I think stuff like this, is trying to recreate a world that doesn't exist anymore. With whom, are you gonna go play in the woods with, that haven't already been bulldozed into housing and strip malls? Do you need to watch YouTube only on a parent's TV that's logged in, even for homework help? Some kids start working at 14 or 15: they can be trusted to work somewhere outside of home, but not online? What about Steam games? What about any games? What about hobby & fan forums, that have nothing to do with "grooming" or grabbing eyeballs? What's next, an Internet license?
The YouTube situation is the biggest self-own in Australia's implementation. Previously kids under 16 could have an account under a parent's Family, and there are full parental controls and monitoring. Now kids can't have these accounts, so they can only access youtube without signing in. Meaning zero parental controls and monitoring. Oh and have you seen what youtube looks like when you're not logged in!?
Fully agree. I have no issues with the social media laws as they don't impact my family at all except for YouTube. Accounts under Family Link control should have been allowed as they are overseen by an 18+ parent.
Youtube should have voluntarily removed shorts and the front page or made them available as a parental control to appease the regulator. When I wrote to the minister they used YouTube's addictive algorithms as justification for including them as social media which I do agree with.
We had curated kids logins with age restrictions, subscriptions, and ad free under premium and also youtube music with individual playlists they used for instrument practice etc. We had to shift music platform. I know we can replicate a lot of this with special apps and browser extensions but this was a single cross platform solution that was working for responsible parents. To be fair it is partly YouTube's fault for prioritizing Shorts and watch time over quality.
The problem isn't lack of control, it's the lazy attitude from parents who're shocked that they have to actually do their own job of raising their progeny.
They'd rather abdicate that responsibility to the government, who in turn love the idea because it means more control.
It's a great pity all your woods have been bulldozed.
However the world of woods, wide open spaces, kids with power tools, kids walking for hours with friends and dogs circuiting the beach, caves, forrests and fields very much still exists in many places across the globe.
Kids working for themselves down in the shed making things they can sell for money at a swap meet or market happens here all the time and is a controlled risk - they wear PPE, have knowledge of readily apparent risks and aren't being stalked and crept up on by a netwok of bot assisted groomers.
Got welders, maps, legs (useful for walking), ropes, furnaces, hand tools, old cars, old workstations, soldering irons, a kitchen, gardens, paddocks, saddle making tools, radio towers, .. you know, regular house in the country from the 1930s kind of stuff.
The preponderance of evidence, much of it from Meta's own internal communications, indicates that social media harms teens, and especially girls, in ways ranging from sleep deprivation to eating disorders to anxiety to depression to sexual grooming to suicide. Many of us adults see it as a moral duty to try to stop this, though YMMV (your morals may vary). Kids did homework before YouTube; and yes it is reasonable to propose that a teen can babysit outside their home yet not be exposed to hardcore porn on X, etc.
Your argument seems to be a false choice between "either kids play in the woods or they play online in toxic social media hellscapes". Yes it is tragic that some components of a great childhood are impossible now for so many children. But this doesn't imply we must now let them play with guns and matches and razorblades.
I have a friend who works with lots of young people whom she routinely tries to get to come to organized events but they often can't make it because they're attending the funerals of friends who've committed suicide. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is. This genie absolutely must be put back in the bottle by any means possible, and society is trying to figure out how.
I personally don't believe you have ANY evidence. More plausibly you are acting as a "useful idiot" for traditional media.
Now that Australia has banned social media, are you going to admit you were wrong? Or just double down and ban phones? If something is "unbelievable" then you better have good evidence for believing it, not just narratives.
Surprised to see this seemingly presented positively on HN.
Social media "feels" like it should be uniquely bad for children but the evidence is low-quality and contradictory. For example, high social media use is associated with anxiety and depression, but which direction does that relationship run? Meanwhile there are documented benefits especially for youth who are members of marginalized groups (e.g. LGBTQ). Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of problems with the big social media companies. I just think they affect adults too and that we should address them directly.
But setting that aside, the practical implications of age gate laws are terrible. The options are basically to have an LLM guess your age based on your face, or uploading sensitive identity documents to multiple sites and hope they are stored and processed securely and not reused for other purposes.
But OK let's assume social media is always bad for kids and also that someone invents a perfect age gate... kids are just going to find places to hang out online that are less moderated and less regulated and less safe. How is that not worse?
> But setting that aside, the practical implications of age gate laws are terrible. The options are basically to have an LLM guess your age based on your face, or uploading sensitive identity documents to multiple sites and hope they are stored and processed securely and not reused for other purposes.
Those aren't the only options. See the comments on almost any of the many other discussions of age verification on HN for details of ways to do it that do not involve giving any sensitive information to sites (other than what you explicitly trying to give to them, like your age being above their threshold) and do not involve guessing your age via LLM or any other means.
They kind of are the only options. All of these issues are sitting on a slippery slope. If you accept a technical solution that works well, then eventually somebody is going to push that further.
If you need to use your ID to log into a website (even if the website doesn't get any of your information) then society is only a step away from the government monitoring everything you do online. And at that point it's up to them to decide whether they want to do it or not, because you're already used to the process. If they decide to violate your privacy there's nothing you can do about it other than vaguely point at privacy laws before promptly getting ignored.
