[HN Gopher] Facebook Should Halt Instagram Kids Plan, Attorneys ...
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Facebook Should Halt Instagram Kids Plan, Attorneys General Say
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 204 points
Date : 2021-05-10 14:51 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| stemlord wrote:
| McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!
| Marinlemaignan wrote:
| What ?! Combination Pizza Hut And Taco Bell
| marketingtech wrote:
| By creating an under-13 product and making active attempts to
| remove them from the 13+ product, they can push to raise the bar
| on COPPA and other regulations.
|
| Imagine if governments cracked down on Snapchat and TikTok for
| not doing enough to keep under-13 users off their apps.
|
| "Instagram and Messenger are setting such great examples for
| child safety and data protection, while these other apps are
| endangering our youth and capturing personal data from underage
| users. Won't somebody think of the children?"
| sjg007 wrote:
| I actually don't think it's a bad idea as long as parents can be
| involved and has limited sharing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Isn't Instagram that site where people take pictures of
| themselves, their things, their friends and the places they visit
| and weave narratives with them in order to make people jealous?
| Sounds like an awful place for a child.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sounds like a great opportunity to teach your kids about
| people's cognitive biases and how they can take advantage of
| others, and prevent being taken advantage of by others.
|
| Hopefully you can help them model their world such that they
| don't fall victim to the feelings others might feel from
| looking at posed pictures. If they inherently don't value
| vanity, then they will be able to prosper (mentally) even
| though the world around them might not.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I would not let me kid on there if it ever came to be. But, let's
| pretend asking FB to not do this works, won't some other entity
| seize the opportunity. The incentive to pipeline future customers
| is simply too great? The only effective way is parenting and
| common sense legislation, just like was done for tobacco and
| should be done for food and medicine. But I know that when it
| comes to the internet, legislating is fraught with hazards and
| unintended consequences.
| electrondood wrote:
| Ah, the Big Tobacco playbook: hook 'em while they're young.
|
| Facebook can't even effectively police their existing platform,
| how are they going to keep children safe?
| scottrogowski wrote:
| Often lost underneath the privacy debates is a problem that is
| just as pernicious - social media is an addictive and harmful
| product that is being sold to us for money.
|
| For both factors, addictiveness and harm, there are large piles
| of scientific studies.
|
| Apart from magnitude of harm, I don't think it's a stretch to
| think that social media should be grouped together with tobacco
| as something we want to limit as a society. There might even be
| an argument on magnitude given that social media causes
| loneliness and loneliness causes early death
| https://press.aarp.org/2016-12-07-AARP-Foundation-Draws-Atte....
| While I'm not saying that using facebook reduces your lifespan by
| 15 years, I think there is cause to assume a real physiological
| impact.
|
| Sure, social media has had its positive impact - every new
| technology is mixed - but certainly, we need to find common-sense
| ways to regulate social media to reduce addictiveness and harm.
| tryonenow wrote:
| The part that bothers me about this is starting data harvesting
| when users are children. This is an authoritarian regime's wet
| dream, even moreso than the profiles being built on current adult
| users.
| disabled wrote:
| I made a post about this about 2 weeks ago on a less popular
| thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26849275
|
| It is way worse than cigarettes, on so many levels. It is much
| more profound than one would initially assume. Social media and
| modern micro targeting advertising, which plays strongly into
| your individual hopes and fears (to maximize the likelihood of
| getting a response from you--which is abusive), creates a
| validation feedback loop commonly seen in Cluster B Personality
| Disorders.
|
| Young people (as in developing minds that have not mentally
| reached adulthood--occurs around age 25) have been primed and
| trained to make fake, empty, and unthoughtful posts needlessly
| (i.e. daily or several times per day) just to gain "likes" (also
| known as approval) from their peers. They also post to social
| media so that the algorithm treats them nicer, even if they are
| unaware of this on an explicit level.
|
| Psychologists have been warning about this: how an entire
| generation of currently developing minds is going to be a lot
| more narcissistic and a lot less empathetic than previous
| generations due to this invasive and traumatic long-term
| exposure.
|
| I am luckier than most: as an adult (with a print-related
| disability) I almost never have to go on websites that serve ads,
| as I have access to special libraries and news repositories (with
| breaking news sources) that legitimately keep me endlessly
| entertained (see this post:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26829865).
|
| I also use the paid audio apps Blinkist, Audm, and Curio to
| augment those databases. I probably have not used YouTube in 6
| months, due to the above and I am no Luddite! The only social
| media account that I have is HN.
| Radle wrote:
| The lawyers sound as if if kids aren't already using the
| internet.
|
| It's fairly obvious that giving children a safe zone is still
| better than throwing them in the 18+ internet right?
|
| Are there any arguments as to why a platform for under 13 y/o
| would be worse than these demographics using the normal platform?
| toast0 wrote:
| > Are there any arguments as to why a platform for under 13 y/o
| would be worse than these demographics using the normal
| platform?
|
| Without knowing anything about Instagram Kids, more parents
| might let their children use it if it appears safe for
| children. If it's not actually safe(r?), then that's more
| exposure.
|
| For example, YouTube Kids is almost the same garbage as
| YouTube, but the name implies otherwise. Neither flavor should
| be left unsupervised with children.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > For example, YouTube Kids is almost the same garbage as
| YouTube, but the name implies otherwise.
|
| Except that everything on there is going to keep kids
| "engaged." Even the weird toxic clickbait sort of stuff. On
| regular YouTube, they might at least wander off into
| something less interesting and put it down, but in the "Kids"
| sphere, you can safely bet they won't put it down of their
| own "This has gotten boring..." accord.
|
| I entirely agree that unsupervised YouTube of any form for
| kids is a terrible idea.
|
| Google's general concept that "algorithms and machine
| learning" can do anything useful against unlimited attacks
| from motivated adversaries (some of the bizarre Elsegate
| videos made quite a bit of money) hasn't worked out very well
| in practice, and that's before you get the 4chan trolling
| style attacks. And YouTube's volume is far, far too great for
| humans to actually watch everything coming in. I can't solve
| that problem, but I sure can solve the problem of not giving
| my kids an unsupervised pipeline into that world.
| nineplay wrote:
| Youtube for kids is fine - at least the Apple TV app. it's
| carefully curated. They show The Wiggles, Yo Gabba Gabba,
| Kid's Bop, and some Sesame Street. It may make parents want
| to run and hide but I'll happily leave my 3 year old in front
| of it.
|
| There are ads, of course, but tolerable ones. Certainly not
| any worse than what I watched on commercial television back
| in the day.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Youtube Kids for the 7-13 group is terrible. Interesting
| harmless videos (mostly science related) are not available
| on Youtube Kids. The problem seems to be that the creator
| needs to label their video as kid friendly or it doesn't
| have a chance of being available on Youtube Kids.
