Ban the hardware, not the software.
<tangent>And then we look at AI and think "surely this time it will be different"</tangent>
Technology is in most of the cases not bad, and their use can enrich lives.
For example, in many countries that legalized Marijuana the number of addicts did not significantly rose. Further the police now have even less to do, as they do not need to control these people if they are taking this drug.
Furthermore, the supply chain isn't comparable to drugs: you cannot illegally import facebook, and you cannot make a ton of money out of it.
And legalization, i.e. the status quo, just keeps the problems too.
It's a bad metaphor.
BTW, I explicitly mentioned fentanyl. It is regulated. And we all know what happens when you release it for free. Now that I think about it, you didn't reply to the argument at all. You just mention war on drugs, then shift to marijuana in a kind of gotcha style and hope no-one notices.
If you prefer living without a smartphone its completly up to you and I would always stand for your right to not have one, but on the other side I am also standing for the right to have one if someone desires one.
That's a somewhat loaded question, I'll assume you're not (correct me if I'm wrong) and move on to the question of should 12 year olds have smartphones and if so how should they limit access to porn and graphic violence when used by 12 year olds?
Please don't fob this off by requiring that all parents should have CS degrees or IT qualifications, that's not a thing.
What if I were in the UK and supported the UK's zombie knife bans and general principle of police right to stop and question people carry knives?
You seem to be making assumptions here.
In countries like the US the first Season of The Walking Dead was aired with an age rating of TV-14. At the same time the same in Germany this season was rated with an Rating of 18 (Germany uses 0,6,12,18 as ages for rating). So I am somewhat puzzled. Similar when a movie shows a pair of boobs or at least implies some sexual elements the US tend to rate the movie often with their MA-rating. However, in Germany thats different. It seems we have different children in both countries. As the ones in the US are more okay with violence and it does not affect them, where the childs in Germany are more okay with sexual elements.
This was just an example how stupid many rating systems are, their are very dependent on the country and the society you live in. So there is no inherent universalism to what a 12 or a 14 or a 16 year old should see or not.
My point, and I tried to argue this multiple times in this post, is that a goverment should not simply impose more and more bans and restrictions. This seems like the easy way out, but has always drawbacks. One is already described in the article, namely that the parents already start loosing awareness that the internet might be a dangerous place. Since they think: Yeah, there is a ban so its solved!
We should rather give the parents the time such that they can communicate often enough with their child to understand what problems its facing. In what kind of world the child lives and what they are consuming. If both parents are working 40 hours+ each week, they are not able to do this. Someone also mentioned in this thread "why is obesity not first fixed.", it might be a different issue, but the solution is the same. More time for parents mean that they can cook more healthy meals and do not rely on garbage food because they are stressed out.
Fair point. I'd argue that a government should work to the benefit of that governments employers, aka its citizens.
eg: In the instance where parent citizens want more control over phones that flood in from outside, particularly when
> both parents are working 40 hours+ each week, [and] they are not able to do this
for themselves.
I can see the appeal of a UBI income and a minimum wage guaranteed to support parents and families on 20 hours of work per week but that doesn't seem to be as immediate and practical a solution as, for example, a government requiring foreign actors to adhere to certain standards, or requiring foreign hardware suppliers to issue child safe smart phones, or opening a tender for functional parental control software for phones, etc.
Especially that once rights are taken they are much harder to get back.
> Especially that once rights are taken they are much harder to get back.
American?
I'm Australian and more inclined toward keeping a foot on the neck of government and on task with what the citizens appear to want.
The current lot aren't doing a great job on limiting child access so far, but the situation is evolving.
Should it get to the point where I feel I have to take up arms and go and shoot the people we elected I'd see that as a failure on our part.
Nope, German. Would I be American I would probably phantasize of taking up arms to overthrow the dictatorship, without the realization that I probably just would die since the military is much better equipped than me.
We have a hybrid UK / US "Washminister" system with mandatory voting, obligatory BBQ's, proportional voting and relative isolation.
That isolation is now being punctured and we're seeing unpopular parties that tank whenever they're asked questions in public suddenly get a boost from being "social media" only and trading on "algorithmic" boosts courtesy of unpopular billionaire backers.
That one is more of a pressing issue, albeit related, than parental control of media access.
