I think we should ban all users until they provide 10 photos of their face from different angles and lighting. Passport and birth certificates and a lawyer letter confirming it’s really you trying to sign up under the username: LexiMax

Then all this will be synced with govs so can read all your messages. And sell to ad companies to spam you later. (They can link your phone number, email etc to you as you provided real id on all those).

And if you travel to some country that doesn’t approve what you ever said, maybe you broke their law, so you deserve a few years in prison.

And oxygen is also a poison. I don't know what's wrong with HN, but the moment there's _any_ basis for comparison, so many people here are extremely confident that there's no difference between the two things. I'm sure it's an earnestly-held belief, but it's maddening and simply incorrect.

Further, if in some contrived scenario we had to lose HN to get rid of all social media, I'd happily do it.

No, because banning social media at large probably isn't the right answer. It's certain interaction patterns that cause harm. That can be pushed back against either technologically (ex chronological feeds) or culturally (ie via moderation).

There's no perfect solution but some are significantly better than others.

Having an account should probably be restricted to adults only. But it's such a low priority target compared to the other platforms.