Tech bros deliberately made digital crack for kids and corporations refuse to moderate online content.
There is no conspiracy the general public is faced with a crisis and they are desperate for a solution.
The teen suicide statistics do not lie.
Tech bros deliberately made digital crack for kids and corporations refuse to moderate online content.
There is no conspiracy the general public is faced with a crisis and they are desperate for a solution.
The teen suicide statistics do not lie.
> The teen suicide statistics do not lie.
Teen suicide rates in the US are lower now than they were in the 1990s.
This doesn’t paint the entire picture. Suicide rates peaked in 1990 and then declined to its lowest point in 2007 from there the rates started rising again.
Like all metrics, they fluctuate over time. But they've remained pretty for decades stable at around 10 per 100k per year. The recent rise doesn't really coincide with social media adoption. By 2008, >80% of teens were using social media. If social media adoption was driving the increase in suicides, we would have started to see a rise in suicides around the early 2000s, reaching it's peak around 2008. But that adoption of social media by teens was coupled with a decrease in suicides. The more recent rise in teen suicides occurred during a period of largely flat teen social media adoption (because nearly 100% of them were already on social media by the end of the 2000s).
This idea of teen suicide painting a clear picture about the impact of social media just isn't borne out by the data. And lastly, people ought to remember that teens have the lowest rate of suicide among any age cohort.
> If social media adoption was driving the increase in suicides, we would have started to see a rise in suicides around the early 2000s, reaching it's peak around 2008.
I think there is a logical fallacy here. Social media has not remained stable since 2008. For one thing, 2008 social media used the chronological timeline. For another, it didn't show "recommended" (or sponsored) content in your feed. There was no TikTok. Facebook was relatively new and MySpace was not even really feed-based as I recall.
Facebook moved away from chronological timelines as default in 2011. YouTube added "recommended" videos tab in 2007.
Right - but these were also not "hard cut" dates. They are a couple simple examples of the evolution of social media that continued (and continues) to occur.
The platforms continue to optimize for engagement (i.e. addiction.)
There is a claim that it's not social media on its own, but social media on smartphones that's responsible for a decline in child/teen mental health.
The world is bigger than the US.
Anyway you can go on HN and deny there is a problem but you will lose public opinion and crucially the voting booth.
The fine was levied in a US court.
The general public is being told they are faced with a crisis. This has been a problem for at least a decade, yet suddenly it's at the forefront and conveniently ties into ID verification for everyone to use general purpose computing.
I'm sorry but if you don't think there's a conspiracy I have a bridge to sell you. It was already unveiled that Meta has lobbied billions towards promoting this legislative change
> The general public is being told they are faced with a crisis.
> This has been a problem for at least a decade.
I get you're point, but anyone that doesn't is asking "Which is it?"
I think everyone can see there is problems. Is there a crisis? I don't think so. Same problems we've always had, but on a computer.
People that know tech, know these laws cross a MAJOR line. Not a little slippery slope thing, this is off a cliff. But I don't think most people, that are already used to having to sign in with an online account on every device they use, even their TV, see it as that big a step. They don't even realize how predatory it is that they are required to sign in. What they need to see is that the sign in requirement was a choice by the vendor. These are LAWS, demanding no one ever be given the choice to not reveal personal information about themselves to use ANY computer. That's the point that needs to be driven home.
You're arguing there's a conspiracy, but even if there is, what is the best action for governments to take given the devastating impact social media has been demonstrated to have on young people especially?
I don’t know what the solution is, but introducing mass surveillance of ALL users on their own devices hurts the general population - do you think it will solve the problem?
Oh hell no!
Its been decades of work to even get social media to court.
No one wants to talk about this or look at the issues when it’s not sexy.
$@&$$ - I’ve been at conferences and had safety teams cry on my shoulder about how THEY don’t get engineering resources if they ask for it.
Tech platforms suppress so much research and hold so much data hostage, that an entire research coalition based on independence from tech.
Zuck and tech as a whole pivoted to drop safety investments the moment this government came to power.
And this is for user in frikking America !
The shit that is going down in the rest of the world is a curse. The sheer amount of NCII that exists, with zero recourse for people whose lives are destroyed is insane.
> Zuck and tech as a whole pivoted to drop safety investments the moment this government came to power.
I think the question to ask here is, if both Meta and the current administration don't care about child safety, why is the age verification stuff going so smoothly? Is helping them do this really the right move?
Well it’s not going smoothly. People on HN are talking about it now, but they are really talking about privacy.
For the rest of the world this has been brewing for more than a decade.
Australia was the actually the one to tip the first domino. This is just a US state verdict on willful harm by a firm. Its not even about age verification.
For meta, shifting regulatory burdens to OS / app stores, reduces regulatory burden.
For governments, part of it is actually trying to come to grips with an impossible safety imperative and another part of it is happy to gain more control and power.
The power grab needs to be curtailed, and the people actually trying to help kids need better technical solutions.