes about how kids were smart enough to manage themselves and not let violent video games influence their thinking.&lt;p&gt;Because there is no evidence for this. In cases where there is, like in lootboxes, we see a push for legislation.&lt;p&gt;We have enough evidence to at least build correlation between social media use and decline of mental health. This doesn&amp;#x27;t call for banning or legislating the business to oblivion, but for talks in the society. We need to talk about social media use, our representatives have to discuss measures with the scientific community and promote research so that they can legislate based on data.&lt;p&gt;One thing is for certain, what we have now is unacceptable. What we will build in the future is up for debate and should be debated.</text></comment>
<story><title>Lawmakers Ask Zuck to Drop &apos;Instagram for Kids&apos; Since App Made Kids Suicidal</title><url>https://gizmodo.com/lawmakers-ask-zuckerberg-to-drop-instagram-for-kids-aft-1847683217</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>&amp;gt; As others have pointed out, we don&amp;#x27;t need to &amp;#x27;ask&amp;#x27;, we need to legislate.&lt;p&gt;Legislate what, specifically? I always see calls for more legislation around social media, but I rarely see any actionable suggestions.&lt;p&gt;Frankly, I’m kind of shocked at the degree that tech communities are rushing for legislation on this topic. When I was growing up I remember the big issue being violence in video games. Politicians went on crusades to demonize video games and demand that we pass legislation to protect the kids from any exposure to violent video games, lest the video games turn them into school shooters.&lt;p&gt;With video games, the online tech communities rallied against any legislation and wrote volumes about how kids were smart enough to manage themselves and not let violent video games influence their thinking. With social media, tech communities are doing the opposite: Writing volumes about how kids are incapable of managing themselves and will succumb to social media destroying their mental health.&lt;p&gt;The major difference between the two is that tech people (on average) like video games but they don’t like social media. So video games get a pass, but social media must be attacked with everything we’ve got. The secondary subtext buried in most of these articles is that young girls, specifically, are most vulnerable to social media issues, whereas violent video games were largely an issue for young boys. Apparently we’re okay letting young boys handle difficult content but we don’t give the same credit to young girls. The more I watch all of this play out, the more hypocritical it all feels.&lt;p&gt;I also suspect that if anti-social-media politicians see success that we’ll see a revival of the anti-violent-game politicians. After all, we need to regulate what the kids consume, right?</text></item><item><author>c54</author><text>Here in the US we think that freedom from government oversight is the only kind of freedom. We make the mistake thinking this means that the free market is actually the antidote to government, and as long as we have the free market we will be free.&lt;p&gt;In reality, companies operating within a market is perfectly capable of imposing intrusive and arbitrary power on citizens, and collective action &amp;#x2F; government intervention is needed in order to protect our freedoms.&lt;p&gt;As others have pointed out, we don&amp;#x27;t need to &amp;#x27;ask&amp;#x27;, we need to legislate.&lt;p&gt;Congress will have a hard time passing legislation against this not only because of the filibuster (which encourages minority rule), but because of this fundamental confusion. Why would a Senator or Congressperson who believes only in the first type of free market freedom and is blind to the second type of freedom make moves against a corporation?&lt;p&gt;Anyways I just started reading this great book called Freedom From the Market, points are 100% lifted from there:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thenewpress.com&amp;#x2F;books&amp;#x2F;freedom-from-market&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thenewpress.com&amp;#x2F;books&amp;#x2F;freedom-from-market&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>edbaskerville</author><text>End the business model entirely! Make all microtargeted advertising illegal!&lt;p&gt;(I can dream, can’t I?)</text></comment>