I‘m starting thinking that those alternatives are deliberately ignored by the anti-verification crowd. It’s hard to explain otherwise why the most logical way to solve the problem is not in the spotlight.
There are actual implementations that do not compromise privacy and anonymity. For example the EU is currently doing large scale field tests in several countries of such a system.
It involves your government issuing you a signed digital copy of your ID documents which gets cryptographically bound to the security hardware in your smart phone (support for other hardware security devices is planned for later).
To verify your age to a site your phone and the site use a protocol based on zero-knowledge proofs to demonstrate to the site that your phone has a bound ID document signed by your government that says your age is above the site's threshold, without disclosing anything else from your ID document to the site.
This demonstration requires the use of a key that was generated in the security hardware when the ID was bound, which shows that the site is talking to your phone and that the security hardware is unlocked, which is sufficient evidence that you have authorized this verification to satisfy the law.
Note that your government is not involved beyond the initial installation of the bound ID document on the phone. They get no information on what sites you later age verify for or when you do any age verifications.
Ok, a field test. Vs Australias actual full scale implementation, and the subsequent implementations by social media companies.
You cant honestly expect people to ignore the actual real world implementation right? Its not disingenuous to discuss whats actually been inflicted upon a full populace in favour of a test?
Not to forget that the UK was making lists of those it was providing digital licenses to. And that the UK has a history of leaking data like a sieve. The government making a list of known digital ID users can be coloured the same way.
Not to mention that not everyone will end up with a supported cryptographic device will they? Are we expecting this to run on linux without TPM 2.0? Lots of recent Linux migrants are there to avoid TPM 2.0 requirement. You keep mentioning hardware security, so I suspect its not going to be as easy as loading a certificate. Or even if extra methods for edge cases will be supported at all.
But its all still hypothetical anyway. We have an actual implementation to dissect. One that the Australian government is actively trying to sell to other countries.
Put it this way: is it good for a child to spend an appreciable fraction of their day browsing social media? Did children previously just have free hours at hand to burn on this? The answer is of course no, there are not more hours in the day after the creation of social media, so its usage comes at the cost of something else in that child's life, usually their precious little downtime where they might plan and think about their own life. Or maybe at the cost of other activities that might be more engaging physically or mentally.
Every generation seems to pick their moral panic and then engages in "unintentional concern trolling" over it. The people mean well, but low quality evidence shouldn't be good enough to condemn things.
Indeed. The question is, how good is the evidence?
Serious question, given it kinda feels like Meta's been acting like cigarette companies back in their heyday, while X is acting like it's the plot device of a James Bond villain.
The difference is children back then actually did see their day expand as they were removed from the workforce, making comic book consumption "free" essentially in terms of what it might have replaced just a generation previous.
Social media being bad for mental health in childhood is one of the most robust theories I've ever seen for these kind of society-wide problems. You can peruse the After Babel Substack for the evidence if you're not convinced, but Jonathan Haidt has consistently done incredible work here.
All due respect, I do not think the substack of one of the world's leading proponents of the theory that screen time is harmful is a good source for evidence that runs contrary to that narrative.
Here's Nature reviewing his book:
> Hundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations. Most data are correlative. When associations over time are found, they suggest not that social-media use predicts or causes depression, but that young people who already have mental-health problems use such platforms more often or in different ways from their healthy peers
> These are not just our data or my opinion. Several meta-analyses and systematic reviews converge on the same message. An analysis done in 72 countries shows no consistent or measurable associations between well-being and the roll-out of social media globally. Moreover, findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, the largest long-term study of adolescent brain development in the United States, has found no evidence of drastic changes associated with digital-technology use. Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, is a gifted storyteller, but his tale is currently one searching for evidence.
I’m not sure highlighting studies that seem to agree with his thesis is a particularly strong defense against the charge that the totality of the evidence is mixed and inconclusive. He’s a good writer though.
Why did one study in Spain find an association with the rollout of high speed internet, but a much larger international study specifically looking at Facebook usage did not? Seems like that one should even more directly measure what’s alleged to be occurring.
I actually do think that Dr. Haidt is a good source for getting a fair understanding of both sides of the issue. If you've read or listened to him you'll know that it's a huge part of his ethos.
Even the author of your link says "considerable reforms to these platforms are required, given how much time young people spend on them" whilst stopping short of a ban. The problem is these "considerable reforms" will always be half arsed.
There are a lot of problems with the way these platforms treat adults too. I think an age gate is the wrong solution and in many ways it doesn't go far enough.
> kids are just going to find places to hang out online that are less moderated and less regulated and less safe. How is that not worse?
Some will. But I bet a lot of kids "have to be" on Instagram/TikTok/etc because everyone else is. I don't think they all gonna flock to 4chan because they got locked out of the big platforms.