|
| Videos from channels like Cody's Lab, King of Random,
| Smarter Everyday and similar are not available on Youtube
| Kids. This wouldn't really be a problem if Youtube allowed
| parents to mark a channel or videos as OK for their
| children. But, it is an outright block for children under
| 13 with no capacity for discretion.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| This comes down to COPPA regulations and the fact that
| child friendly channels are not allowed to use targeted
| ads, which really slashes revenue on a site like YouTube.
| Creators actively avoid it.
| nineplay wrote:
| Totally agree, there's a gap there. I block youtube.com
| completely, only opening it up briefly when there's a
| school assignment to watch a video which I think is
| playing with fire.
|
| I tried to create a youtube account with whatever
| checkbox they have that is "please only show safe
| content". I subscribed to kid's science channels. The
| garbage that came though was astonishing.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Have you found any problems with them being left out of
| all the in-jokes and culture? I don't think kids culture
| (esp. for boys) really exists anywhere online outside of
| YouTube. That's part of why gaming is so popular on that
| site. I no longer watch TV because YouTube has way better
| stuff.
| toast0 wrote:
| You can get in-jokes by second hand exposure. I
| understand a good amount of Simpsons jokes from tireless
| repetition by friends, even though I haven't watched the
| show much at all. (It was forbidden in my childhood home,
| and passe when I left)
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| I'd argue advertising this Instagram as a "safe zone" for
| children while still containing ads and allowing adult
| predatores to sign in would be much worse.
|
| In the normal platform at least they can be disguised as
| average users that seldom post anything, and there is less
| pressure to post anything since it's a hostile place to
| children in the first place.
| nineplay wrote:
| The article doesn't go into detail. I've been happy with
| messenger kids but for me the problem would be any ability to
| do likes on posted content. I think one of the big self-esteem
| killers of facebook is posting content with 3 likes while
| another kid posts the same content with 30 likes.
|
| Also the option of potentially putting up content that mocks
| other kids. It's somewhat possible with messenger kids but the
| only information shared is between the few kids on a chat. If 3
| kids chatting together make fun of a 4th, that sucks but that
| 4th kid is never going to see it. If kids Instagram mean
| everyone in a contact list is going to see the same content,
| that could be really damaging.
|
| I don't know how many people watched "American Vandal", season
| 2. I don't necessarily recommend it in a vacuum, but it does an
| amazing job showing how much kids can be devastated by social
| media. When I was a kid, the popular kids could make fun of me
| ( and probably did ) but at least it wasn't in my face - or the
| face of the rest of the school so they could easily join it.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Given Facebook's appalling track record with moderation I
| wouldn't want anyone under 13 (in my own care) near it. And
| that's before we've even gotten to privacy.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| What large social media sites do you consider better
| moderated than Facebook?
| [deleted]
| nineplay wrote:
| I might let my kids on HN - they'd probably learn something
| useful.
|
| Certainly not reddit which one of the worse places on the
| internet for developing minds. It doesn't get mentioned
| much in discussions of "damaging social media" because it's
| anonymous and can't target people personally, but I'd wager
| that a lot more people have absorbed a lot more damaging
| content than just about any site I can think of.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Well let's take a look at other media targeted towards younger
| children/tweens. How about Fortnite? They're training to
| children to be degenerate gamblers by tapping into base
| impulses of addiction. Any company that does this only does it
| for purposes of getting them hooked at a young age and hoping
| to turn them into future coffers. They're not doing it for
| altruistic reasons.
|
| >It's fairly obvious that giving children a safe zone is still
| better than throwing them in the 18+ internet right?
|
| Yes, but this shouldn't be done by a company that's only
| looking for profit. There's only so much that can be done
| legally to keep them away from these sorts of things and the
| rest of it HAS to be done by the parents. Children shouldn't
| have free reign of the internet and need guidance on what's
| appropriate and discussion on what they're seeing. I'm probably
| in the minority but I don't agree with just giving them smart
| phones/devices that just allow them to be connected to whatever
| they want 24/7 either.
| fungu wrote:
| What about fortnite do you believe is "training children to
| be degenerate gamblers"?
|
| To my knowledge there is no "gambling" aspect of the game.
| Did you just randomly pick fortnite because other games have
| loot box mechanics and you assumed fortnite did too?
| kfrzcode wrote:
| Not just a specific game, but gaming culture in general,
| especially for the Gen-Z market, is steeped in
| microtransactions. I don't have specific citations but Adam
| Alter's book _Irresistible_ dives into this and other
| topics related:
|
| https://adamalterauthor.com/irresistible
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Fortnite did have loot boxes until they were sued recently.
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295676/epic-games-
| fortn.... The ability to buy skins isn't much different
| really. Just because you know what you're getting doesn't
| mean there isn't an addictive aspect to purchasing skins
| etc. especially when they're advertised in a manner to
| elicit an aggressive "i need this" response.
|
| Additionally, the actual game-play is made to be addictive
| and young children don't have the ability to keep this in
| check.
| ixacto wrote:
| While it might not make sense to give children smartphones,
| they will find a way to see what they want.
|
| This is preferable to sheltering them until they go to
| college where it is all on display for obvious reasons.
|
| One of my fondest childhood memories was figuring out how to
| get past the high school's filtering software so we could get
| hotornot/MySpace/deviant art available.
|
| Just remembered hotornot, kinda crowd sourced child/teen
| body-image shaming but it did help everyone develop a thick
| skin unlike today when parents try and micromanage their kids
| lives.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Not many under 13 years olds I know get unrestricted access to
| the internet.
| quadrangle wrote:
| In https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/26-are-the-kids-alright
| interview, I heard the claim that mental health issues for kids
| are not correlated with internet use or technology but strictly
| with _social media_ in particular.
|
| Kids reading stuff or watching videos or playing games, none of
| that amounts to a constant numerical score of whether or not
| their peers "like" them.
| spicyramen wrote:
| Have you used Instagram? I get recommendations for buying
| weapons, porn, escorts, just by reading Premier League comments
| e-clinton wrote:
| Yea, that says more about you than it does about Instagram.
| DSingularity wrote:
| And how do you know that this is not the default bet of
| their recommendation algorithms?
| DSingularity wrote:
| Why do you hate progress? Look at how much progress humans
| have made in socialization all thanks to the great
| Zuckerberg! Humans are now closer then ever and living
| meaningful, happy lives!
