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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> There is no evidence it is actually coming from Meta

My personal view that social media should be age gated is caused by Meta. But broadly, polling shows a commanding majority (60+ percent) of Americans believe in restrictions for under 14s.

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Is there broad support for digital ID, age verification, etc? Or is it a broad sentiment that kids shouldn’t be on social media. Everyone I know agrees with latter but almost no one supports the former.

The parent commenter is conflating two things. Your right, there can be broad general sentiment that "kids probably shouldn't on social media, or better framed, social media in it's current iteration isn't healthy for people especially kids" but that doesn't imply people are asking for intrusive surveillance or to be monitored at all times when they are online.

Yes, i was asking which one the polling they were citing was about.

> that doesn't imply people are asking for intrusive surveillance or to be monitored at all times when they are online

There is strong demand for regulation and low awareness of the surveillance consequences. We don’t have anyone advocating for a privacy-preserving solution, not effectively at least. Given the demand for something to be done, each jurisdiction is basically taking from the first available option.

Everyone agrees kids shouldn't be on social media. Some people think this should be done by your phone asking if you're over 18 when you set it up, which is one way to go about it. Some other people hijacked this proposal to make your phone verify if you're over 18 because they want your identification.

And then most people just want a ban. So politicians, working as they often do in a technical vacuum, treat it like the other things we age gate.

There seems to be a growing movement worldwide to restrict social media to under (some teenage range). I understand some of frustration. It comes from the increase in mental health issues with minors… but they are using that as cover to overreach and impose censorship for many. An alternate method is stop social media etc from abusing their users with algorithms favoring “engament”.

It is also convient for people to have a single outside source to blame their and their children's problems on. Rather than admit their poltical and economic policies and cultural expectations might all be a bigger problem.

Two thirds of Americans believe in "setting limits on how much time minors can spend on social media" [1]. Where we have limited polling, a similar fraction support "banning social media use for all kids under 14" [2].

These are policy polls. The sentiment has moved beyond vague notions that kids should be entrusted to Meta less.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/31/81-of-us-...

[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/poll-most-mass-voters-su...

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