I was thinking I know a few people over 65 who are being radicalised, might be an idea to ban it for them too.
The serious answer is that banning "social media" is a bit silly. We should concentrate on controlling the addictive aspects of it, and ensuring the algorithms are fair and governed by the people.
Even if you're half-joking, there's a very real point to this. It's really not solving the problem. It's moving it very so slightly down the line.
I'm not entirely sure how I'd want to word it, but it would be something like: It is prohibited to profit from engagement generated by triggering negative emotions in the public.
You should be free to run a rage-bait forum, but you cannot profit from it, as that would potentially generate a perverse incentive to undermine trust in society. You can do it for free, to ensure that people can voice their dissatisfaction with the government, working conditions, billionaires, the HOA and so on. I'd carve out a slight exception for unions being allowed to spend membership fees to run such forums.
Also politicians should be banned from social media. They can run their own websites.
In principle, certainly. In practice, Congress can't be trusted to craft more or less any law these days. I'm not necessarily sure that the law will be able to help us here, but I also think it's not helpful to take the broadest possible definition of social media to try to shutdown discussion. (I'm not suggesting that you are doing that)
Australia's soon-to-take-effect ban affects nine platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, but not HN. These bans often operate on the amount of users a platform has, so HN is unlikely to make the cut. Nobody cares about this site.
I'd gladly give up HN if it means Instagram and Facebook are eradicated. Yes, yes, "those that would trade liberty for security...", but we were better off without any form of social media at all.
I often wonder if posts like this, along with the people who want to ban all cars, etc are just rage bait. Fortunately most of the population disagrees with your preferences. I give “general social media ban” around a 1% chance of success.
The problem is not social media, it's the few people controlling it. There is no inherent problem in social media, there's an inherent problem of people caring about only their money and power and not giving a jack shit about anything else.
I was thinking I know a few people over 65 who are being radicalised, might be an idea to ban it for them too.
The serious answer is that banning "social media" is a bit silly. We should concentrate on controlling the addictive aspects of it, and ensuring the algorithms are fair and governed by the people.
Even if you're half-joking, there's a very real point to this. It's really not solving the problem. It's moving it very so slightly down the line.
I'm not entirely sure how I'd want to word it, but it would be something like: It is prohibited to profit from engagement generated by triggering negative emotions in the public.
You should be free to run a rage-bait forum, but you cannot profit from it, as that would potentially generate a perverse incentive to undermine trust in society. You can do it for free, to ensure that people can voice their dissatisfaction with the government, working conditions, billionaires, the HOA and so on. I'd carve out a slight exception for unions being allowed to spend membership fees to run such forums.
Also politicians should be banned from social media. They can run their own websites.
you are on social media right now.
And Tylenol is a drug just the same as heroin. Do you think that HN has the same sort of impacts on people as instagram or facebook?
Do you think a law which restricts "social media" will be crafted delicately enough to affect Instagram and Facebook but not HN?
Of course not, instead kids will be logging into some russian/chinese 4chan-esque service which has no qualms about the opinion of US law.
This is the way things should be. Down with enforcable laws!
In principle, certainly. In practice, Congress can't be trusted to craft more or less any law these days. I'm not necessarily sure that the law will be able to help us here, but I also think it's not helpful to take the broadest possible definition of social media to try to shutdown discussion. (I'm not suggesting that you are doing that)
Australia's soon-to-take-effect ban affects nine platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, but not HN. These bans often operate on the amount of users a platform has, so HN is unlikely to make the cut. Nobody cares about this site.
I'd gladly give up HN if it means Instagram and Facebook are eradicated. Yes, yes, "those that would trade liberty for security...", but we were better off without any form of social media at all.
I often wonder if posts like this, along with the people who want to ban all cars, etc are just rage bait. Fortunately most of the population disagrees with your preferences. I give “general social media ban” around a 1% chance of success.
Yes, plenty of users here compulsively posting and compulsively checking for responses/upvotes/etc.
I'm aware. If I lost the forum on HN as a side effect, I'd probably be happier overall.
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You know that you can just, you know, cancel your ISP contract and live in a hut in Montana, right?
HN is 'social media', btw.
The problem is not social media, it's the few people controlling it. There is no inherent problem in social media, there's an inherent problem of people caring about only their money and power and not giving a jack shit about anything else.
> HN is 'social media', btw.
Sure is! If you read the thread before posting in the thread, you'd see that it's come up already.