Der Fall, Kinder aus sozialen Medien zu verbannen, mit Jonathan Haidt | Frontbrenner | CBC-Podcasts
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/16197232-the-case-to-ban-kids-from-social-media-with-jonathan-haidt
Der Fall, Kinder aus sozialen Medien zu verbannen, mit Jonathan Haidt | Frontbrenner | CBC-Podcasts
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/16197232-the-case-to-ban-kids-from-social-media-with-jonathan-haidt
10 Kommentare
I’d love to just disable social media for the entire population across the board, not just for kids- it’s become a blight and is feeding the polarization we’re seeing.
I’m on board with a ban but will it work when they can circumvent it? Will we attach some sort of consequences to social media sites that are lax? Can a social media site run out of a country that doesn’t respect the laws to avoid being scrutinized? I think there is a lot to think about in the logistics of it.
It would be a simply TRIVIAL to program a setting into a phone that stopped the downloading or installing of official social media apps with a parental lock.
That’d take care of 99% of everything.
It’s a no brainer if it can be done.
I’d rather hand my 3 year old a pack of cigs then a phone in some respects. (Not even sure if I’m exaggerating for comic affect here.)
I really wish Jonathan Haidt wasn’t always the messenger on stuff like this. He’s treated as the go-to expert because he wrote *The Anxious Generation*, but that book has a **lot** of flaws.
Strongly recommend the [If Books Could Kill](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/episodes/15546366-the-anxious-generation) episode on it as a companion piece to any engagement with Haidt’s arguments.
The problem with social media isn’t that it is a space for adults and kids keep trying to brute force their way in. It’s that the very essence of modern social media is to create „personalized“ experiences based on massive data harvesting and collapse of public trust, such that the only information people seek to consume is what has been curated by algorithms, „enhanced“ with generative AI then further modified depending on the specific political agendas of the owners. If anything, adults themselves have long proven to be far more susceptible to the harms of the technology.
When Grok lets people make and publish non-consensual deepfakes or CSAM through Twitter, it’s because Musk fucking wants it to be like that. Not because those darned kids just won’t stop trying to make Fortnite porn with an otherwise agnostic technology. Most of the harms come from deliberate boardroom choices.
How about actually holding the corporations accountable instead? If Twitter handholds pedophiles while they spread their vile content, charge them with CSAM distribution. If Meta does a „whoopsie I guess we just let any fuckso harvest and sell your personal information“, give them fines that make them regret it. Since social media companies are not only allowing AI slop to pass for real information but are the originators of said slop, create an alternative platform so no one has to use those sites to seek out actual information. If kids accessing social media is the problem, then create a national digital ID system instead of letting the same people who WANT to let kids in define who is a „kid“ in their platform.
Stop fucking passing the puck to the people perpetrating the harm to somehow regulate said harm themselves.
Im not gonna pretend Im well-versed enough on technology to know which specific policy could be most effective or not, but at this point it’s clear that something needs to be done. Between the deluge of bots/troll farms, algorithms, generative AI, etc, it feels like the internet has been increasingly co-opted by bad-faith actors and I genuinely do not think that a healthy democracy can meaningfully exist if this is the dominant environment of modern discourse.
I don’t necessarily think it’s just a youth-specific issue either. Obviously social media can impact developing brains a lot more starkly, but even if we somehow could successfully implement an under-18 ban, then what about the vast swathe of adults who’ve been similarly brainwashed? Its a tricky subject and while I understand theres a lot of hesitancy towards any government policy perceived as censorship, allowing the status quo to continue as it currently exists is a non-starter for me.
Back in my day Geocites didn’t have no darn tooting algorithms to manipulate me. I also walked uphill 8 miles both way in 3 feet of snow everyday to get to school. A pop, a bag of chips, and a chocolate bar cost only 25 cents.
As long as those bans are not going to require me to provide my passport to hairyhobbitfeet.com. Even though they have very professional layout and quality articles, I don’t trust them with information that can be used to finance a car.
I don’t know a ton about the studies backing the push to ban social media, but I have to be honest it feels like a good idea.
The only argument against it that holds any water (as far as I’ve seen) is the extra data that needs to be collected. I don’t trust these companies (one of the reasons they need to be regulated) and I don’t want my data out there.
But sooner or later, we’re going to need to reckon with our data and privacy. Just kicking the can by not regulating companies is not going to work, and every year we’re all going to be more and more exposed. We need to protect ourselves.
And arguments like: „you use reddit!“, „let the parents decide“, „kids will find workarounds“, just don’t work. The weakness of the counterarguments honestly feels like an argument to do it.