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| OPs point is that kids are exposed to that right now, and no
| turning back the clock will change that. Creating a safe zone
| away from alcohol, guns, etc... and adding parental controls
| is a step in the right direction.
|
| I'd prefer kids didn't use Instagram at all though.
| spicyramen wrote:
| You need to see a new big trend for fake profiles that are
| using big platforms such as sports and music to advertise
| their products. Has nothing to do with your search
| preferences
| ipaddr wrote:
| If they are making a separate kids platform why would your
| adult ads show.
|
| You realize that by sharing those ad topics you are probably
| sharing too much of your interests. I get baby products.. it
| depends on what you've searched for lately.
| splithalf wrote:
| I'm reminded of that "bag o glass" SNL routine.
| scrame wrote:
| good
| dpeck wrote:
| So many comments here seem to ignore the existence of Apples
| screentime controls for kids. If you haven't looked recently
| they're very solid and gives kids a good way to communicate with
| restricted list of contacts and otherwise safely use their
| devices.
| jasongill wrote:
| I dislike Facebook as much as any HN poster, but I can say that
| the Facebook Messenger for Kids app has been... surprisingly
| good.
|
| Kids can't talk to anyone who you don't add as a friend, and your
| child's friends list is managed by you and new friends must be
| approved by the parents of both kids. You can see at any time who
| they have been talking to, you can see all the images that have
| been sent and received, and there's no advertising. It's
| basically a walled garden just for your kids group of friends
| who've been approved by parents and nothing more. Kids can't even
| start a group chat or video chat with friends who aren't all
| mutual friends, so there's no way for your child to talk to
| anyone who you haven't approved.
|
| It has stuff that kids like, like little games and filters they
| can use to play with their friends, which is clearly just to
| increase engagement (and screen time), but it's actually not
| nearly as terrible as you'd expect from Facebook (yet).
|
| Messenger for Kids has been a godsend during the quarantine due
| to the fact that the kids want to do video chat but all have
| different types of devices, and it's nice because it's locked
| down to only the people you approve.
|
| Now, is Instagram for Kids a good idea? We shall see, my guess is
| "probably not" but at least Messenger for Kids isn't exactly the
| nightmare you'd think it is based on the name.
| wolfretcrap wrote:
| By doing this we are conditioning kids to not have privacy,
| later when they grow up - they'll come to accept lack of
| privacy because it's something they grew up with, first it was
| their parents spying on them, now it's tech company and
| government and their advertisers spying on them
| dheera wrote:
| So all this sounds good at first, but if the walls are too
| high, wouldn't kids simply end up treating it as a
| teacher/parent-infested app and start using something else
| (e.g. IRC) without you knowing?
|
| I mean, when I was a kid I was all over IRC and Usenet instead
| of my school's censored e-mail/chat system, just saying ...
| gentleman11 wrote:
| In other words, as long as it's the Facebook AND parents doing
| the surveillance, it's okay? The concern is over the parents
| getting a cut of the data? My parents would never have snooped
| on me the way most parents try to these days, it would have
| freaked me out any time after turning 11 or so
| faitswulff wrote:
| I'd love to trust that my kids are safe with technology, but
| the landscape for parents is way different now than it used
| to be, too. The grandparents left my then-toddler alone with
| youtube for an hour or so and I came back to my child
| watching some truly nightmarish videos. I can't trust the
| tech, so someone needs to be watching.
| cosmojg wrote:
| Out of curiosity, was your child enjoying them? What did
| you find objectionable? How did the subsequent conversation
| with your child go?
|
| I always wonder how I'll handle these types of situations
| if and when I myself become a parent. I imagine it's much
| more difficult in reality than it is in my head.
| afavour wrote:
| The OP said the child was a toddler. Depending on the
| exact age I'd suspect there wasn't much of a subsequent
| conversation given the lack of communication skills.
|
| Aside from that, whether the child is enjoying them or
| not isn't all that relevant. My kid would enjoy eating
| ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day but I
| know what's good for them better than they do.
| faitswulff wrote:
| My child was pre-verbal. It was a cartoon of a baby with
| an outlandishly large head with its mouth held open by
| ravens' claws being force fed various inanimate objects
| like doll heads and machine engines. I shut it down
| within seconds of seeing it.
|
| Answering your questions in that context is sort of
| ridiculous, but I'll give it a shot:
|
| 1. At that age, my kid would watch whatever was on the
| screen, basically slack jawed. No bandwidth for anything
| else, really.
|
| 2. See above
|
| 3. There was no conversation.
|
| And to answer your comments accusative sibling comment,
| my kid found it by tapping "next" repeatedly, or whatever
| was in the sidebar. Fwiw, _I_ know "the phone isn't the
| parent," but the grandparents don't have the same
| sensibilities around tech.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Holy shit.
| nine_k wrote:
| YouTube Kids is a thing, BTW.
| watwut wrote:
| That one misses a lot through. Pretty much none of the
| things I wanted to show my kids was there.
| hosh wrote:
| I am a parent. I am also a technologist. I agree with that
| the landscape of the technology has changed drastically
| since I grew up in the 80s and 90s.
|
| I don't think I can convey to my kids the wonder of the 80s
| and 90s, when people were able to get a personal, general
| purpose computing. It was not just that every month,
| something new came along. There was a wide diversity of
| software, even among the same kind of software. People
| tried to write their own. Although more difficult to use,
| users also had a lot more power over their computing
| environment.
|
| The computing landscape we have now:
|
| - we deliberately created computing appliances in which the
| design of the app are driven by A/B testing, growth hacks,
| and dark patterns
|
| - being able to talk with your affinity group used to mean
| not feeling as alone. Now, it means those are the only
| viewpoints you see, with algorithms feeding your view point
| back to you. The ancient Greek had a cautionary tale about
| that, called Narcissus and Echo.
|
| - My wife is a beneficiary of online "mom" groups, and it
| was through there, we learned about current toys and
| interactions on developmental psychology. We got a Lovevry
| subscription, and learned about the "mental leaps". Yet,
| those very things show how kids learn through interacting
| with objects, building neural connections in 3-d, learning
| through touch, smell, taste, kinesthetic and not just
| through sight and sound. The Montesorri method of education
| lets the kids choose what they are interested, but the
| environment is thoughtfully curated and constructed, and
| there is direct attention from an adult.
|
| Algorithms are no substitute for parenting.
|
| I first heard that from Neal Stephenson's _Diamond Age_,
| but seeing how the tech landscape is now, and having a kid,
| that is more incisive than it had been when I first read
| it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > We got a Lovevry subscription, and learned about the
| "mental leaps".
|
| All that mental leap stuff is conjecture. I was unable to
| find any data to support it, and the person behind it
| (Frans Plooij) was discredited.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonder_Weeks
|
| I assume any claims about mental development and
| personalities and whatnot is bullshit. We don't have the
| technology to test it, nor even the ability to properly
| define things in order to test them.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Yes now it's totally different than all of the crazy shit
| we watched on the internet growing up. The world is a
| dangerous and degenerate place compared to the idyllic
| utopia of our youth.
| 07121941 wrote:
| It's not about "sheltering" children from the trials and
| tribulations of real life, what they have access to is
| manipulative and unhealthy.
|
| Curious what your opinions are on the epidemic of
| pornography use in young children.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Well how young is young? I certainly lied on that "are
| you 18" question plenty of times.
| techteachtea wrote:
| Web companies used to forbid accounts belonging to children
| under the age of 13 until what, 5-10 years ago?
|
| I was under the impression that that was US law, so I was
| initially surprised at the rapid fluorishing of child
| accounts on nearly every service. But there seems to be a
| "...without parental consent" rider in our laws about data
| collection, and that consent is now assumed to be freely
| given.
