this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Is it even possible to define "social" media? Media on the internet which allows you to connect with others? So the entire internet then? We always have had e-mail, IRC, newsgroups, IM, forums and later on voice calls, and every "new" platform is just an iteration or amalgamation of those early technologies. (Yeah especially you, discord, you worthless piece of shit)
It is a law that makes sense to me from a human standpoint, but looks impossible to uphold if you think about the practical implications. Everything is social. Pure read-only websites are vastly outnumbered. Even wikipedia allows discussions ffs.
That said, i would very much welcome an entire ban of minors on the internet. And while we're at it, maybe more so a ban on data-harvesting, intrusive advertising and corporate driven monetisation of user created content. Earlier days of the internet. Ctrl-alt-del that fucker back to 1998 please.
Or you know what, just pull the plug. It was fun while it lasted but let's not succumb to FOMO. The party has ended and yet we're still on the dance floor with the lights on, clinging on to the last moments that already passed. There's beer and someone else's vomit on our clothes, a bunch of drunks stumbling and yelling racist remarks, your girl is riding some loser on the wet floor and the thick, putrid smell of lost hope and forgotten dreams hangs in the air. There's no more music, just the drunken ramblings of those that also refuse to leave and some shouting reverberated in the now almost empty venue, and you feel the cold air and the humidity. You realise you haven't seen your friends around for hours. How did this happen all of a sudden, it was so fun here an hour ago?
It never really was.
Let's just go home.
Here's one way to do it. The legislators define a list. Products in the list are social media. The list is referenced in the law.
That seems... Inefficient?
New Social media pops up every other year or so. Do they need to meet and vote to add new ones to the list every time?
The parent asked how do you define at all. What I wrote is just the dumbest way which demonstrates how it can be done. This dumb solution holds up even in your scenario because new media doesn't gain significant user base every other year. If the list is outdated, containing Facebook and Instagram alone, that would still capture a huge part of the problem already. You can probably figure a slightly less dumb alternative that wouldn't require amendments just to add another platform. Folks talking about the impossibility of defining something or implementing something in law often ignore obvious solutions, existing working processes, and present this false dichotomy of a perfect solution vs impossible to solve. Sometimes it's a matter of ignorance, other times it's driven by (conscious or subconscious) libertarian beliefs.
I don't think internet is as much the problem as phones.
Totally agree. The rise of the smartphone (be it the apps or just the access to the net at your fingertips) seems to at least partially coincide with the death of the classic internet.
Ban tools that pretend to be magic?
Just my guess. Butlerian jihad something. Not going to think further, I like this one fuzzy.
E-mail is just electronic mail. IRC is just electronic groupchat. Newsgroups is just an electronic notes board, like they may have on a residential building.
IM is like e-mail or IRC, but with bullshit. Forums are like newsgroups, but with bullshit.
Voice calls are like phone calls, but over ~~ the Web.~~ the Internet.
I'm split over that.
Reading fan fiction hurt me a lot - literature can be harmful, especially when it's written by late puberty teens about situations they'd want to have, relating to late puberty social dynamics and which characters they'd want to have sex with. It has damage potential for some people.
But also most of the good things I've read were over Internet too. I'm already formed by it.
I agree, but some of it was fun. The parts created by real people, using tools for their intended purpose. Webpages - to share hypertext-connected bunches of pages. Forums - to have text discussions separated by subjects. And so on.
It broke when someone really believed you can take the human out of the loop.
But all these tools are only meaningful as an extension of the human. Mail doesn't make sense if you put a bunch of text generators that would mail each other nonsense, even if it is plausible nonsense.
We the humanity have tested ourselves with enormous computing power and have found out our worth. Here ends the optimistic age, and the pessimistic age starts, which won't be the first time they change even in the last century.
We have been weighed and found wanting. Isn't this sobering and beautiful? Only I'd like this to have happened earlier. Like 10 years ago.
How are they going to write a law that bans social media while allowing online school?
Thats my point. You can't. Everything on the internet is "social" nowadays. The best they can do is something like banning access to services that don't follow a strict set of rules/laws, for instance regarding data collection or selling etc