White House urges UK not to ban social media for under-16s

[slightlv]

8. I really want to agree with you... and I appreciate where you're coming from...

but restricting social media in the very early, formative years is not abridging speech, IMO. In fact, even trump in his diatribe isn't talking about restricting it... only having that restriction moved to the parents' obligations, not by default mode. Limiting or even eliminating social media isn't cutting out tech for the kids... tech is so much more than just social media. And doing something like this could even encourage more types of social media that would be geared to younger kids... kinda like "under 21" clubs (although I'm not sure about their reputation anymore). One thing you can be sure of... whatever is done to "help" always ends up getting perverted towards greed and nastiness.

Social media is a bad can of worms for kids, especially the non-blonde, white, well built groups. It has a bad rep towards driving kids to the point of suicide at times. Kids can be, and often are, mean to their peers. I say use this time to help build up resilience by insisting on real socialization among kids. A screen can never be a substitute for one-on-one learning from each other in the social milieu.

In addition, it lessens the dangers of indoctrination of christian nationalism, misogyny, and racism that is rampant across social media. Even adults get addicted to this kind of tech, to their detriment. We don't have to help entire generations to grow more incels.

Leaving it to the parents sounds great on the surface. But the very kids at the most danger will be ones with parents who encourage this kind of anti-social behavior, especially by modeling their own behavior towards others different from them. I just don't think tech is the end-all and be-all of anyone's life, and I made my living at it for over 40 years. I'm still not into social media, other than a small stint on facebook. I did that to stay in touch with family at the time, and I applaud the early emphasis on that function. But it was taken over by racists and haters of all kinds. Even with controls, it was hard to not to keep that stuff away.

We try to protect our children from a lot in their formative years. I just happen to think this may be one of those areas we need to add emphasis to while the tech bros fight over who gets what from whom. I honestly don't believe they've got the best interests of our kids in their hearts. They're too busy trying to take over the world and remake it in their version of a libertarian paradise where it's everyone for themselves.

Like I said, I really want to agree with you because Free Speech is one of our bedrock foundations, and I protest most weekends for it. But not all the freedoms are granted everyone from birth on. Some are even taken away simply because of what gender you happen to be, or lessened because of a myriad of "out group" reasons. It's hard enough to be a kid in today's world, and being a "fat kid" when I was younger, I truly don't want what I went through magnified for kids through social media, by peers or by bots. I want to say "especially the girls"... but boys are learning some very bad ideas and behaviors that end up hurting them, and society, too.

I know your MMV... and I respect that. We're going to have to have a lot of hard talks in the future once we try to rebuild the society trump has torn down. This may well be one of those areas. I hope you can respect my opinions on it as I respect yours, and know that we're all coming from a place of trying to do what's right for all concerned.