|
| Really though, children should not be using these devices
| to communicate or access web services unsupervised. You are
| the parent, not the phone.
| hokumguru wrote:
| https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-
| regulatory-...
|
| Banning children from social media has generally been an
| easy way to avoid the highly stringent regulations
| concerning data protection in the USA. The FTC doesn't
| mess around with COPPA and it's very easy to find
| yourself in the hole.
| prpl wrote:
| Do you have kids born after ~2006?
| calmworm wrote:
| It's not completely off-base to compare these "for kids"
| branded apps to candy cigarettes and big league chew.
|
| Not to mention the data collection.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I just now connected big league chew to tobacco, I use to buy
| it all the time from the tee ball concession stands. That's
| funny.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Exactly. It's getting the kids conditioned and addicted to
| devices just like Pavlov's dogs. Facebook knows exactly what
| they are doing here.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is human nature to want to converse with others. The
| internet itself makes it extremely convenient to be in a
| 24/7 chat with your crew, so it's addictive with or without
| Facebook.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I wonder if that just wouldn't happen latter anyway. As
| seen from many generations that had the "formative"
| childhood before smart phones and most social media.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Yes, Facebook doesn't create that out of mercy. But what is
| the alternative aside from becoming Amish?
|
| You can't take away smartphones completely. And once there
| is the smartphone a communication app is the most useful
| thing they can get. Better than any game or whatever. But
| an open messaging app can quickly lead to issues.
|
| Would be good if there were non-profit vendors of similar
| things, bit they don't exist, yet.
| anoncake wrote:
| And Facebook entrenching itself reduces the chance of a
| non-profit vendor succeeding.
| bun_at_work wrote:
| The alternative isn't becoming Amish. It's being more
| mindful about how your children interact with new
| technologies. Facebook/Instagram/etc aren't required for
| children, and even if there are good arguments for social
| media for children (like learning how it works), that
| doesn't mean letting the children have unfettered access
| to the tech and letting these companies have unfettered
| access to the children's attention.
|
| Here's an alternative: restrict usage to a simple time-
| boxed window each day, contingent on the completion of
| what the child needs to have done (chores, homework,
| etc.). Augment that by limiting what apps the child will
| have access to, based on what is reasonable at the time.
| It requires effort, but seems totally reasonable. There
| doesn't seem to be a strong argument for children having
| continuous access to devices that have empirically been
| shown to cause serious mental health issues, not even
| including the crazy dangers of the internet (stalking,
| child sexualization, etc).
|
| Alternatively, don't control anything the child does and
| hope it works out.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Well, communication is the primary feature I would allow.
|
| Back in my days it was typical for us to run to the phone
| booth "mom, I'm still out playing, will be late for
| dinner" Now there aren't phone booths anymore.
|
| The concept of the kids messenger by Facebook sounds
| right. Quite risk free communication, which allows giving
| the kid freedom without having to always look over their
| shoulder what they are doing.
|
| As said: that being not from Facebook would be great!
| ryandrake wrote:
| There is probably a middle ground somewhere between being
| hopelessly addicted to Social Media and going Amish and
| throwing away all technology.
|
| Someone mentioned the other day on HN that Social Media
| is the modern-day Smoking, and I agree there are a lot of
| parallels. Surely we can keep our kids out of S.M.
| without restricting them from using other, less harmful
| parts of technology.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > It's not completely off-base to compare these "for kids"
| branded apps to candy cigarettes and big league chew.
|
| In terms of verisimilitude, it is 49.9% off base to compare
| for kids branded apps to tobacco use. In terms of
| intellectual honesty, it is 99.9% off base to compare for
| kids branded apps to tobacco use.
|
| If you want guidance on app use for your kids, ask a
| pediatrician a specific question. You'll get more knowledge
| than flaming on this place.
| [deleted]
| bootlooped wrote:
| There's a harm reduction argument to be made: kids are using
| digital devices already (probably too much) so one way to
| improve the whole situation is to make using them safer for
| kids.
|
| I'm not a parent, but I imagine controlling your kids
| electronic device use is a difficult task. The jump to them
| having a smartphone must be like a dam being blown apart with
| dynamite.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| So our _dear_ FB is helping us get them depressed faster,
| 'safer', and with a nice blue icon, and we should let it
| happen?
|
| Facebook is cancer. Letting this play out will only
| condition kids be more immersed/addicted to social media.
| How can that be good for them _now_? How can that be good
| for them in the _future_? Facebook has proven that they toy
| with its users, their psyche, their privacy.
|
| This will definitely come to hurt them in the future.
| Either by FB selling out every 1_and_0 they got on you, or
| allowing 'by accident' another scammy CambridgeAnalyticaV2
| to siphon all your data, or by getting hacked and
| disclosing that 2 years late.
| bootlooped wrote:
| If you're familiar with any other harm reduction efforts,
| pretty much the same arguments are made against all of
| them.
|
| Take for example needle exchanges. People who run needle
| exchanges are not asserting that people being addicted to
| heroin is a good outcome, only that people being addicted
| to heroin and also having to share dirty needles is
| worse.
|
| Likewise, I'm not asserting that little kids using
| Facebook products is a good outcome, only that it may be
| less bad than other outcomes.
| agogdog wrote:
| Needle exchanges aren't willingly run by heroin
| manufacturers. It's impossible to believe in harm
| reduction when it comes from the harm producer.
|
| I'd be much more willing to accept this as harm reduction
| if Facebook outsourced the task to an independent non-
| profit... but even that arrangement comes with pro-
| Facebook biases.
| anoncake wrote:
| Arguably, not allowing children to use Facebook products
| is easier than keeping keeping heroin addicts from
| consuming heroin. Also, I doubt needle exchanges actually
| motivate anyone to start taking heroin whereas getting
| children to use Facebook products is obviously Facebook's
| aim here.
| thesausageking wrote:
| I loath FB Messenger Kids. Because other kids have it, there's
| huge peer pressure for my kids to use it. I either have to be
| the bad parent and isolate my kids from their friends, or give
| in and start them down the path of getting conditioned to use
| FB products.
|
| And the games on it use the same engagement tricks all of
| Facebook does, so the kids end up getting sucked into them at a
| very young age.
| Spivak wrote:
| I swear have people forgot what it was like when we were
| kids. It's not like Facebook is covering new ground here. My
| parents were pressured into to giving me internet access so I
| could talk to my friends on AIM, I begged my Dad to buy me a
| cell phone because all my friends had them. And don't even
| get me started on Pokemon cards, Game Boy links, slap
| bracelets, silly bands, a bike so I could reach my friend's
| houses, and a car when I turned 16.
|
| You're not conditioning your kids to be soulless zombies to
| lord Zuckerberg any more than I was conditioned to love AOL.
| Let your kids socialize in whatever way their friends are,
| the actual socializing and shared experience is what will
| matter years down the line.
| Proziam wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from but I hold the
| extreme opposite view.