I'd argue even the darkest corners of 4chans aren't as bad as the average daily dose of brain rot delivered to hundreds of millions of people through infinite scroll algorithms on TikTok &co. And once you remove the sickening parts of 4chan I'd say it's overall a much more pleasant place than most other social medias, it's one of the last mainstream website that still somewhat feels like the golden age of internet
It isn't so black and white as people paint it to be. /g/ is probably the best place on the internet today to discuss technology even with occasional dumb jokes. The crassness of the site and reflexive reaction from you and others has turned out to be a great wall to prevent the corporate enshittification that affected the rest of the internet.
>I'd argue even the darkest corners of 4chans aren't as bad as the average daily dose of brain rot delivered to hundreds of millions of people through infinite scroll algorithms on TikTok
Then I'd argue you haven't actually been to the darkest corners of 4chan.
I like that this article at least links to a document with the features they want under scrutiny, but they do avoid a definition, and nearly all networked systems have at least some of the features in the document[1].
Is google docs social media? It certainly has social features and I've been witness to cyber-bullying via a shared google doc.
What about Spotify? It has social features far beyond just sharing playlists
As you say 'social media' is not a good category, we should specify exactly the things that are concerning. Here are the ones where I'm concerned about their effect on young people:
1. a user is shown new content based on extensive profiling and a secret algorithm that the user does not control
2. a users activity can be discovered and tracked by people that intend to take advantage of the user
3. the operation of the site is optimised for addiction (or more euphemistically "attention")
I absolutely don't think that a book club or a kids own website comments or person to person chat systems should be included in the rules.
Note - I'm not saying these things should be banned, just that I think it's reasonable to restrict their use to adults.
…why do all of those things happen? to sell paid digital advertisement. remove that incentive and I suspect the “social media” problems largely go away
The simple answer is that children should not have access to a cell phone at their leisure, or unmonitored access to a computer or tablet. Access should be limited, purposeful, and monitored when possible.
Discord is 100% social media. Just like WhatsApp. MSN definitely was, remember MSN Groups? MSN Chat (the IRC knock off), and a bunch of other things. As someone who has consumed social media and chat platforms, I will note that most chat platforms are social media in their own regard. Habbo Hotel is another example of social media. :)
Sorry but I don't consider WhatsApp to be in the social media category since it's just a chat app for your contacts, not an A/B algorithmically driven carousel of media to keep you hooked in and for strangers to hit you up (unless they have your phone number). However I do think Meta will try to slowly make it a social media app.
Kids in 5th grade use WhatsApp for entertainment to send hundreds of messages per day filled with memes and slop. From the perspective of one kid in a class chat, this is indistinguishable from an algorithmically curated feed.
> this is indistinguishable from an algorithmically curated feed
If a classmate is sending you slop memes, then it's human curated content from an acquaintance, and not algorithmically driven, unless you consider your friends bots.
Is it? If kids grab the top result of a massively A/B tested algorithmic feed trying hook people and/or maximize the controversy / engagement, then arbitrage it onto another simpler less gamified platform... is that really human curated? There's some truth to the idea that, as long as there is any social media, everything is social media.
The impacts of social media on children (and adults for that matter) are becoming more clear by the day but a question, I think, is is it the format/function or is it the algorithm to drive the feed that is the issue? So, for instance, pushing damaging teen influencers at a child's feed or pushing negative/polarizing content, etc etc. Could there be safe social media, that wouldn't need verification, if for instance the algorithm was 'dumb' and just showed friend feeds and feeds specifically selected to follow?
One study tested whether using TikTok/Reels/Shorts in the typical way, skipping videos any time the user wants has a short-term impact on prospective memory. The result was that there is a significant negative impact immediately after a ten minute session.
That's cause for concern given that people regularly use these apps on short breaks throughout their days, and especially problematic if they're using the apps as their main source of news.
The necessity we have for infinite unsustainable growth will always result in unsafe social media. Safe social media requires altruistic and benevolent intentions.
>if for instance the algorithm was 'dumb' and just showed friend feeds and feeds specifically selected to follow?
That is how it used to work on facebook But social media was still toxic to teens even back then from the pressures they'd put on eachother, expectations for posting, etc.
I absolutely agree that gamified, algorithm-driven social media should be banned for those under 16. My issue is how that should be done. I sure as shit don't want to have to present my ID to look at dank memes.
> But the right answer is still to ban advertising.
Banning platform owned advertising on social networks is already impossible. If you have any concept that is broader than that, rest assured trying it will create a dystopia that still has advertising.
I don't think it should be banned, but I'm all for encouraging alternatives that use simple reverse-chronological and don't have the same tendency to create FOMO, a desire to check repeatedly, etc.
>I absolutely agree that gamified, algorithm-driven social media should be banned for those under 16.
I agree. It's purposely addictive and harmful to peoples' mental health.
The current situation is akin to having absolutely no regulations on cigarettes.
Personally, I'd take it a step further and ban targeting algorithms for all ages and pair that with strict data privacy laws that make the entire user data industry collapse.
Its not only gamified and algorithm driven. People are also monetarily incentivized for socially harmful behaviors. Irrespective of political affiliation. Political content is highly engaging and also highly toxic.
