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- cross-posted to:
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Utah sues TikTok, alleging it lures children into addictive and destructive social media habits::Utah has become the latest state to sue TikTok, alleging the social media company is “baiting” children into addictive and unhealthy habits.
This is laughable. I played this game before with my own kids. I would find their new Myspace account and have it removed. They would just go to a friends house whose parents didn’t care and sign up for a new one. It was a back and forth. Then my now-ex started arguing with me about it once the kids started whining about it. Now they are grown and can do whatever they want. It was a battle I was never going to win, but if Utah thinks they can manage this, I would love to watch. Gonna go make some popcorn.
Trying to split the internet into “adults’” and “children’s” sections is never going to work — not without a mandatory ID system that nobody wants — nobody who isn’t attached to a spy organization or totalitarian regime, at least. You can’t treat it like alcohol or tobacco because nobody’s giving away alcohol and tobacco for free; we restrict access primarily at the point of sale. There’s no point of sale for social media, and no comparable way to restrict it.
However, what you can do is regulate advertising to the point where the dark patterns used by data-harvesting platforms like TikTok, Google, Facebook, etc. are simply not commercially viable. The EU is moving in that direction already.
Utahns are ACTIVELY playing this game with porn sites right now. Curious as to how that’s working for them.