|
| I believe it should be illegal for a company to
| intentionally allow children into a system where their
| psychology is manipulated. Instagram has huge negative
| psych effects, predominantly on young girls. But the other
| social dynamics, and the effects of advertising, and the
| effects of the echo chambers that result from the
| algorithmic feeds are profound and harmful across all
| social media platforms.
|
| It isn't socializing when every photo is edited, every post
| that a kid sees is the most dramatic thing thanks to the
| algorithm, and moral/political activism is rampant and
| signal boosted. Kids should learn how to deal with real
| humans in the real world rather than digital
| characterizations of humans curated by a machine.
| bko wrote:
| I think you're overplaying brand loyalty. I didn't have
| loyalty once everyone switched off AOL instant messenger.
| They'll just likely see it as a utility and switch to the
| next best thing when it comes along.
| hosh wrote:
| Ok. Leaving aside quarantine, do kids really need to talk to
| other kids through a personal computing device that they carry
| around as a constant companion? Does that foster something
| developmentally that could not happen without it? What do kids
| lose if they use such devices as their primary means of
| communication?
|
| And let's say, we think the "constant companion" is the
| problem, and we restrict the kid's interaction through an old
| school, family computer. Is that necessarily any better?
|
| I have already seen first hand how social media interaction at
| the middle school (when kids are starting to form social
| identities independent of their parents) gets toxic.
|
| And looking at the social-media-fueled culture wars since 2014,
| it does not get any better for adults.
| (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-
| field-g...).
| spothedog1 wrote:
| My personal anecdote. I'm still very good friends with all of
| my friends from high school and college and it is almost
| entirely due to the ability to constantly group message. We
| all talk almost every day and I've since lost contact with
| most friends not included in the 3 group chats I have. We're
| all in our mid 20's now so getting together is more difficult
| but since we talk so often it drives us to hang out in person
| more. In the absence of constant communication we would
| probably all drift apart and rarely if ever hang out in
| person. There's a big difference between generic public
| social media interaction and smaller more intimate direct
| messaging and group chats. It's definitely different for kids
| cause they are forced to spend all day together in school but
| I think there is immense value for adults.
| notyourwork wrote:
| I spent a large portion of my teenage years chatting with
| strangers on IRC. As much as 12 hours at a time, I would stay
| up through the night talking with groups in channels I
| frequented.
|
| I'm not sure if this is good or bad for my personal
| development. Though it did jumpstart my education in computer
| science and career as a software engineer.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The only thing I can think of that sucks is kids feeling left
| out when all their friends have iPhones.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Phones are like drugs and sex... kids are going to use them,
| and trying to ban them outright will often lead to
| destructive behaviors. The effective approach is to teach
| them boundaries, enforce those boundaries, and let them
| experiment within those boundaries.
| jlos wrote:
| They also prevent children from deleting messages.
|
| Messenger kids has been great for my family, especially the
| times when we've had to self isolate and couldn't meet
| friends outside.
| shoto_io wrote:
| I played Zak Mackraken on my C64 for 18 hours in a row until
| it crashed and I could not restore my save... I started over.
|
| I was 10 back then. Both my parents were in academia and
| wouldn't just let me play all the time, but at some point
| they gave up.
|
| Later, I played Civilization for so many hours and through
| the night that once I fell asleep my dreams were filled with
| hexagons.
|
| Then there was Tetris. Oh, and, Wolfenstein, and the all
| legendary Age of Empires!
|
| And, here I am, 25 years later, and I am doing just fine. I
| am healthy, mentally stable and don't care about any computer
| game no more (ok, I am addicted to HN but that's a different
| story...).
| TameAntelope wrote:
| To use a fairly broad brush and a potentially overdramatic
| example, starving an extrovert of contact with others is
| tantamount to torture. I know introverts don't understand
| this on a fundamental level, but the only times I've ever
| even vaguely considered harming myself are when I was in
| forced isolation for long periods of time.
|
| To know that there are opportunities to socialize and grow my
| friendships, and those opportunities are being intentionally
| and needlessly withheld from me as some kind of "character
| growth" would evoke a kind of primal rage that would have
| caused me permanent harm as a child.
|
| I'm _extremely_ grateful my parents saw the value of learning
| how to build and maintain relationships, and I wouldn 't
| dream of taking that away from my children, or any other
| children I somehow had supervision over.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Quarantine aside, online relationships are no substitute
| for those in-person.
| tjr225 wrote:
| I don't really know how I'm going to approach this once my
| child is old enough to use devices but I think one might be
| able to argue that it makes sense for them to learn how to
| interact with the world as it exists, rather than a fantasy
| world where devices and the internet doesn't exist.
| hosh wrote:
| My wife and I decided on a no-social media policy for our
| kids. We have a teenager and a 5 month old.
|
| Our teenager has a phone we found that is a locked down
| Android, and has no internet (no wifi or 4g/5g). It is just
| a phone, with multimedia text, and non-network enabled
| calendar, clock. There is no app store.
|
| My daughter is autistic. Our problems with the phone has
| more to do with her feeling like we are cutting her off of
| connecting with people she clings to, triggering some
| childhood history. I have no idea what will happen when our
| neurotypical son becomes a teenager.
|
| There is much more to life than just what are on devices,
| and I have a general idea on how to approach this. I have
| been studying, and to some extent, applying regenerative
| paradigms. A good deal of that will involve the kids into
| the natural cycle of life. To viscerally experience where
| their food comes from, and where it goes. How to connect
| with another living being as a whole being in an ecosystem
| and community, whether that being is a human, animal, or
| plant. I am going to teach them the ethical framework,
| "care for people", "care for land", "fair share".
|
| Technology, then, is thoughtfully applied within that
| context.
|
| What that means, I am still discovering for myself. But I
| have already made some progress on that --- what
| Christopher Alexander really meant by pattern languages and
| a timeless way of building; what Smalltalk and Hypercard
| had in common, why we had turned our back to it, and maybe
| it is time to use it; the philosophy of Free Software and
| how it is different than open source, and why it matters
| more than basic rights and liberty; how sandstorm.io
| enables community-oriented and local platforms.
|
| It has not all gelled together for me yet, but I know
| something is there.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Somewhat ironic that you don't let your children use
| social media but here you are posting on a social media
| site.
| enriquec wrote:
| also remarkably ironic that they seem to want their kids
| to value life outside of technology but then proceed to
| say that software project licensing is more important
| than "basic rights and liberty" - completely out-of-touch
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Not really. Kids are not adults. They're two separate
| categories of people.
|
| Maybe OP drinks alcohol but they don't let their kids
| drink it.
|
| Maybe they own firearms but they don't let their kids
| wield them.
|
| Maybe they watch movies with violence and gore but they
| don't want their kids watching them.
|
| etc.
|
| There is a double standard, and there should be, imo.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Actually from biological standpoint there are no clear
| lines between kids and adults. That distinction is post-
| industrial revolution cultural one.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I'm not a biologist, but isn't puberty still a thing?