Or perhaps we should watch what happens in Australia and draw lessons from it? I have a hard time telling a teenager that they cannot socialize with people just because it is via electronic means. I also do not like teenagers identities manipulated for commercial ends. Though we have done this since the 1950s. Also shouldn't we ban MTV and rock and roll music in general? It's destroying the youth!
Can someone link me something that shows that attention spans are decreasing?
I looked into it briefly and the following two is what I found. The rest seemed to just be repeating or debunking these two claims.
1. An infographic that claims we went from 15 second attention spans to 8 seconds attention spans (as opposed to a goldfish having a 9 second attention span (how was this measured?)).
This seems BS.
2. A study that measured how long knowledge workers spent on a single screen. This dropped from 250 seconds in the early 2000s to 72 seconds in 2012 and 47 seconds more recently.
This data shows something, but I think connecting this to attention spans 1:1 doesn't seem quite right. It could just as well be that people work differently now. Eg they're more likely to pull information from another screen or document than they used to be.
That's a good point. The problem for me is where the line is drawn. Is a car enthusiast forum social media? How about youtube comments? I think society is generally improved when the teenage generation is at least part of discussions. We need to protect the young people but excluding them and suppressing them leads to unintended consequences. I am not a tiktok apologist. Hey Facebook used to be enemy number 1 and now it's an afterthought for many people.
I would draw a line at user customized wall of content. All content on sites should be organized in a similar way for everybody (by date, by category, etc.). I think this would reduce a lot the problems that we see currently.
If you want to be bold and imaginative, although doubt this would ever pass, any platform that focuses or allows user content, should not be allowed to show advertisements. Then the incentive to have people stay more to watch more ads would disappear.
Infinite scrolling, algorithm based (not timestamp-based), "stories" (short videos), public (non-friend) accounts make up most of the feed, ads selling views and therefore companies trying to capture attention.
A car enthusiast forum is not doing this. phpBB sites get a pass. YouTube is, though. I think YouTube is part of the brain rot, although not the comments section.
"you know it when you see it" is a trap and ripe for abuse in its own right. Your description however is pretty spot on for this moment in internet evolution.
Interesting to me is that I pay for youtube premium so I don't see any ads. They even have the jump ahead feature where you can skip in video project promotions. It's the most ad free experience I have on the internet. The comment sections are about the lowest of the low knuckle draggers and outright dimwits.
I'm also a bit out of touch because I quit all social media. Youtube shorts is about the closest I get and that's a mind sink for sure. [Edit: and hacker news which I consider social media without the ads]
I mostly use YouTube without ads, and with sponsorblock, so a similar experience.
I think YouTube shorts is exactly the experience we're talking about. And the youth watch it by scrolling up, not by selecting shorts that look interesting.
I resisted shorts for a long time, but I watch them now as well. Prefer them, even.
The fact we're not seeing ads, and that the comments are atrocious content, is irrelevant--our attention spans are at stake, not our wallets.
Anything that promotes short-form video should be looked at.
Youtube promoting shorts is bad.
A youtube long-form video about, say, car repair, or quantum physics, or a history of eastern asian languages doesn't contribute to brain rot.
The Chinese, take it for what it's worth, knew how to control TikTok. They simply banned non educational content on the platform. You want to watch a 5 minute video explaining the basics of a math theorem, or explaining a chess opening? Sure, that's cool. Stupid 30 second clips of dances, memes, reactions, etc? Nah, that's dumb.
As we can see anywhere and everywhere, moderation teams have to use their power, even when nothing is in violation of the rules. They'll start policing more content, and pretty soon they'll be arresting people.
Everybody exactly knows where to draw the line... No one gives a shit about car enthusiast forums, everyone is talking about infinite scroll x targeted content x advertising powered by algorithms exclusively designed to extract your time, money and attention.
Below is how New York's new law requiring social media sites defined the covered sites. It's based on how the site works, specifically if they have an "addictive feed" which is defined in the law. I'd expect most laws concerning social media would be drafted in a generally similar way.
> "Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:
> (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users;
> (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;
> (c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (e) the media are direct and private communications;
> (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user;
(> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or
> (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article.
it makes sense in terms of grooming. Most parents want to deny their children agency until they're no longer minors and giving them the internet massively undermines that idea. You're plugging your child into a stream of information that is mostly a sewer of misinformation.
The school system is a sewer of bias with 90%+ of teachers leaning left. Decentralised media is the only chance many kids have of hearing both sides of the story.
> The school system is a sewer of bias with 90%+ of teachers leaning left.
Good thing people give a shit about teachers and pay them properly so everyone is eager to become a teacher in order to address that bias. Instead of idk, leaving it entirely as it is and just whining in a partisan fashion about how education has some sort of bias. I mean education has a lot of women who are teachers and the GOP don't appeal to a lot of women because they want to ban abortion and shit like that. So that'd probably explain it simply enough. In terms of priorities what if the massive funding went into teaching instead of recruiting for ICE? Shows to me what's important to people.
Tbh, I don't think minors need to be angry about misinformation about migrants (which is what I got in like 5m last time I created a fresh twitter account), they can wait until they're old enough to vote. They'll still fall for that shit all the same, so there's no need to be upset about it. Might as well ground our kids for their first 16/18 years before unleashing the Nick Fuentes community on them.
