Rahm Emanuel says U.S. should follow Australia's youth social media ban

(repost)

  - Let's limit children's use of social media and screens.
  - Great! Let's do it.
  - We need to identify who is 18+, so here's your digital ID for everything. And, from now on, if you ever criticize the government you will lose your bank account and your job.
  - WTF!
  - That "WTF" just cost you 100 social credits.

I lucked out in when I was born, I developed before social media existed and my college was a later addition to Facebook. I think it just doesn’t affect me in the same way… like someone who has never won a dollar gambling looks at a gambling addict. I’ve got tremendous empathy for the people that are addicted to it and I can’t imagine how corrosive it would have been to my teen years, so much as I revile the politics behind Rahm who believes nothing and will stick his finger in the wind every few minutes and go where it takes him, I’m glad this is the way the winds are blowing. Social Media should be regulated like alcohol and cigarettes and drugs. All addictive, all tuned to hit dopamine centers, all bad for our health in different ways.

I Have Also Written Via Snail’s Courier To Make America Healthy Again That We USA Enact A Similar Ban But Also That We Should Start With The Adults Since The Children Seem More Mature Capable And Really Just Generally Cooler In On And Even Under The Internet

Social media is not the same product as social networks. It had value when you were in control of what content you wanted to see (your friends' posts).

Now social media, controlled by algorithms, is just like a permanent informercial. You have direct ads and first level indirect adds (sponsored content), but it goes deeper than that, when they manage set up a "viral trend" you have a lot of people acting as speaker person for brands without even realizing.

Attention shapes who you will become in the future, because it focus on what matters to you. When you outsource that to others, they can mold you into what is more profitable to them. Specially kids, who are at the prime time for being influenced.

This is the exact policing we don't want government to do regardless of the age. In my opinion it's the responsibility of the parents to decide how to raise their children and teach them how to live and adapt in the age of social media and maintain a balance.

In the same sense one could argue that social media like Facebook or WhatsApp should be banned among older population because that's one of the major ways mis/fake information being spread among elderly people and now with AI videos they actually believe those fake stories to be 100% true as well. I think that's more risk to modern day democracy and well being of the society in general.

These platforms exist for one reason: data collection, used to sell ads.

Once you realize their perverse nature where they walk the line of barely useful vs maximizing income, using the application starts to feel icky.

But sadly that knowledge only comes with age and experience.

He’s saying this because he’s Jewish and zoomers/alphas are seeing a lot of anti-Israel content on TikTok, etc.

What are the metrics this Australian law should hit? How do we know its achieving its intended result?

I don't see advertisements often, but I had to fly for work recently and of course saw advertisements in the airport. One of the ads was for "Teen Instagram" with "automatic protections." Kind of depressing. It's a bit like someone selling teen cigarettes, they're a bit more mild and you can graduate to "adult cigarettes" when you're ready. I'm not sure government banning is solution, but there's clearly no good done by the existence of social media. It's a strange problem, and ultimately the issue is that people just cannot regulate their behavior in this area.

I see social media ( x AI fakes) doing just as much or more harm to seniors.

On the question of whether to legislate the ban, I'm a no. On the question of whether parents should implement it, I'm a yes. My niece and her husband have a one year old that is allowed zero screen time. They are willing and able to forego the high tech baby sitting, and are talking about continuing until at least the pre-teens. I think that if they could go even further, say live for the next decade with the Amish, it would be even better.

If a kid was raised with his family in a dome where no technology later than 1900 were permitted (perhaps with an emergency medicine exception) and the kid wasn't released into the world until 13, I think on average they'd be mentally healthier and have a happier life.

Ban social media and go a step further and ban mobile devices for children while we're at it. The generation of iPad babies is completely broken. I kept my kids away from that stuff religiously, but now these brain addled goblins are their peers.

- 1990s, blogs, months long

- 2000s, facebook, weeks long

- 2010s, twitter, days long

- 2020s, tiktok, minutes long

- 2030s, ???, seconds long

and our attention span, intelligence and socialising are compromised.

Coming from Rahm Emanuel of all people, I don't get the sense that this is just a good faith effort to help kids at school

So let me this straight. I will need an ID to go on internet but not to vote. He even talked about how requiring ID makes thar certain people are trapped in vicious cycle.

This is the exact policing we don't want government to do - but it is to protect children. So I guess we will go with it.

> And he suggested lawmakers should start with targeting three of the most popular apps among U.S. teens — TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.

The linked Pew Research article also lists YouTube up there. Why not restrict its use by teens as well? It is because it also has wholesome material?

We should ban voting aged people from using them.

Surely any other country should wait a while to see what the effects are. It's already being challenged in Australia on free speech grounds.

Does the Democratic party actually have a platform capable of beating the incumbent Trump Republicans? Or is it just this kind of stuff? Ban kids from YouTube?

That's def and "ok, boomer" mentality. Apparently, Rahm has never heard of a "VPN."

Jokes aside, this should be the responsibility of parents, not the government. Also, this is about censorship, not protecting kids.

Culturally, this is the pivotal question of our generation. Both options are admittedly terrible, and as appealing as the parental rights argument may be... it hasn't been going well.

Almost impossible to do, but I agree and have been saying that for decades.

Until recently I agreed with the age of 16, now I am starting to think they should be banned until they get an High School Diploma or equivalent, if no "diploma", then at the age of 21, they are allowed. Same as Drinking Age in the US.

The diploma requirement might decrease the dropout rate the the US.

I can't believe we're still talking about him. All he's done is fail.

Remember this guy was chased out of chicago for trying to cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald by the CPD. Then, previously was famous for being Clinton's fixer in the Gennifer Flowers case. The fact that this man has any political career at all is an incredible indictment of our system.

Social media is the smoking of our age, and it will come to be seen the same way we see smoking now.

Just like the tobacco companies, social media companies have known about the ills of their platforms for a long time and actively hidden it and/or publicly downplayed it.

Makes sense.

Our kids didn't get social media until they were 16 and life continued.

We don't let kids drive until 16 and smoke or drink until 18.

This just seems down right reasonable.

What is the case for allowing them to have it before 16?

I don't believe this is done for the benefit of children/teens. What's much more likely is that politicians don't like people having news/information sources not beholden to them.