alt Hacker NewsI'd seen all the shock websites by age 12. Kids love to prank each other.
None of this is a real harm. The real harms are the government being able to put a muzzle on speech, track who says what, and begin to cordon off areas of thought and expression.
You might think it's a win that this is happening, but you won't be the one in charge and you won't have a say how it's used against you.
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denkmoon • today at 2:58 AM
Shock sites are materially different to the harm kids do to one another on social media.
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I don't think it is a win, I'm not sure how you got that from my comment. There should be enough room for nuance to acknowledge that the internet is uniquely unhealthy for young people. I don't find 'I saw all the bad stuff and look how great I turned out' very compelling.
If empirical research showed that some kind of intervention would be helpful, I'd be in favor of it even if it comes at a cost. But I don't think age-gating will prove effective as an intervention. If anyone needs to be reined in, it is tech companies that exploit attention and gather data, and the age-gating controversy is a costly distraction.