Is this a US thing? Maybe it's because your Overton window is flying miles beyond the right-end of the spectrum and you lost touch to what "left" even means?
> I also do not like teenagers identities manipulated for commercial ends.
This. If western “liberal” “democracies” are concerned about children’s privacy then we should push back on surveillance capitalism, not force people to submit government id in order to express their opinion online.
they can socialize online perfectly fine. Excluded from the ban in Australia are among others, WhatsApp, Discord, Steam and Facebook Messenger. TikTok, Twitter or Instagram are not and never have been platforms in which people form social communities with their peers.
>Also shouldn't we ban MTV and rock and roll music in general?
No, because there was never any evidence that rock has harmed the youth. Jonathan Haidt, author of this piece, has conducted extensive research to show that social media does.
> Twitter or Instagram are not and never have been platforms in which people form social communities with their peers.
By peers do you mean people they know in person or demographic peers?
I'm not going to anecdata [edit: then I do] but on platforms like Facebook I only have friends that I know personally (or at least when I used to use it). Twitter was the opposite.
Oddly the most online abuse I've had is during in game chats and providing open source software but I digress...
The "rock and roll" thing is because "think of the kids" is a perennial siren call. Only sometimes is it valid. I can't speak for everyone but there seems to be a consensus that "social media" can be deeply harmful for some young people and we should not ignore it. That this one guy made a study and it happened to support his hypothesis isn't enough for this one voter to want to ban online networks of pesky teenagers calling each other names and buying stupid crap.
The question is, what falls in the scope of social media?
Would IRC count? And considering it's not entirely difficult to set up an IRCd server (you can literally run it on a spare computer or inside a VM), would the state be branding teenagers as criminals for doing so?
> Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for [Manipulation] Media Accounts
FTFY.
That is the real problem, no? The combination of surveillance, analysis of the surveilled data, very active feed manipulation based on that surveillance, and indirect business models that both finance and direct the specific manipulation.
Kids should be social. They should connect.
I think we do a grave disservice to our ability to reason about online safety by letting "social" be applied to what is largely interaction with adversarial/amoral value extracting algorithms, model-in-the-middle intermediating human connections, as if the result was any kind of natural social behavior.
Am I crazy for thinking setting age limits is just a lazy half measure by politicians who don't want to actually draft meaningful legislation for social media?
Like the negatives of social media aren't just isolated to just kids and while shielding them from it is generally a good thing it still seems like putting duct tape over a giant crack in the foundation.
No at all, this is my actual problem with the proposal.
We're 6 months away from the news report about "the new thing kids are using on the Internet" but the open propaganda and AI forgeries on Twitter and Facebook will continue to do their work on everyone else.
doing nothing. Governments typically marginalise techies when it comes to decision making, so the least they can do is make the call of lesser harm.
If kids really want to use social media, they'll find a way. Its more about making it hard/impossible for those who haven't yet grasped their agency. As ever, its about electors and in this case: parents.
Whenever this comes up people point out, 'Come on, let parents decide for their kids!' -- I sympathize with this argument, but let me explain why I don't believe that actually fixes the real problem. For reference, I'm gen-Z, COVID hit while I was in highschool, and I have seen and to this day see Tiktok / Reels / Shorts used every day by my friends (and to some extent me).
I may not be having kids for a while yet, but if I had teenagers today I would absolutely move somewhere where it is not legal for kids to have social media accounts. The underlying problem is that this isn't an individual problem, it's a social one! If a teenager's friends all have social media, he is going to be left out! It is going to severely hurt his life. Even if he never watches short-form video (the main component of social media I think is detrimental), his friends will! When I was in highschool sometimes my friends and I would get together and we would be bored, have no clue what to do. Instead of messing around doing random things, a couple of them would just open up Instagram reels and bam, afternoon wasted. If the half the group isn't trying to do something, you aren't going to do anything. Contrast this with before I was a teenager and before phones, I vividly remember me and my friends just exploring and doing random things. It's just a different experience and I think social media needs to be banned for everyone for it to be effective.
Re-posting an older comment of mine on the subject:
Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban:
1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."
2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."
3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."
All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.
There are two objectives that western regimes have for pushing these draconian measures: the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.
On the idea that this is needed to “protect children” it is the job of parents not the state to decide what media their children consume. If you want to make that easier for parents then regulate and mandate parental controls and make sure parents always have the choice.
We shouldn't ban social media we should ban algorithmically curated feeds that push any specific type of content. Outrage sells and so platform curated feeds have curated outrage and extreme content.
In practice I haven't seen much useful political discourse by the average person, but as long as we don't selectively amplify voices through machine signals and they NATURALLY accrue followings then whatever I guess.
So you say, but I don't think social media companies are benign or have the best interest of visitors at heart. If anything they make it far easier to identify users who are susceptible to propaganda and feed it to them in bulk.
Too bad, they have too much money to bribe lawmakers with. Zuck is worth a quarter trillion dollars, and he ain't in a rush to give up so much as a penny of that if it doesn't fufill his goals of enriching himself further.
