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Comment by system16 | Hacker News Reader

Replace TikTok with food, porn, or drugs. At some point the individual has to take responsibility for their actions and seek support if it's something they can't do on their own. Or we just ban everything.

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I'm not sure what your point is, we do ban some of these (with various successes and failures), so why wouldn't we do the same for social media?

Yes we shouldn't ban everything, but there's a large spectrum of acceptable regulations with different tradeoffs and it's fine to discuss what your society wants in that regard instead of precluding any kind of regulation.

TikTok is not as harmful as drugs (at least I haven't seen anyone end up on skid row over watching too many dancing videos). So if it's to be regulated it would likely be similar to porn or gambling and be age restricted.

OP is clearly an adult capable of making their own decisions, so this regulation wouldn't help them.

So what is your point?

In many countries gambling regulations go beyond age restrictions and companies evolving in that space have to provide safeguards to prevent certain behaviors. I don't think it's far-fetched to imagine similar regulations for things like social media, at least it's a real possibility that exists before simply banning everything.

There is such a thing as shared responsibility. An individual smoker is responsible for quitting; Phillip Morris is responsible for making a harmful and addictive product. In the case of social media, individuals are responsible for how they use them, but Facebook/Tiktok/Twitter are also responsible for building apps that encourage overuse.

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