| jkinudsjknds wrote:
| Two groups can be very different without a clear line
| delineating them.
| coddle-hark wrote:
| There are no clear lines between summer and winter but
| sandals stop being appropriate footwear at some point
| nevertheless.
| supernovae wrote:
| Devices aren't life, but they're part of ones life.
| Computers/tech are books, pen, paper, mail, the
| telephone, TV, radio, music - it is culture. It's the
| vehicle to connect people to all of that. Dehumanizing it
| won't do much to help people stay connected to humanity.
|
| I'm not saying it's easy, i've had some epic battles with
| my kids in how they handle/navigate the complex social
| structures around technology in the palms of their hands
| - but i certainly don't think taking that away does
| anything and may be detrimental.
|
| Society is all of us... There isn't a single one of us
| that didn't stay up all night reading a book, watching a
| movie, talking on the phone, writing a letter, sending
| "beeper" texts out, texting on smart beepers, getting on
| BBSs, connecting to internet, having phones, then text
| messages and so on and so forth. It's all connectedness
| and culture we've always had, but now more readily
| available.
|
| Help your children navigate it, grow in it and thrive in
| it. Be there to keep it safe.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| There's a big difference between reading at night or
| engaging with culture and the ephemeral content of social
| media newsfeeds.
|
| Yes, it's important for children to engage with culture,
| to read, to explore music but this shouldn't be used as
| an argument to justify everything that can be grouped in
| under 'connectedness'. It's interesting you put reading
| there first because that is actually a solitary activity.
| Today it's arguably much more important to teach kids how
| to engage with their own minds and how to spend time
| alone and build out their own personality and views than
| hooking them into Instagram feeds. Which is not social in
| any genuine sense of the word.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The "real" world also consists of filth in all its myriad
| forms. Will you be exposing your kids to these experiences,
| so they can learn to interact with them as well?
|
| These platforms have very little to teach, so it's not like
| there is useful tradeoff being made in any case. It's
| simply an often toxic form of entertainment, worse than
| television imho.
| gmadsen wrote:
| yes? if they don't know that predators exist or what
| drugs are, that is setting them up for dramatic failure
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| There's a difference between knowing they exist and
| hands-on experience at a young age.
|
| Do you think being on Facebook, et al is a proper course
| in these subjects? How did you learn about them in the
| days before social media? The idea that corporate
| surveillance and conditioning is somehow required for
| growing up is silly and dangerous to the kids themselves.
| gmadsen wrote:
| besides the surveilence part, yes I do. social acceptance
| is a huge part of being a teen, no matter the social
| circle.
|
| I was on irc throughout my early teens.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| IRC in the old days is only tangentially analogous to
| today's sophisticated addiction services.
|
| I suggest watching the Social Dillema on Netflix for an
| idea. Here's a decent article I recently read on the
| subject, though there are probably better ones:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lonely-burden-of-todays-
| tee...
|
| Perhaps my argument is not clear enough, but it feels
| like we are not arguing the same point. I have no problem
| with technology, simply that kids should not be the
| product. There are plenty of higher-quality alternatives,
| just like there are alternatives to broadcast television
| and McDonalds.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| This is the conclusion I'm starting to come to as well. On
| the one hand there are things they shouldn't be exposed to
| until they can handle it themselves, but on the other hand
| they're going to learn stuff through friends or alternate
| routes of access. I'm not sure how I'm going to teach them
| how to have a healthy relationship with technology, besides
| trying to model one myself.
| wreath wrote:
| > rather than a fantasy world where devices and the
| internet doesn't exist.
|
| The fantasy world is also the one that the likes of
| Facebook want to lead us to.
| mfer wrote:
| As a parent, those always present computing devices have been
| a problem. Instead of doing a variety of different things...
| many of which build life skills... my kids want to just stare
| at rectangle screens.
|
| I now wonder what society will look like in 20-30 years.
|
| By life skills I mean things like creativity, being able to
| work out things on their own, in person interpersonal skills,
| grit, etc.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| We used to stare at square radioactive flickering screens
| all the time, and they were completely passive which can't
| be good for child development either.
|
| I too share some concerns as a parent of 1 and expecting
| 2nd soon, but I don't mind accepting that I have no clue
| what kind of world our kids will live in. I might be out of
| touch with it in similar way current old generations are
| from phones and internet. It could also be that shielding
| kids from it at all costs because we think we know what's
| best for them might be a significant harm for them later in
| life.
|
| Some things will disappear, some will get different and/or
| better, and new ones will come. Fine by me. I just wish it
| wasn't Facebook, a company with crystal clear amoral values
| through and through. Anytime Facebook wins, mankind loses
| in long term. But that might be just me getting already out
| of touch with current reality out there.
| johncessna wrote:
| If ever present computing devices were gone, I think we'd
| be looking at the on-demand content from providers and
| the streaming services as the great ruiner of children.
| At least when I was growing up, you could actually run
| out of content on the idiot box. Your show wasn't on and
| you didn't have enough channels to find something else.
|
| We'll see how this plays out, though. I think some
| aspects are constructive. The growing content creation
| community seems to be a Good Thing. The even faster
| growing content creation consumption community, doesn't
| seem to be. Personally speaking, I've found myself at an
| expert at a ton of things, but haven't actually done any
| of those things.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| You must have hated when kids got cell phones.
| hosh wrote:
| My wife and I tried letting our teenager have her own cell
| phone, and that informed a lot of what I saw. We eventually
| found a locked down phone purpose-designed for kids, but I
| have no problem with getting a landline if it continues
| being an issue. (The issue with my kid and phones is not
| what we were discussing; she is on the autism spectrum, and
| so it is not quite the same; I have no idea yet what I will
| do with my neuraltypical son when he grows into a teenager)
| yeetman21 wrote:
| Are you guys also on the autistic spectrum too because
| that is no way to raise kids. When they leave the
| carefully curated and filtered walled garden that you've
| created for them and enter the real work at 18 or so,
| they are going to be hit like a truck. In college its
| always the kids whose parents were the strictest that act
| out or become alcoholics when the finally get a taste of
| freedom. You cannot do everything for them, it is better
| now for them to experience more of the world/ internet
| when you still can influence them/ they have a high
| opinion of you rather than ten years down the line when
| they feel betrayed or whatnot by you and don't want to
| speak.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I was trying to comment on parent comment and some others
| but it hurts. "Going to be hit like a truck" -- it
| involves luck for that line to remain figurative.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Yeah, GP is cutting their kids off from society. We
| aren't living in the 60s anymore, much of the
| infrastructure for growth and development at that age
| does not exist outside the internet. Just look at
| libraries, social clubs, etc... They're all replaced.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Leaving aside the quarantine means leaving aside the single
| most important factor in the last two years.
| anoncake wrote:
| And an entirely irrelevant factor for the future, which
| therefore should be left aside.
| [deleted]
| yeetman21 wrote:
| who says its irrelevant for the future? some experts are
| saying the quarantine is going to be semi permanent in
| some form or another.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Not a chance. That is fascist and evil to deprive people
| of social interaction by government decree.
