Musk wants to DM children now that he couldn’t go to the epstein partys
Hey man which day/evening is best for me to come down for the illegal sexual activities.
Even Epstein is like “fuck that loser.”
Frankly I think it would be more helpful and a lot simpler to just ban the algorithms.
just ban the whole site. it’s a propaganda delivery system.
He’s really not helping himself after coming out as pedo.
The ban is not about protecting children, but about control, mass surveillance and censorship.
Don’t know why you are downvoting this?
The only right thing he said
Edit: I would set the minimum age at 13/14, as many other countries do. What the hell does 16 mean? You are literally preventing teenagers from organising themselves properly to go out with friends, from spending time on the bus doing nothing, etc.
Stop with this bloody alarmism about ‘social media is too addictive!!!’ Instead, think about banning the stuff that is actually a problem, like doom scrolling.
How so? It’s pretty much a fact now that social media use is extremely addictive and bad for children’s development.
I don’t know what age limit I’d set but Australia set it at 16 which most people seemed to agree with as reasonable.
I would set the minimum age at 13/14, as many other countries do. What the hell does 16 mean? You are literally preventing teenagers from organising themselves properly to go out with friends, from spending time on the bus doing nothing, etc etc.
Stop with this bloody alarmism about ‘social media is too addictive!!!’ Instead, think about banning the stuff that is actually a problem, like doom scrolling
I gotta add this to the original comment so everyone can read also, i’d reply better but another user did the work for me and i agree with them
Idk about 16 and never added my opinion about it as I’m no expert on any of this, I just read the occasional study here and there.
Banning infinite scroll is an interesting idea that I hadn’t heard before and feels like it would help with the addictiveness, but it wouldn’t help for platforms like discord where grooming is a rampant problem.
You know what would help stopping discoes grooming?
- parents actually teaching their child to be safe
- awareness
- better moderation
- a company that is not greedy
Discord has shit ass moderation and they don’t touch servers that have a lot of boosts because they bring money, so they overlook groomer servers
Ah please, it’s just a specifically egregiously example that I’m guessing most fediverse users would know about. The problem is hardly limited to discord, you can find similar activity on Instagram for example.
Parents
Yes, but also the kids who are being groomed are more often than not already in a vulnerable situation. Given that you are indeed familiar with the discord situation I don’t need to explain this any further I hope.
Awareness
I’m not sure I’m following, awareness by who? Kids who want attention? Groomers looking for kids to manipulate? The absent parents?
Moderation
Might help, but how do you enforce a moderator? Just look at R*ddit where spez himself moderated a jailbait sub.
Greed
Now this here I’ll agree would help, but it still doesn’t prevent those who are actively grooming from getting what they want.
I’m not sure I’m following, awareness by who? Kids who want attention? Groomers looking for kids to manipulate? The absent parents?
I mean spreading awareness about the topic, sorry but i was writing it while sleepy and used a translator to find the word i needed, sadly the translator got it wrong
moderation
It can be easly improved, right now discord staff do little to nothing (at least in my exp) when you report someone, it was rare the case where i have seen profiles disappear :/
Now this here I’lI agree would help, but it still doesn’t prevent those who are actively grooming from getting what they want.
It would help by a lot, a good chunk of the grooming is done in servers that aren’t touched because they got 30+ boosts and discord sees it and say “ya get me money, ya safe!” Usually those are also discord server based off roblox communities, what a combination…
How so? It’s pretty much a fact now that social media use is extremely addictive and bad for children’s development.
It is not a fact, stop feeding into the moral panic.
When examining the reviews, it becomes evident that the research field is dominated by cross-sectional work that is generally of a low quality standard. While research has highlighted the importance of differentiating between different types of digital technology use many studies do not consider such necessary nuances. These limitations aside, the association between digital technology use, or social media use in particular, and psychological well-being is—on average—negative but very small. Furthermore, the direction of the link between digital technology use and well-being is still unclear: effects have been found to exist in both directions and there has been little work done to rule out potential confounders.
Social media bans and severe restrictions are a rigid, ineffective response to evolving issues that warrant continuous evaluation. Social media bans inhibit adolescent psychosocial needs by keeping adolescents from a source of meaningful connection without offering a valuable alternative. Strict social media restrictions and bans for adolescents have resulted in several negative consequences, such as instilling feelings of isolation, fostering rebellion against authority, and contributing to underdeveloped digital literacy skills [10].
Additionally, legislators have been attempting to impose time restrictions on social media use for minors [11,12] but have faced challenges in passing such regulations due to constitutional concerns. Even if implemented, these time restrictions do not address the quality of adolescents’ social media interactions and other contextual factors, which are critical for evaluating their impact on mental health.
