A federal judge has blocked Arkansas from enforcing a new law that would have required parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts. U.S.
I’m far from a social media fanatic, but make no mistake that the primary purpose of legislation like this is to increase the degree of control that parents can exert over their children - not to improve the wellbeing of young people.
For teenagers from marginalised groups living in oppressive households: social media can become an outlet for self-expression amongst trusted peers which might otherwise put them at risk of retaliation from abusive parents, or a venue for them to discover like-minded people and organisations who might be able to help them cope or increase their available options by offering sanctuary should they ever need it.
It also can’t be overstated that social media is one of the main venues for political expression nowadays, particularly beyond the orthodoxy. There remain issues with misinformation and the far-right, but nonetheless the breadth of opinions can help people to develop a degree of political consciousness which they might not otherwise. Consider how infrequently sympathetic portrayals of protests, strikes, and unionisation drives make the mainstream media in comparison to social media.
It’s unsurprising that the politicians most aggressively pursuing legislation like this are also the ones who are trying to prevent, for example, queer people and especially queer youth from being able to express themselves without fear of reprisal - and who are actively trying to prevent access to information and depictions which might contradict their political ideology through mechanisms like internet censorship and book bannings.
I absolutely hate social media in almost all of its forms and can only stomach mostly anonymous SM like Reddit and lemmy, but I 100% agree with your take.
Parents should manage what kids have access to, and kids should be able to find workarounds if they really need it (e.g. use SM at a friend’s house, school, etc). This should be resolved with a bottom up approach, not a top down approach.
Another issue is that in order to prevent kids from getting accounts, we’ll need to ID parents to ensure they’re old enough, as well as related to the child. That violates my right to privacy. My state passed something similar, and hopefully it gets blocked before it can take effect as well, but if not, I’ll be setting up a VPN at my house so nobody in my house needs to prove their identity for SM use.
Eh, I don't feel strongly enough to debate it in-depth, but if parents really don't want their kids on websites just about every device imaginable that connects to the internet has parental control features. It shouldn't be on the government to block websites when the actual action should be for parents to educate themselves on the devices and do their job by setting their own child's limits - not rely on the government to blanket ban it for everyone else.
That would require parents do their jobs though and keep educated on the world around them, which overwhelmingly a lot of people just don't feel like doing.
EDIT: Last thought, I was on the internet learning to do shit in middle school and owe a lot of my current career to that. I don't think limiting children to the world around them is a recipe for success and is just a way to make people collectively stupider from lack of exposure.
Yep, I agree with this take. As much as I feel social media is a detriment to the human species and especially children, I think it should be up to the parents to regulate that. We have more important things to spend our tax dollars on than endless regulation for problems which will continue to exist in any case.
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