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Comment by m000 | Hacker News Reader

I agree that the positive effects of Social Media is understated, and probably on purpose.

Social Media allowed ordinary people to challenge on a global scale the oficially-sanctioned narrative. A generation has already grown with full distrust on what they learn from traditional media.

With that picture, addressing the (undeniable) negative effects of Social Media is only the sales pitch for introducing new legislation. The true goal of the legislation however is not to "save the children", but rather to ensure that the next generations will be obedient and meek.

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> Social Media allowed ordinary people to challenge on a global scale the oficially-sanctioned narrative.

Hasn't been true for a while. Now it grants people with money and state actors unprecedented control over what ordinary people are allowed to see and mold them to desired narratives.

It is still true. People with money and state actors have always had unprecedented control over what ordinary people are allowed to see... before the internet they were the ones controlling all of the corporate media. You don't think the press was molding people to desired narratives back then?

But it's obvious that social media also still allows grassroots action and organization in ways that simply weren't possible under old media. We need to be careful when talking about regulating or banning social media outright that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - we will be losing freedoms when we lose it and centralizing control of media and communication with governments and corporations (even more so than with the big social media silos now.) And freedoms lost aren't easily gained back.

It still cuts both ways. Almost seemingly the entire internet was talking about the Epstein files non stop for months on end. Pre social media that anti establishment narrative wouldn’t have taken hold to nearly the same degree in my opinion. Unfortunately a lot of the discourse was complete nonsense, and misinformation was rife, but it still put the US government under A LOT of pressure, to the point where the AG was fired.

Then again, as I’m writing this, how much of that was due to manipulation and promotion by adversarial powers… almost nothing is truly organic anymore, or at least you can’t tell if it is, and I suppose that’s what you’re getting at.

> almost nothing is truly organic anymore, or at least you can’t tell if it is, and I suppose that’s what you’re getting at

Yes, but over time, even pre-Internet generations have learned to be skeptical of everything watched or read online. Children growing up in this environment will almost certainly adapt and learn to do the same.

So, at best, laws restricting Social Media are a nanny state overreach, and at worst dystopian Big-Brother-style narrative control.

We have witnessed a similar overreach in the distant past with printing-press regulation laws [1]. But at the time, they power structure was different so they could instate an outright ban without hiding behind "think of the children" or the Red Scare.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_166...

Yeah it allowed them to challenge traditional narratives like the earth is not flat and getting the measles vaccine is a good thing.

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