https://mental.jmir.org/2024/1/e64626
While there are considerable concerns regarding the negative impacts of social media on adolescents, it also serves as a vital resource for adolescents and young adults. Much of the current research conducted on social media use has relied on focus groups and qualitative interviews, which can be vulnerable to reporting bias. Observational studies and objective tracking of social media may be needed to better understand social media use. Research has shown that social media engagement varies by race, gender, and other social factors, and future studies should explore how these demographic differences impact the positive outcomes associated with social media. Overall, social media can be an important tool for adolescents to find social connection, seek social support, and gain access to health information. Physicians can adopt a nuanced approach to addressing adolescent social media use.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12356748/
Unfortunately, given the cross-sectional nature of most studies, it remains unclear whether social media use affects identity development in adolescence, whether the adolescent identity development process influences social media use, or whether these associations are perhaps bidirectional. Consequently, there is a need for well-designed longitudinal studies to capture the temporal direction of this relationship. Lastly, measuring only the time spent on social media limits the understanding of the relationship between social media engagement and identity development. Future research should focus on adolescents’ activities, interactions, and the content they engage with on social media to provide a more complete picture of this relationship.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12084248/
Social media and technological advancements’ impact on adolescent mental health is complex. It can be both a risk factor and a valuable support system.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12165459/
This review has highlighted how social media use can contribute to poor mental health – through validation-seeking practices, fear of judgement, body comparison, addiction and cyberbullying. It also demonstrates social media’s positive impact on adolescent wellbeing - through connection, support and discussion forums for those with similar diagnoses. Future research should consider adolescent views on improvements to social media, studying younger participants, and the impact of COVID-19 on social media use and its associated mental health implications.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13591045221092884
I agree with all of those, but they point towards adolescents, where people are gaining adulthood.
For kids under say, 14 years old, you can simply look at children in your direct vicinity and observe the impact of abundant use of things like Youtube, Roblox and others (sorry I’m not hip with it), where it is impacting their motor and cooperative skills, as well as their confidence.
Saying that the platforms used by minors are an important aspect of their social life feels incredulous to me, given that spending time together IRL is such a big factor in learning how to converse with people with differing opinions, without being shielded from them by some engagement-optimizing algorithm.
Where I live, all of that, combined with the enormous pressure social media puts on these kids to always have to take others’ cameras in mind, with the ads showing them all sorts of bs, makes me feel like I wouldn’t have made it out of childhood like I have done.
Of course there are positives too, as you pointed out. Having an easily accessible network of peers could be a great help with questions you’d never ask anyone in your direct vicinity. Except that no platform where kids gather is actually safe, and easily transforms into grooming platforms.
So yea, a ban is definitely a ham-fisted approach, but in my opinion, given the already sketchy situation surrounding the privacy for such an age check, I personally can’t think of a better solution or middle ground to keep the positives of social media. Maybe force the platforms to abandon their current algorithms?
Sorry if it’s hard to read, i tried to proofread but I’m on mobile.
For kids under say, 14 years old, you can simply look at children in your direct vicinity and observe the impact of abundant use of things like Youtube, Roblox and others (sorry I’m not hip with it), where it is impacting their motor and cooperative skills, as well as their confidence.
Where is are your sources for this?
Why did you throw Roblox in there?
Video games have been shown with abundant evidence to benefit hand eye coordination…?
So yea, a ban is definitely a ham-fisted approach, but in my opinion, given the already sketchy situation surrounding the privacy for such an age check, I personally can’t think of a better solution or middle ground to keep the positives of social media. Maybe force the platforms to abandon their current algorithms?
So because of your failure to imagine a solution, kids should be barred from all of it? The solution is take the money out of social media (like here) and have MORE human adult moderators in online communities who have a vested interest in clamping down on toxic people, not lock kids in a box in a way that destroys all of our freedom including theirs.
Yes, I threw Roblox in there because until just weeks ago it was primarily used as a social platform, at least by the few dozen kids I work with regularly. Cherry picking the fact that “games” increase hand-eye coordination is completely disregarding what type of game is being played, and is besides the point I was making.
As for a failure to imagine a solution, hosting a platform that
- has appeal to kids
- shouldn’t be monetized
- actually verifies the age of its users
is MUCH harder than what you make it seem like, especially if we want to preserve the privacy that they deserve. Should it be run by the government for something like eID? Should it be run by a bunch of volunteers like lemmy, disregarding the age check? Neither of these sound very attractive to me.
Also, comparing “ban social media use” to “destroy our freedom” is completely unhinged imo. As I said before I do think there should be a space for kids to talk to other kids, but I just don’t see a way for this to be realistically achievable online.
At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, this space for me was based in “real life” (not online) and here I found friends for life
Edit: funny to see you’re the one downvoting me, isn’t this a productive discussion?
Yes, I threw Roblox in there because until just weeks ago it was primarily used as a social platform, at least by the few dozen kids I work with regularly. Cherry picking the fact that “games” increase hand-eye coordination is completely disregarding what type of game is being played, and is besides the point I was making.
It isn’t cherry picking, 3d games like Roblox absolutely train hand eye coordination? So do most games younger people are interested in?
For the same reason we don’t expose children to potentially addictive substances, we should not expose them to potentially addictive social media.
Each parent should se their own rules but sometimes folks don’t do that and we end up with a lot of adults who can’t take care of themselves cuz no one ever showed them how
Well to entertain the offtopic games point, yes it’s a 3d game, but it also isn’t. It completely depends on what you’re actually doing inside Roblox. You can play extremely challenging parkour games, or literally just stand around in some lobby. To add onto that, it’s often played on tablets and phones, where all controls are condensed into left and right thumb controls.
And even giving that point to you that yes, some games are good for development, it isn’t at all related to the social media ban. I picked roblox specifically because of the chat function it has, and changed, to dodge the Australian age limit for social media.
An easier example would be discord, where, because of its more private nature, grooming has gone absolutely wild (youtube link). In these cases restricting their accounts to just DM’s would already help a ton, but having nuanced solutions like that for every platform that serves minors is nearly impossible I think.
They can organize themselves over chat. They don’t need social media with its algorithms that were specifically designed to prey on human minds.
Wasn’t it about every social? So social networks like discord count too
