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Comment by specproc | Hacker News Reader

What it has to do with social media bans, is that the incident was propagated on social media. The author is arguing that the ability to shame others on the internet, should not be restricted to the old and powerful.

In answer to your first question, what do we do. We regulate the platforms, not the users.

There are loads of things that can be done to reduce online harm, that don't just say "OK, you're over this age, you can experience online harm now".

Platforms can become legally responsible for content, they can be compelled to be transparent about their feed algorithms, enable monitoring via public APIs. We can ban infinite scroll. There are so many policy levers that can be pulled, without getting the ban-hammer out for people of an arbitrary age, and without forcing the rest of us to hand over our IDs to platforms.

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Well your ability and areas you can shame people might be limited until you're of age.

I'm not asking "what do we do" but that plenty of people write articles poking holes in current policy or suggested future policy, but lack providing a potential solution.

The author is highlighting an ugly contradiction in a policy that is being rolled out across the anglophone world as we speak. I see plenty less-substantive think pieces on this site, I don't feel it's necessary for every blog post to be accompanied by policy recommendations.

I pulled a few alternatives out there. What's your take?

I still don't see the ugly contradiction. The guy was caught and shunned by the general public regarding their actions, the guy could've used a video camera and it would be no different. Again, just because a group of adults have used a piece of technology incorrectly, doesn't mean the identified risks of those devices for young people people are any different. Just because there are drunks walking around committing offences doesn't mean we should allow underage people drinking.

From my perspective I think we do need to ask social media companies to reduce algorithmic feeds that create echo chambers or as you say provide transparent metrics on this. Social media companies should potentially ban infinite scroll/short form video content, however this is going to be difficult to do if its based on age as it will fall back to the ID/age verification issues.

Feeds should also not show content considered R18+ unless manually hidden, this shouldn't be able to be removed. There is some horrifying content that can pop up on these platforms that young people shouldn't see unsolicited.

Interesting framing in "we should ask" and "social media companies should ban". We have sovereign states that make laws, companies must comply with them if they wish to make money in our markets.

Otherwise, I think my perspective here is very similar. I'd personally emphasise legal publisher responsibility, a repeal of Section 230 in American.

By absolving social media platforms of legal responsibility for the content they publish, we've allowed some very unpleasant scenes to flourish in the most mainstream of places.

Well with you on the issues of addictive design. I'd throw in data harvesting, sketchy advertising, and increasingly platform- level political bias.

Age restrictions simply increase the age at which users are exposed to harms, rather than addressing those harms themselves.

These platforms have become staggeringly wealthy and powerful, it is them what needs to be controlled, not kids.

Section 230 is very important for all website operators. It doesn't just protect big companies. If you repeal it, now you're making every blog owner responsible for whatever some idiot says in the comments section.

As noted elsewhere in this thread, scale is important: I think it's entirely reasonable to have different rules for platforms with millions of users.

The real problem Section 230 was built to solve was the prevent email companies and places like Flickr being burned down by the feds for all the child porn in inevitably ends up holding.

Section 230 is not what allows Facebook to push lies.

Eliminating section 230 will fix the problem though, by banning all user generated content from the internet forever. No more SaaS in general.

That's worth discussing, but you recommended a repeal.

To me Section 230

    No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

seems less justifiable as an excuse for platforms that consist primarily of externally created content, have very large amounts of varied content, and select and target specific subsets of that content to present to specific users. It would seem more justifiable if it were random, or not individualized, or chronological.

Aye, it's the curation, innit. If the platform is making opaque decisions on what you see, then it should be accountable for what it's showing you.

I think scale is important here too. If you've got a user-base that's an appreciable proportion of a country's population, you're a utility. My energy supplier has a tiny fraction of the customers of say, Meta, and is subject to considerably stronger oversight.

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