Giving the state the power to regulate social media will just allow the the state to censor and control information again like it does with traditional media.
Exactly. The fact that western governments have held that the corporations themselves have a free speech right to control your feed and speech but you do not have a free speech right to choose what the algorithm feeds you or what you say is absolutely stunning and reveals that capitalism is more powerful than liberalism in the west.
i totally agree, but the solution to corporate manipulation of our feed is to regulate social media so that the first amendment applies to the algorithm so the companies themselves dont have the power to push their own propaganda. People should decide for themselves what perspectives they agree with online.
> i totally agree, but the solution to corporate manipulation of our feed is to regulate social media so that the first amendment applies to the algorithm so the companies themselves dont have the power to push their own propaganda.
What does it mean for the 1st to apply to the algorithm? For example, who would have to do what in order to violate the algorithm's 1st amendment rights?
> the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.
Yet my motherland, the nation with arguably the most liberal social media in the world and the least functional school system among "western regimes", is the most socially polarized, has voted in an insecure bully on a platform of hate and prejudice, and is about to plunge into imperialistic conquest, possibly against our allies for 70 years. I can't see how age-gating social media can do any more harm.
Well said. The value of free speech is that all perspectives are heard, so that the best hopefully prevails. Social media is not doing that. You only see the shit you already agree with or the most ridiculous and extreme points on the other side.
> The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people.
Sounds like you're complaining that these measures will make it hard for authoritarian governments to astroturf young western people so that they radicalize and hate each other more.
Because everything my government does is good and everything the other governments do is bad, as that's what the state-sponsored media I consume told me!
I don't think that social media has had that effect in practice.
We're all scrolling through algorithmic feeds on walled gardens owned by some of the greatest capitalists in history. Domestic and foreign disinformation campaigns are not uncommon, and have affected election results and fomented atrocities (as in Myanmar). The US, which birthed most of these technologies, has grown more imperialistic and conservative since their adoption.
EDIT: I saw your edit. I agree that enforcing an industry-wide standard for parental controls, preferable one that can be set per-device and must be respected by all social media services, is the right way to do this. Internet ID laws are dystopian insanity.
There's been some pretty clear information from countries enacting online ID laws that they want it precisely so that they can control discourse, not for any kind of protection. This isn't a hypothetical, it's the actual stated goals.
> The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) “not primarily aimed at protecting children” but at regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”
> There's been some pretty clear information from countries enacting online ID laws that they want it precisely so that they can control discourse, not for any kind of protection.
I'm not seeing how it's an example showing that they're doing it "precisely so that they can control discourse".
You could still argue that ID checks are done to partition content by underage/adult which for many is a reasonable thing to do absent any better solutions.
There are a lot of problems with age verification schemes, but you are doing your position a disservice by suggesting that anybody that doesn't want their kid to be bullied on Snapchat is actually just a puppet of fascist regimes trying to stifle political speech.
You should learn to appreciate the nuance of opinions that differ from your own if you actually want to, you know, convince anyone of anything.
>anybody that doesn't want their kid to be bullied on Snapchat is actually just a puppet of fascist regimes trying to stifle political speech.
They are fascists if they want to prevent everybody else's kids using social media just because they're too shitty parents to teach their own kids that sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me.
In 2050 people will say "Do you remember social media?" and someone will say "Oh yeah, those online systems where everything you said was used to build a marketing profile of you? Where every picture you posted of your girlfriend / wife / sister / daughter / aunt / grandmother or child was taken by some weirdo and turned into porn? Where our kids hung out and were radicalized by fanatics and foreign powers?"
If this were to take effect with the bulk of social life taking place digitally we can expect minimum voting ages to be decreased the same and in the case of the US, the age of consent for sex to be standardized in the same direction too with a deemphasis on 18 as the de facto minimum at the cultural level.
And we can expect 15 year olds to hit the workforce full-time around then too I reckon. Or younger. Imagine 9 year olds stowed away in Waymo taxi trunks with socket wrenches and cyberdecks.
If something is unacceptable for a 15 year old, it is unacceptable for the majority of the adult population too. I do not support age restrictions on information in any form. If you don't want your kids to do or view certain things, that is your problem to solve. There are plenty of parental control options and apps already, we have had legislation proposed to label adult content, the reason all this verification crap keeps getting pushed is because corporations want your full identity to sell and fascist supporters want to dox everyone and their ideas and activities for the government to control and punish people for.
Is this ban actually effective and going to be enforced, anyway? My 15-year old niece just returned from Australia where she reports she was definitely still able to access Tik Tok and Instagram while in the country. Her similarly-aged Australian cousins thought it was all a bit of a joke too, apparently.
I am not a fan of governments controlling the internet and of Australia in this regard in particular, but Feature 4 makes it all acceptable to me. We shouldn't ban all of web 2.0, people, including children, have right to talk to each other, but gamified, attention-leeching design is absolutely harmful, and I would be happy to see banned for everyone
Maybe the problem isn't the teens. Bullying is bullying no matter where it happens.
Profiting via dark patterns is despicable, whether it's preying on teens or the elderly. How many elderly people are fed distorted, sensational news and believe it wholesale? At least our teens have learned to be skeptics.
