Many of these "social" media websites increasingly just fling AI-generated disturbing videos at people. I am sure we could build a web that is actually pleasant to use for kids, but we are not building it.
youtube for example: https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/2006013682472669589
I think that's provably untrue based on the fact Saturday morning cartoons were massively popular as a curated content feed on TVs through the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Kids (including me at the time) loved them and sank many hours into watching them. They were wholly approved by my parents, to the point where sometimes my parents would watch with me. Unless kids have fundamentally changed (which seems unlikely) the differentiating factor is almost certainly that kids simply now have access to far more unsuitable content.
My parents didn't let me watch saturday morning cartoons because my mom felt that the ad breaks were harmful to children. In fact, the TV was set to PBS and there was a plastic cup glued over the channel knob.
Video games from the 90s were actually pleasant as a kid, and I'm happy to see my kids enjoying them today rather than the slot machines that the industry makes for kids these days…
(Unfortunately I'm well aware that it won't last long, because social pressure is impossible to fight at individual scale)
Social pressure is much easier to fight than you think but it involves being an active parent and letting your kids invite friends over to play. Most parents are not willing or are unable to do take that active role for one reason or another.
Sorry to disappoint you, but from ten years old onwards your kids spend way more time socializing with other members of Society than with their parents, and there's no way around that, so I'd rather live in a society where kids aren't being abused by harmful businesses (be then booze or social media makers).
The State is just the democratically organized emanation of Society. And believe it or not, humans are social animals.
Totally on-topic, because 20th century video games were mainly single-player or 2-4 players in the same room. Multiplayer games were "social" in a different way.
Well, one part of a proper education of a child is to teach them that life isn't about gratification. Neil Postman made this point already in Amusing Ourselves to Death. By educating kids with Sesame street you didn't teach them to love education, you taught them to love television.
When you make learning synonymous with fun people start to believe that if they aren't having fun they aren't learning. Which accounts I think for something that a lot of teachers at all levels have observed, kids are increasingly unable to learn if there's no immediate reward.
what does greed have to do with it? The issue at hand is that for many decades now visual mass media have taught children that constant stimulation and entertainment has to be omnipresent.
It's much worse than just greed, it's about attention. Fundamentally at this point, very few people, including adults are unable to accept boredom or lack of instant gratification. Commercial or non-commercial.
In Holland there's even ISPs that filter porn and stuff, like https://kliksafe.nl . They're used by ultra-religious conservative communities (calvinists). Even adults use it there.
I view this as a much better solution. The people that want it can do their blocking and the rest of us aren't bothered with verifications and stuff.
Personally I belong to the sex-positive movement which thinks diametrically opposite about such matters :)
You will loose this argument because there is a real problem with children and AI slop. Especially because there is a problem with AI slop and handling it by people in general.
Provide a solution which doesn’t require that, like some other top commenter did. Otherwise, you have already lost.
If we did build it and it became popular, it would quickly be taken over by the same forces that are destroying the current internet. To get good social media sites (and a better internet as well), you would first have to change the economics of the entire system driving these forces. But as is said "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism".
It's really not that dramatic. Just build it like more classic media. Curated content the company takes responsibility for, closed platform, pay upfront. Or have public programming, that is the oldest model there is.
Ad driven online content is especially bad for kids. But let's not pretend the only way to find an alternative is to end the world.
The fact is the "bad" solution is popular because consumers say they care about these things but then in real life they act like they don't. If no one watched the problem would solve itself. Thus, I'm not sure the solution is even to be found in platforms, if parents are burned out or don't have ways to make better choices for their kids.
That's a reason for these laws, to essentially just take it out of people's hands.
The consumer gets bait & switched. When ad-free pay upfront cable tv first started, people switched over. We showed that yes indeed we like ad-free shows and are willing to pay for them. They said, well that's great, but we can make more money if we show you ads so they did and we ended up paying up front and getting obnoxious ads. Then when online streaming started, we all switched over. We showed that yes indeed we like ad-free shows and are willing to pay upfront for them. They said, well that's great, but we can make more money if we show you ads so they did and we ended up paying up front and getting obnoxious ads. The moment it become sufficient popular and the people get sufficiently locked in, the ads come. Every time.
Right? As a teenager on overclocking forums there was a strong mod presence and you knew them. They were quick to delete any shit and keep a lid on the drama - playing a very effective ‘big brother’ role for the rest of us to have a great time.
What makes this impossible is the scale that people assume you need to cater for. When you limit your population to a reasonable size then moderation is easy and everyone gets to know the expectations of the community.
It has some job postings yes but they are really few and far between. And really inconspicuous. And don't try to track us across the internet.
If all ads were like this we wouldn't hate them.
And I don't think they will start. It's good advertising for Ycombinator (I'd never heard of them before) and it doesn't cost a fortune to run really. They have one employee (or maybe 2 now?) and it all runs on one physical server. It's not a meta with a huge workforce and offices and datacenters all over the world.