However, now we are talking about something different and this is also something I can support much more. Algorithmic boosts and these slot machine like systems are a problem, which I highly agree. Then a ban of all of these systems would be something you would rather advocate then advocate for selective bans. For example, yeah social media can continue to exist but only a very simple algorithm can be used where a user can subscribe to topics he/she chooses. No recommendation, no trending stuff.
My apologies, I was unaware that Germany had a Washminister system with mandatory proportional voting.
> I would appreciate if you would not treat me as if I don't know anything about democracy.
My assumption was that the implementation of democracy varies by country. It was foolish of me not to know that you know everything about every democratic system on the planet and I apologise again for that.
> for example crime rates are dropping for years but people feel unsafer because of higher media coverage.
Well, some people do feel that here, for sure, although it hardly feels like a majority; is that a universal feeling in Germany, that Germans are stupid and easily led by media?
> For example, yeah social media can continue to exist but only a very simple algorithm can be used
The issue there is belling the cat - who are we, in Germany and Australia, to tell a US billionaire such as Musk or Zuckerberg what it is that they must do?
>Might be a bit different system, but
I specifically said that we have different systems. However, the overall process does not differ so significantly that we would not be able to vote people out of power if we want to, which was your original point where you argued about systems.
>that Germans are stupid and easily led by media?
Not everyone, but enough are such that similar to the americans we start to vote for right-wing politicans which promise much, but will not solve the problems. From what I heard you Australians have the same issue with "One Nation".
>who are we, in Germany and Australia, to tell a US billionaire
For what are we having a goverment if they are not impose laws that are binding for companies? A US Billionaire can do whatever they want in a country as long as its legal. The EU recently ruled that Google has to pay 1 billion since they seem to favor their own apps and thus creating a monopoly. In the end Google will comply as the EU market is large enough.
> Australians have the same issue with "One Nation".
Hell yeah - they had no real public traction other than a proportional representation in government (enough to show up as a body, not enough to carry any real weight in big decisions) until external agents of chaos decided to boost them via social media for the fracture value (divide, conquer).
The EU has economic weight on par with the US, neither Australia nor Germany alone have that.
Mayhap we should pull a political Eurovision* and join the EU to fill that UK shaped void?
I agree that a US Billionaire can do whatever they want in a country as long as its legal, unfortunately that includes drawing things out for a very long time, folding and reforming under another business name, etc.
Making laws stick for those with the resources to dodge is akin to nailing jelly to the wall.
Returning to thread topic, Australia's social media teen and preteen ban, that's got a long way to go before it sticks, if at all - it's a law that asks US billionaires to not treat children as future product to be groomed and exploited.
As a citizen I'm more than open to other approaches.
* Australia | Grand Final | Eurovision 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo5H62mCIsg
Agreed.
One thing I like to ask ... compared to EU and Germany Australia has already a very strict (from our point of view) system for immigration. What is then the point of One Nation? Since you are already so demanding in what a foreign has to bring with them, like education, money, not being to old. What else do they really want?
Australia and Germany itself are not a match to the US or China. This is why we have to unite to larger organisations like the EU. And from my perspective Australia SHOULD fill the UK void. I liked the Australians always more than the British ;).
The next problems about the billionaire's is that they lobby very long and institutions are very slow. For example this Google Lawsuit took over 10 years ... we can not wait this long when we are talking about controlling social media. Yeah I think in general we agree on the overall topic, but have a bit different ideas how to achieve it.
1. a "small" device that a person can use while moving
2. cheap/free internet access (wifi and/or mobile data)
3. high fidelity display with high refresh rate
4. a camera (I would probably group this together with 3)
Disabling 2 or 3 of those would short circuit the delivery mechanism of the "opioid" while still allowing the device to fulfill its more "useful" purposes.
Examples:
- A small internet device without a hi-res display _and_ a camera is still useful for "knowledge at your fingertips", communication, navigation, payments, etc.
- A device with a hi-res display, with a camera, with internet access, but not "small" is either a laptop or a tablet. That breaks the mechanism of one-half of social media addiction, which is the capability to instantly create and upload content right on the spot. (Although I would argue a tablet will still have that problem)
- A camera that doesn't have internet access can still allow a user to record events, but uploading the content will have to be delayed to a later time. A fair trade-off in my opinion.
And this is all possible with current hardware, by extending Parental Controls to disable the camera, and/or internet access, and/or handicapping the beautiful crown jewel displays.