• Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
    7·
    15 hours ago

    To a large degree, yes, but blanket bans on social media use for minors will fail for multiple reasons.

    1. This has already been the case in Australia, and the latest numbers indicate that a vast majority of youth still access social media via black/grey market account purchasing, VPNs, and other methods.
    2. The ban doesn’t include some popular platforms like Telegram, which arguably provide a more risky experience, due to it being a popular platform for criminal activities.
    3. Taking away a huge swath of social platforms from kids without providing any constructive or healthy alternatives will mainly encourage destructive behaviors.
    • Meatwagon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Point 3:

      Adults have been making the outside more and more hostile for kids. There’s no more third spaces. So like you said, they’re removing a third space with nothing to replace it with.

    • yes_this_time@lemmy.world
      1·
      7 hours ago

      I wonder how much more effective the Australian ban will be when peer countries follow suite and erodes network effect.

      • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
        5·
        14 hours ago

        Very true, but that may make things worse down the line. Once they realize that kids are circumventing their restrictions, they won’t think, “Hmm, maybe a blanket ban of social media for minors wasn’t a great idea.” They’re just going to double down and say that there needs to be more hardcore restrictions on all internet/computer activity. More sensorship, more data harvesting, mandatory governement spyware in all devices.

        Essentially the Great Firewall in China. Many governments have already expressed interest in modeling national internet access after China.