‘Where do we go now?’: Malaysia’s under-16 social media ban leaves teens detached and displaced
2d 6h ago by lemmy.today/u/sanitation in privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com from www.straitstimes.com
I am a little unsympathetic to the notion that people can't socialize without social media.
You have phone calls, texts, email, snail mail, face-to-face conversations, sports, community activities, etc. Call your friends, get on bikes, and go have an adventure.
They're the victims of a lot of money being poured into making sure they don't use other means of communication. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I don't think you have to be unsympathetic to these kids to also tell them to explore other forms of social interaction
Nobody has to feel anything, including sympathy. People are free to feel whatever, as long as they act responsibly.
'Victim' is the correct word.
These young people were fed into a digital ecosystem that is 100% meant to be harmful to their brains in order to get them to buy shit they don't need. If we lived in a just world Facebook would have been held criminally accountable when it was disclosed in 2014 that they were conducting experiments on their users by tweaking their news feeds in order to manipulate them.
Thanks to the addictive element of these applications it will require effort to reorient themselves into this new reality, but that's better than living in front of a screen. In time, they'll learn that but it is going to be a learned skill.
Yeah. Of the myriad reasons to criticize such a move, getting kids out of reach of the dopamine manipulations of vulture capitalists isn't one.
That being said, the better solution would have been to regulate the social media companies to not manipulate people
No doubt. It's a shitty move. But it's also shitty reporting focusing on "kids miss social media" while there so much bigger issues with the law. It generates noise and disperses criticism. It only benefits surveillance capitalism.
Absolutely.
And the 'woe is me' thing just doesn't jive with me, having grown up without social media and knowing the benefits of analog friendships.
"having never experienced the world from their situation, I have no sympathy for them"
Okay boomer. I grew up before chat rooms and cell phones too, but I choose to be less judgemental to people who haven't had the same life experiences I have.
Hostile infrastructure to cyclists and pedestrians is commonplace outside of a few nations.
Phone plans are far more expensive compared to VOIP/messaging platforms, and snail mail? Where'd you get that idea, dinosaur?
Face to face conversations are very uncommon outside of events which require peers (work, education), so unlike, say, a group message chat, far more coordination is needed for something that may not be possible for all participants.
Community centers are dead, at least in north america, and sports are gatekept.
I could go on, but online third spaces are my generation's escape from the horrible reality we find ourselves in. Sorry we don't live in the 90s or earlier anymore, dino.
Haha yeah fuck those disabled and neuro kids that have trouble with all the previous examples! “We turned out fine,” right?
Yea, great reason to continue to let them be exploited, manipulated and have their data harvested by big tech.
How many of these absolutely worthless trends that last 2 weeks and dangerous "challenges" propogate on social media? All of them.
You don't think neurodivergent and disabled kids would be more susceptable (is that how its spelled?) to that?
The argument for community and inclusion through big tech social media is bullshit too because there are plenty of other digital forms of communication that can cater to that - issue being big tech has them all convinced its the only platform for it.
So all up not quite sure what your point is?
For clarification, I do not support identity checks for age verification. I support kids getting off exploitative platforms that are proven to negatively impact them. If FB and the like stayed like it was in 2012 and didnt devolve into the manipulation machine it is now I wouldnt even be typing this.
But the governments that are penalizing social media, were already penalizing most of those stuff as well. In particular face-to-face, community activities and anything that could be understood as a third space.
Also, suggesting bikes is like stochastically murdering children in modern cities.
Especially in places like Malaysia lol
THAT!
Step 1: Remove physical third spaces
Step 2: Remove digital third spaces
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Uh.....
It's like being forced to quit drugs cold turkey, and that sucks. There's been enough whistleblowers telling us social media is being shaped to be as addicting and harmful as possible and to get kids hooked as young as possible.
I was born a generation or maybe two now? above these kids. I got to experience the early Internet and not having MySpace weaponized against me. So from that perspective I'm at I'm happy for them. It's been consistently hard to avoid social media and the backlash of friends. I'll be excluded from a group event or miss important information every so often and then get told. "Well if you were on Facebook you would've known."
These kids will be alright once they discover what avenues are available to them for communication.
The thing you posted this on is also social media.
At least according to the article, Malaysia's ban is actually limited to big tech, making it slightly less bad than most Internet regulations that are just regulatory capture for big tech.
Has anyone tried to tell Malaysian teens about the fediverse and how they can still be here as much as they want, I wonder? 😜
The MCMC dictates that platforms must eventually implement robust age verification against government-issued records such as the national identity card called MyKad, or passports. Tech companies have been granted a six-month grace period to fully integrate a rigorous age-verification system for users aged 16 and above.
This is nothing but an anti-privacy measure, and discussing it in good faith as a child protection measure is playing into their propaganda. Discussing the merits of these "age-verification" laws as such is about as dumb as agreeing to refer to anti-abortion as pro-life when you yourself are pro-abortion.
Oh and agreeing with these "age-verification" laws because you want to save the children is even dumber.
Gonna have to touch grass
They didn’t even win the game.
Surprise surprise. If you want to help, regulate the social media itself, hold companies accountable for content they show to children.
It still needs to be corporate. Obviously.
Yeah I don't think cutting it off like this is the best approach
These lazy little shits don't even remember when they were young, and yearned for the mines.
Oh those poor children!
Now they have to talk to each other in school
/s
📖frongt@lemmy.zip why don't you just block me?
Interestŋ to see a ŋ in the wild, to accompany the þ posts!
Form crime gangs like they are everywhere else. What 16 year old didn't go smash bottles or windows or set things on fire at that age?
I sure as hell did not
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA