Summary
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”. Another said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine’”.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action… to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists.”
He didn’t say that. Social media companies should be punished and regulated to a certain extent, but saying that they’re the only ones to blame here is frankly bollocks. It’s the same discussion we’ve had with violent video games.
Ignorant parents use this to excuse their lack of action for their kid’s use of social media. What they could and should do is to not allow kids access to it or to monitor their traffic. This however requires willpower, time and effort to understand and implement this into daily life. Which either they don’t have or don’t want to do. This brings us to one of the causes of the low fertility rate for younger generations: it takes more nowadays to raise a child and younger generations are more responsible about raising kids than older generations.
Excessive regulation of social media for kids will massively affect our privacy. Certain European apps now require facial or id verification to use in order to prove you’re old enough. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want to give out my ID or let them photo my face just to watch a movie just because some parent isn’t responsible enough to educate their kid.
Sounds like absolving social media to me.
The complexity of social media engineering and the scope of its impact is unprecedented. It’s not at all the same thing as video game or TV panic. When you account for how much real-life peer discussion is driven by these platforms, protecting your child from this toxic rhetoric is nearly impossible.
You used to have to show your ID to rent a movie in person, why is doing it online any different? If you (rightfully) are concerned about data collection and surveillance, push for legeslative protections on that topic. This is a completely separate issue with a very clear root cause.
Because that data is stored and passed on to third parties in most cases. Because data breeches are a common occurrence nowadays. Because gorvernments and companies can use that data against you later on.
“Oh, that person has a nasty burn on his face? Why don’t I save that and pass this information to a face cream company?”
“Oh, this person is a refugee from another country? Why don’t I just pass this information to the government so they can see what they’re watching?”
It’s most definetly not like buying liquor when you briefly show your ID to the cashier.
The EU and California have already done that and the results are rather poor since it’s difficult to properly enforce. You can slap fines on said companies, but that’s only a setback. It doesn’t stop them especially when you have a weak government like the US has right now.
No, it’s not. You’re sacrificing privacy and liberty for everyone just to fix mostly a parental issue.
The solution is to give those laws teeth. Harsh regulations on platforms that serve unmoderated content open to everyone. Enforce transparency on content serving algorithms. Massive penalties for security breaches. Ban platforms that don’t comply.
If you’re worried about state actors having access to your clearnet data, that’s pretty much unavoidable in the internet age. You can lessen that by pushing against the digitization of society. You shouldn’t need a smart phone or internet service to live daily life.
Support brick-and-mortar stores, your local library, a local hobby group. Campaign against always-online car features, IoT e-waste, traffic surveillance laws, etc… Don’t make me choose between subjecting children to a stream of unregulated bullshit and the right to privacy. It’s a false dichotomy propped up by our need for digital convenience.
Alright. Then get every single country on Earth to pass the same stringent regulation and invest in measures to enforce it. If you can’t do that, then you can’t effectively protect kids against stuff like this. Taking away rights with the pretext of security for every little thing is how democracies fall.
Don’t make me choose between my privacy and someone’s lack of responsibility. I shouldn’t have to give up my rights just because someone can’t supervise their child. Like you’ve said, technology is here to stay. I’m not going to limit my freedom like that over a non issue like this.
Why does every country on earth need to do it? Will a massive majority of the population switch to VPNs just to watch some YouTube videos? Is that any different from kids trying to circumvent other age gated activities? Does YouTube even want that VPN traffic if it makes them less money? Why not just ban smart phones for kids?
What measures do you need to enforce it beyond what already exists? The only ones that matter are massive mega-platforms. If a platform isn’t complying just punish it.
The main question is how much of your life really needs to exist in a digital space? People paid bills, shopped, watched porn, played games and read news before the internet. Democracy falls when an entire generation of voters is raised on supporting Tate-endorsed fascism. This is not a non-issue. It’s happening no matter how much you tut-tut everyone’s parenting.
I’m just curious… How did you sign up for internet service? Can you walk me through the process?
Sighs. Signing up and giving personal informations to a few services is fine. Your ISP, your bank, your doctor. That’s fine. You know who they are, you remember them, you can keep an eye on them.
Doing this for every possible service on the internet is not. I guarantee you can’t remember all the sites you’ve made an account to and that you probably didn’t read the ToS for each one. If you add a requirement that each one of these sites to verify users through ID or face verification, it massively increases the risk that your data will leak to undesired parties. The state can’t keep track of all of them the same way you can’t do it. They’re just too many. It’s possible that at one point one of these companies will have a data breach or will break regulation. Then your online data (in this case your face and your ID) is up for grabs.
What if a police officer were to randomnly stop you on the street and check your pockets to ensure you’re not carrying child porn? What if they suspect you’re hiding child porn in your underwear? Should we make a law giving the right to police officers to strip you naked just so we can make sure you’re not doing anything illegal? We have to protect children right? Nothing is more valuable right?
SIGHS.
YouTube isn’t the police.
Verifying your age to access adult/mature content isn’t some novel concept. We absolutely can come up with a way to do this online that at least mitigates the risk of leaked/stolen data to an acceptable level. Doing nothing at all and just letting kids access anything they want on the internet is not a solution, and hiding behind “freedom” as an excuse to abdicate social responsibility is lazy.
Encroaching on privacy and hiding behind the idea of “protecting kids” as an excuse to take away from your liberty and private life is lazy.
If you want to protect your child from what they might find on the internet, then spend time with them. Don’t pawn this off to the state.
This feels exactly like people fighting against gun control while schools are shot up on the regular. Get over your individualism and sparkling ideals and realize that something has to be done. If your privacy and personal freedom are tied to Facebook and Twitter, maybe that’s a you problem.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything. Tax them, fine them, shut them down. I’m all for it. But don’t let them collect any more data by slapping this legislation.
No, that’s an us problem. If you’re a Latino living in the US I don’t think you’d like Trump to know your face and your ID when you post a negative thing about him on an online platform.
Go ahead and point out where I said your liberty should be taken away. Using the internet is not an inherent right.
I never mentioned the state. This is like blaming the opioid epidemic on the addict and alleviating Purdue of all responsibility. No amount of personal accountability is going to fix the problem while multi-billion dollar corporations pump an addictive and harmful product into society 24/7.
I’d argue that it is, but that’s beyond the scope of this topic.
Then tax them, fine them, ban them. What we shouldn’t do is let them collect any more data about us using this type of legislation.