Instead of punishing the innocent to gatekeep a system that is one of the most important innovations in history, maybe we should focus on the root cause: the crappified, ad-based internet that glorifies "clicks" above all else.
We might have to face the fact that "free" accounts have become too expensive. If the cost of a free internet is a business model that monetizes outrage and addiction, it's not working. I don't love the idea of paid-only access or enforced identity, but applying a single standard to everyone might be better than what we have now.
I still believe in the free internet, and I know what I want to do to build it: Make excellent content. Teach good things.
I want to prove the value of an open and positive system.
Honestly it should be even older than that. Should be 21. Let's not let easily influenced teenagers on what are effectively mass advertising platforms designed to make the likes of Mark Zuckerberg even more money.
Did they really need to push the evil lever to 100% just for engagement? Or could they have pushed back on shareholders just a teeny bit, in the name of long term legislative freedom?
It’s governments with similar cultures and practices, all tackling a relatively new phenomenon.
Coming up with similar laws could just be convergent evolution rather than coordination.
You also can’t discount that once one country has tried it others that we’re considering similar legislation are much more likely to take the plunge if the outcomes in the first country aren’t negative
People under 16 should not be permitted to socialize or express themselves, nor should they be allowed to hear words from adults at all, not just online.
I disagree, many children have a unique view into problems that adults may be unaware of. Since they don't have to make back living expenses, they have a prime opportunity to make a start up.
I think stuff like this, is trying to recreate a world that doesn't exist anymore. With whom, are you gonna go play in the woods with, that haven't already been bulldozed into housing and strip malls? Do you need to watch YouTube only on a parent's TV that's logged in, even for homework help? Some kids start working at 14 or 15: they can be trusted to work somewhere outside of home, but not online? What about Steam games? What about any games? What about hobby & fan forums, that have nothing to do with "grooming" or grabbing eyeballs? What's next, an Internet license?
The YouTube situation is the biggest self-own in Australia's implementation. Previously kids under 16 could have an account under a parent's Family, and there are full parental controls and monitoring. Now kids can't have these accounts, so they can only access youtube without signing in. Meaning zero parental controls and monitoring. Oh and have you seen what youtube looks like when you're not logged in!?
Give parents control over parenting.
Fully agree. I have no issues with the social media laws as they don't impact my family at all except for YouTube. Accounts under Family Link control should have been allowed as they are overseen by an 18+ parent.
Youtube should have voluntarily removed shorts and the front page or made them available as a parental control to appease the regulator. When I wrote to the minister they used YouTube's addictive algorithms as justification for including them as social media which I do agree with.
We had curated kids logins with age restrictions, subscriptions, and ad free under premium and also youtube music with individual playlists they used for instrument practice etc. We had to shift music platform. I know we can replicate a lot of this with special apps and browser extensions but this was a single cross platform solution that was working for responsible parents. To be fair it is partly YouTube's fault for prioritizing Shorts and watch time over quality.
> Give parents control over parenting.
The problem isn't lack of control, it's the lazy attitude from parents who're shocked that they have to actually do their own job of raising their progeny.
They'd rather abdicate that responsibility to the government, who in turn love the idea because it means more control.
When not signed in, you get no videos at all, just a "Sign In To Confirm You're Not A Bot" screen.
It's a great pity all your woods have been bulldozed.
However the world of woods, wide open spaces, kids with power tools, kids walking for hours with friends and dogs circuiting the beach, caves, forrests and fields very much still exists in many places across the globe.
Kids working for themselves down in the shed making things they can sell for money at a swap meet or market happens here all the time and is a controlled risk - they wear PPE, have knowledge of readily apparent risks and aren't being stalked and crept up on by a netwok of bot assisted groomers.
... and just where are they going to learn these skills?
Right here.
Got welders, maps, legs (useful for walking), ropes, furnaces, hand tools, old cars, old workstations, soldering irons, a kitchen, gardens, paddocks, saddle making tools, radio towers, .. you know, regular house in the country from the 1930s kind of stuff.
As I mentioned, this world still exists.
The preponderance of evidence, much of it from Meta's own internal communications, indicates that social media harms teens, and especially girls, in ways ranging from sleep deprivation to eating disorders to anxiety to depression to sexual grooming to suicide. Many of us adults see it as a moral duty to try to stop this, though YMMV (your morals may vary). Kids did homework before YouTube; and yes it is reasonable to propose that a teen can babysit outside their home yet not be exposed to hardcore porn on X, etc.
Your argument seems to be a false choice between "either kids play in the woods or they play online in toxic social media hellscapes". Yes it is tragic that some components of a great childhood are impossible now for so many children. But this doesn't imply we must now let them play with guns and matches and razorblades.
I have a friend who works with lots of young people whom she routinely tries to get to come to organized events but they often can't make it because they're attending the funerals of friends who've committed suicide. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is. This genie absolutely must be put back in the bottle by any means possible, and society is trying to figure out how.
[Edit: removed reference to whataboutism]
"Whataboutism" (if it even counts as a fallacy) isn't when somebody refutes an argument you support.