| munk-a wrote:
| This past year might have felt breezy if you're in your
| sixties, or bearable if you're in your thirties - but if
| you're in your teens or younger you've been deprived of a
| lot of social development time and there will be long
| term damage from this.
|
| Additionally - I don't know if it really is an irrelevant
| factor for the future. This is a flu variant that could
| continue to mutate and cause havoc if governments act
| irresponsibly or if a particularly large segment of the
| population continues to resist vaccination and mask
| wearing while being egged on by idiots on TV. Lastly,
| global habitat destruction increases the chances we
| discover fun new world ending diseases, hopefully we
| won't see another one for decades, but it's unlikely that
| we'll be spared another global pandemic for the next 100
| years.
| hosh wrote:
| It is for this reason I consider "zoomers" as an
| appropriate label for the Gen Z kids.
|
| But here is something else I also know: the modern way in
| which kids develop through the teenage years is already
| screwed up, even without the internet, smart phones, and
| social media. It seems normal now because it is
| normative.
| supernovae wrote:
| I'm 45 years old, my parents asked the same things about me..
| the screen wasn't necessarily a pocket companion at the time
| - but it was computers, consoles and hand-held devices and
| all the stuff around them.
|
| At first, they fought me... and it was a dumb battle for
| battles sake. My parents never bothered to understand
| anything I did and generally just gave up and let me do
| whatever...
|
| Turns out, they were in the midsts of a relationship failure
| and there was no time for the kids, so they let me have at
| the computer...
|
| BUT... It worked :) I taught myself programming, operating
| systems, I ran a BBS that was the first BBS in texas to offer
| Linux downloads, I got published in books/magazines/journals
| talking/writing about OS/2, Linux and DESQview.
|
| In the end, I never went to school, my parents relationship
| was still crap but I made friends, found my wife and still
| work online to this day..
|
| My kids are 13 and 17 and its new battles... but i just think
| back and remember where I started - I try and fill in the
| gaps of just "Caring" in general and just "wanting a
| relationship" with my kids in general - and i do that in lieu
| of trying to prohibit something that is already pervasive in
| their lives.
|
| Yes, I run firewalls, safety, anti-virus, family-safety, yes
| there are some things blocked - yes their phones have family
| safety too but mostly to do what I can to protect them from
| maliciousness.
|
| The last battle any parent can or should fight is the battles
| of pop culture, society and social interactions... espeially
| a year+ into a pandemic.
|
| we had to re-think the whole grounding from devices during
| pandemic because that was suicide to a teen... and in doing
| so - it sparked conversations we weren't having and made me
| realize i was just following in the same ignorant foot steps
| as my parents.
|
| Kids will get burner devices if they're grounded, they will
| jailbreak/root phones/devices to bypass controls, they will
| buy sims at 7/11 to get around time/restrictions - they may
| find a drawer of old devices and keep one alive for tethering
| and many other things - lock down their PC? they will install
| bluestacks and have unlimited android environment...
|
| It's crazy
|
| But damn, if they're doing all that effort and
| learning/collaborating on all that - they're getting skills
| that i find many adults still lack
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Kids will get burner devices if they 're grounded, they
| will jailbreak/root phones/devices to bypass controls, they
| will buy sims at 7/11 to get around time/restrictions -
| they may find a drawer of old devices and keep one alive
| for tethering and many other things - lock down their PC?
| they will install bluestacks and have unlimited android
| environment..._
|
| This brought to mind: Years ago when I was a teen, my mom
| grounded me and took my desktop away for quite a while,
| which was like a death sentence even back then. Given that
| it was an oversized cube case and there really wasn't
| anywhere to lock it away, I would always just grab it after
| school and keep using it until she got home. Problem is,
| she put the computer next to the door so I had to resort to
| locking the second lock to give myself time to put it back
| when she got home. I didn't think about it at the time but
| I. was being blatantly obvious and she clued me in years
| later that she knew what I was doing from the beginning.
|
| Punishments don't have to be all or nothing, they can be
| like locks: they won't stop the determined, but they will
| stop the opportunists. The punishment is the inconvenience
| of the workaround and often has the added benefit that
| enforcement requires spending more time with them.
| </parenting "advice" from a coddled nonparent>
| efdee wrote:
| They'll wait for kids to get hooked and then gradually start
| injecting all those things you didn't want in the first place
| once the cat is out of the bag.
| KorematsuFred wrote:
| I think it is very healthy and good for major companies like
| Facebook or Youtube to create kids versions of their apps to
| keep our kids safe, to make sure parents understand what their
| kids do online and also to have better compliance with law.
|
| The government on other hand is hell bent on destroying some of
| the most successful american comapnies at the expense of its
| citizens.
| kerng wrote:
| I didnt know parents would see the conversations also - seems
| right down FB line.
|
| So spying is okay when parents do it? It's interesting how we
| normalize this all.
|
| I'd imagine most kids use their own creative stuff anyway to
| get around snoopy parents.
| jasongill wrote:
| Parents can't see the conversations but can see the number of
| messages and calls per contact, as well as recently
| shared/received photos. It's a pretty good compromise IMHO.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Newsflash from police state parenting
| fallingknife wrote:
| Yeah just like they told me when I was a kid, "never talk to
| strangers because there's a predator behind every tree." Of
| course what they don't tell you is that, overwhelmingly, the
| most likely person to abuse a child it their parents.
| anoncake wrote:
| Avoiding your parents as a child because they might abuse you
| is not a real option though.
| thebackup wrote:
| I understand that a lot of parents are positive to the parental
| control and supervision that you describe, I am not that kind
| of parent. I want the relationship with my kids to be built on
| trust and honesty. My two boys make mistakes sometimes,
| probably more than I know of, but that is fine, it's part of
| growing up. They also don't use social media, instead they text
| their friends by SMS or simply call them when they want to talk
| or meet up. So far they have never complained about missing out
| on anything.
| garmaine wrote:
| It's not about preventing them from making mistakes. It's
| about protecting them from predators.
| thebackup wrote:
| I see your point. I have friends that put GPS trackers on
| their kids "just in case they get abducted by a sexual
| predator". It does happen that kids get taken, however it's
| more likely that they get hit by lightning... and a GPS
| tracker wont really protect them anyhow. The absolute
| majority of abuse towards children are also done by people
| that are close to them (parents, relatives, teachers). I
| have put a lot of time and effort into building a relation
| with my kids where it's ok to talk about anything. My
| oldest have also been practicing self-defense for over 5
| years now.
| nineplay wrote:
| Yes yes yes. The most direct discussions I have with my kid
| about social media is "there are adult male perverts who
| are going to pretend to be your friend because they want to
| have sex with you." It's a more explicit discussion than
| I'd like to have but there's no getting away from it.
