Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39983233
There used to be a saying (Campaign really) for children about "Don't take candy from strangers." Now why was that? Mistrust was at the heart of it. You had no idea what the candy actually had nor if the child was being lured into a trap. Clearly, you can not ban strangers, you cannot ban nefarious candy nor stop the act of kidnapping of children. What this campaign really did was spread awareness to have parents educate their children on the potential dangers of taking things from strangers. Assuming the parent cared enough anyway.
Child goes outside into the world of advertisement billboards, television, whatever that isn't delivered via Google or Meta/Facebook/Instagram Ads. Your child now wants this this and that. Your response as a parent is to ban the advertisement, the billboards, radio waves? It's stupid beyond belief. Talk about wanting to decimate an economy because of your sensibilities and susceptibilities.
Social media is just another environment. You are exposed to many things including strangers who want to give you candy (information). There's a lot of bad candy online, not just social media. How do you expect to guide yourself through all of that bad candy. How do you expect a child to do that? Just ban yourself from the internet isn't a viable solution if you are forced to work with it. Banning children from the internet isn't a viable solution, they will grow up. They will be even stupider, more curious and I would argue more susceptible to bad candy.
Maybe that's the goal of some people to make sure children are more susceptible as they grow up which means "parents" today, who advocate for child bans, are just people who took the bad candy already and are still taking them. I would think that if you fall for a scam, the response to that would be 'If I had known this, this and this, then I wouldn't have fallen for it.' Y'know, educating yourself to not be susceptible. Mentally hardening yourself rather than the childish response of 'OWIEEEE, THAT HURT STAY AWAYYYYYY.'
To analyze why you did something and how you can stop yourself from falling for said thing again would be the ideal response. Clearly not everyone operates at the same level of intellect or response management.
I think failing to teach children how to manage themselves, these "parents" as well, is the real failure that allows r-tarded bans to even be considered. Bans are more expensive that education and I think the regions that ban children from doing things are only adding a catalyst to the fire of stupidity and if that is the case being a scammer is becoming more lucrative. If stupid breeds stupid, it's a pandemic of its own.
What's the point of educating when those who do not seek to be educated want to push their pain to others? Instead of me posting sh*t like this, I should just join the scammers and take advantage of a burgeoning booming market that's growing larger and larger as bans pass and children age up. Might as well take some of the market share. Give out bad candy and sell product on top of it.
Remember this, Porn is still a thing and has been expanding despite all the bans, why is that? Imagine if children had been educated about the subject, so they could not be susceptible to garbage like nofap or be susceptible to LIES like masturbation is bad for you and will drain you of your testosterone or be struck down by the gods up on high.
Given the bans of history on a government level, what's going to change this time? Expect in 15 years or less for social media ban reversals as today's children age up.
Educate your child, yourself or else get taken advantage of, be depressed and at every turn, I will sell you the solution to your problems that I made up.
Yesterday it was Drugs, today it's Social Media, tomorrow it's Artificial Intelligence. The cheapest solution will always be the same: Education.