Re: Banning Social Media For Under-16s

On Sun, 18 May 2025 00:04:36 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

On Sat, 17 May 2025 14:55:17 -0400 (EDT), Scott Dorsey wrote:
>

Which is why online controls won't work, because they won't have support
of many parents...

>
It is a given, is it not, that those below a certain age are not of
sufficient maturity to make certain decisions for themselves. That’s why
our species has the concept of “parents” and “parenting” at all. Only
nowadays, society has become so complex that the parents of a child
cannot, on their own, supply sufficient guidance and care to ensure the
child grows up the right way. That’s why we have schools and
schoolteachers, for one thing.
>
As the saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child”. And as Marshall
McLuhan pointed out, that “village” is nowadays well and truly global.
>

When I was 16 I snuck into movie theatres to watch x-rated movies, which
is probably more harmful than watching them on one's phone and certainly
requires far more effort.

>
And therefore you did it less. That’s the difference.
>

The only solution is to actually educate kids about sex ...

>
Some right-wingers have religious objections to that though, don’t they?

They have an objection to reducing profit - even for overseas
operators. One answer is to make them liable for harassment and not
picking up predators - that sadly means we will see that behaviour
continuing, but a fine would give a bigger incentive to stop predatory
behaviour early. They also arrange their affairs to minimise taxation
- a higher rate of GST for social media would help . . .