|
| It's also why I have the "I will monitor your internet
| usage at any time that I feel it's necessary" discussion. I
| don't like invading privacy - I wouldn't want my internet
| history explored and it's as vanilla as you can imagine but
| it's also a projection of my inner thoughts.
|
| I knew a young girl who was lured into a sexual encounter
| with an adult after striking up a friendship on "Words with
| Friends". I don't trust/allow anything with private
| communication.
| Clampower wrote:
| There's perverts of every gender, and not limited to
| males. Instilling this sort of sexism in children from an
| early age is not great.
| anoncake wrote:
| Bonus points for telling a male child that males are
| inherently untrustworthy.
| ixacto wrote:
| It's totally possible that pedophiles and abuses are
| using tiktok and Instagram to groom children, but most of
| the time it's someone that the child knows that actually
| does the abuse:
|
| " A common myth is that child sexual abuse is perpetrated
| by strangers and pedophiles. But most people who sexually
| abuse children are our friends, partners, family members,
| and community members. About 93 percent of children who
| are victims of sexual abuse know their abuseriii. Less
| than 10 percent of sexually abused children are abused by
| a stranger." https://www.ywca.org/wp-content/uploads/WWV-
| CSA-Fact-Sheet-F...
|
| So I'd not freak out too much if your kid searches for
| something really weird, because we all did that as kids.
| javajosh wrote:
| Two things: what age, and what's the alternative? Teens are
| quite a different group, and I agree that they should have
| greater privacy. But young children have friends too and they
| want to chat. While I agree it would be best to be screen
| free and meet IRL, circumstances make this very difficult.
|
| That said, I wish it wasn't Facebook making this tool. I do
| not trust that company.
| efdee wrote:
| Out of curiosity: What causes them to currently not use
| social media? And what if they start doing so?
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| > _I dislike Facebook as much as any HN poster, but I can say
| that the Facebook Messenger for Kids app has
| been...surprisingly good._
|
| That opener and the glowing comment that follows are pretty
| strange. It's essentially, "I hate Facebook too, but in spite
| of hating it, I give their product to my kids and (effectively)
| here are all the reasons you should consider giving it to your
| kids too."
|
| Maybe we dislike Facebook for different reasons, but I believe
| most (including myself) would point to something along the
| lines of their horrible business practices and privacy abuses.
| This is not a per-app thing. It's their approach to
| _everything_ and, really, the entire point of their ecosystem
| (of which your kids are now a part).
|
| So, whether or not they can make an app "safe" from outside
| predators, I have zero interest in feeding my kids to the
| Facebook machine. I'm not trying to be on the attack here, but
| it frustrates me as a parent to see another parent promoting
| this stuff in the name of convenience (or whatever) when they
| also know it's awful. Ultimately, when enough parents approve
| and enough kids are using it, then other parents are left to
| make the awful choice between also feeding their kids to the
| machine or allowing them to be socially isolated to some
| extent.
|
| When do we take a stand? Or, at a minimum, maybe don't help
| Facebook promote it?
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I have to ask, what's the benefit of the app to Facebook? Are
| they serving ads to kids? Or are they hoping to bring them up
| with Facebook firmly as part of their digital identity?
| derwiki wrote:
| Collect data now, profit later
| ronsor wrote:
| That's probably illegal, and as far as I know the big tech
| companies take children's privacy at least somewhat
| seriously, as it's one of the few things that can land them
| in deep trouble if mishandled.
| ixacto wrote:
| Yes I think this is more a play for Facebook mindshare
| with parents.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| Kids generate data in more ways than can be directly
| siphoned from the web service run by Facebook.
|
| It can be to their benefit simply because it pushes more
| Facebook traffic through the ISPs and other major
| infrastructure. A quick win on the business side, and a
| whole new venture for further tech development on the
| product side.
| nineplay wrote:
| No ads, I think there is a bit of "If you like Facebook for
| kids, you'll _love_ Facebook for adults"
|
| It has been a lifesaver during covid. It is the way kids
| text/video chat with each other without a cell plan and with
| only approved contacts. I don't know what my kid would have
| done without it, it is a 2-3-4 hour virtual playdate when
| there are no other ways to connect with their friends.
| AndrewUnmuted wrote:
| Who needs ads when you're giving parents an incentive to
| continue locking their children indoors?
|
| It seems most of the replies that are positive about this
| service, focus on the way they've helped rear children
| during Covid.
|
| That breaks my heart, since kids ought to be able to play
| with their friends in person anyway. Parents have been
| incredibly docile about lockdowns and have played along
| since there's been technology afoot to make it all go
| smoother.
|
| But this only works for a portion of the population that
| has the money, time, knowledge, and resources to secure
| such things for their kid. This is a terrible idea in
| practice in the way it imposes further hierarchy and
| inequity among kids. In-person, children are on equitable
| grounds with one another, but this creates a void of
| separation where rich kids will be able to dominate over
| the poorer ones.
| nineplay wrote:
| > kids ought to be able to play with their friends in
| person anyway
|
| That is and was debatable during the lockdown. We didn't,
| and we don't regret our choice. Even if now it is clearer
| that kids are not as susceptible to Covid, it wasn't
| clear at the beginning and I don't regret erring on the
| side of caution.
| agogdog wrote:
| Brand affinity. Think about how many millennials feel about
| AOL Instant Messenger.
| israrkhan wrote:
| The younger generation is mostly using alternate platforms,
| like snapchat. Facebook can benefit by hooking the kids to
| its platform at earlier stage and profit from it later.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > bring them up with Facebook firmly as part of their digital
| identity?
|
| This. It's a gateway drug.
| llarsson wrote:
| Maybe show ads to the parents based on what the kids have
| been talking about?
|
| Not displaying ads to the kids does not mean the data just
| gets thrown away, after all.
| blakesterz wrote:
| It's a really short letter, you can read it here:
|
| https://www.mass.gov/doc/naag-letter-to-facebook/download
|
| Signed by attorneys general of Massachusetts, Nebraska, Vermont,
| Tennessee, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of
| Columbia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky,
| Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi,
| Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico,
| New York, North Carolina, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio,
| Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina,
| South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and
| Wyoming
|
| (Also, I was curious and had to look up what the plural is and
| why for a group like this: It's tricky, because both "attorney"
| and "general" are nouns, so it seems perfectly legal to just add
| the "s" to the second word, and that often happens in news
| reports. "General" here, though, is an adjective, not a noun; you
| can think of them as "general attorneys." So the plural goes on
| the noun, and the proper form is "attorneys general.")
| benrbray wrote:
| For those like wondering, that's 40 states plus DC, PR, Guam,
| and Northern Mariana. The 10 states that did not sign the
| letter (either because they declined to sign or weren't asked
| to) are AL, AZ, AK, CO, FL, GA, IN, ND, PA, WV
| mc32 wrote:
| The plural in these legal noun phrases is influenced by French
| grammar convention (unlike English, adjectives take a plural).
| tempodox wrote:
| Exactly, analogous to "court-martial" (although in that case,
| "court-martials" is a valid plural form besides "courts-
| martial").
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