I personally don't believe you have ANY evidence. More plausibly you are acting as a "useful idiot" for traditional media.
Now that Australia has banned social media, are you going to admit you were wrong? Or just double down and ban phones? If something is "unbelievable" then you better have good evidence for believing it, not just narratives.
Surprised to see this seemingly presented positively on HN.
Social media "feels" like it should be uniquely bad for children but the evidence is low-quality and contradictory. For example, high social media use is associated with anxiety and depression, but which direction does that relationship run? Meanwhile there are documented benefits especially for youth who are members of marginalized groups (e.g. LGBTQ). Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of problems with the big social media companies. I just think they affect adults too and that we should address them directly.
But setting that aside, the practical implications of age gate laws are terrible. The options are basically to have an LLM guess your age based on your face, or uploading sensitive identity documents to multiple sites and hope they are stored and processed securely and not reused for other purposes.
But OK let's assume social media is always bad for kids and also that someone invents a perfect age gate... kids are just going to find places to hang out online that are less moderated and less regulated and less safe. How is that not worse?
> But setting that aside, the practical implications of age gate laws are terrible. The options are basically to have an LLM guess your age based on your face, or uploading sensitive identity documents to multiple sites and hope they are stored and processed securely and not reused for other purposes.
Those aren't the only options. See the comments on almost any of the many other discussions of age verification on HN for details of ways to do it that do not involve giving any sensitive information to sites (other than what you explicitly trying to give to them, like your age being above their threshold) and do not involve guessing your age via LLM or any other means.
They kind of are the only options. All of these issues are sitting on a slippery slope. If you accept a technical solution that works well, then eventually somebody is going to push that further.
If you need to use your ID to log into a website (even if the website doesn't get any of your information) then society is only a step away from the government monitoring everything you do online. And at that point it's up to them to decide whether they want to do it or not, because you're already used to the process. If they decide to violate your privacy there's nothing you can do about it other than vaguely point at privacy laws before promptly getting ignored.
I‘m starting thinking that those alternatives are deliberately ignored by the anti-verification crowd. It’s hard to explain otherwise why the most logical way to solve the problem is not in the spotlight.
Its crazy that people are discussing the actual implementations instead of a commenters fantasy I dont understand it.
There are actual implementations that do not compromise privacy and anonymity. For example the EU is currently doing large scale field tests in several countries of such a system.
It involves your government issuing you a signed digital copy of your ID documents which gets cryptographically bound to the security hardware in your smart phone (support for other hardware security devices is planned for later).
To verify your age to a site your phone and the site use a protocol based on zero-knowledge proofs to demonstrate to the site that your phone has a bound ID document signed by your government that says your age is above the site's threshold, without disclosing anything else from your ID document to the site.
This demonstration requires the use of a key that was generated in the security hardware when the ID was bound, which shows that the site is talking to your phone and that the security hardware is unlocked, which is sufficient evidence that you have authorized this verification to satisfy the law.
Note that your government is not involved beyond the initial installation of the bound ID document on the phone. They get no information on what sites you later age verify for or when you do any age verifications.
Ok, a field test. Vs Australias actual full scale implementation, and the subsequent implementations by social media companies.
You cant honestly expect people to ignore the actual real world implementation right? Its not disingenuous to discuss whats actually been inflicted upon a full populace in favour of a test?
Not to forget that the UK was making lists of those it was providing digital licenses to. And that the UK has a history of leaking data like a sieve. The government making a list of known digital ID users can be coloured the same way.
Not to mention that not everyone will end up with a supported cryptographic device will they? Are we expecting this to run on linux without TPM 2.0? Lots of recent Linux migrants are there to avoid TPM 2.0 requirement. You keep mentioning hardware security, so I suspect its not going to be as easy as loading a certificate. Or even if extra methods for edge cases will be supported at all.
But its all still hypothetical anyway. We have an actual implementation to dissect. One that the Australian government is actively trying to sell to other countries.
That could certainly address one of my points, once it actually exists and if it’s implemented properly.
Put it this way: is it good for a child to spend an appreciable fraction of their day browsing social media? Did children previously just have free hours at hand to burn on this? The answer is of course no, there are not more hours in the day after the creation of social media, so its usage comes at the cost of something else in that child's life, usually their precious little downtime where they might plan and think about their own life. Or maybe at the cost of other activities that might be more engaging physically or mentally.
In the 1940s that was pretty much the same argument deployed against the moral panic of that time: comic books.
And later you had the satanic D&D.
Every generation seems to pick their moral panic and then engages in "unintentional concern trolling" over it. The people mean well, but low quality evidence shouldn't be good enough to condemn things.
Indeed. The question is, how good is the evidence?
Serious question, given it kinda feels like Meta's been acting like cigarette companies back in their heyday, while X is acting like it's the plot device of a James Bond villain.
The difference is children back then actually did see their day expand as they were removed from the workforce, making comic book consumption "free" essentially in terms of what it might have replaced just a generation previous.
That feels like a stretch. In the 1850s it was pulp novels and in the 1990s it was video games.
Social media being bad for mental health in childhood is one of the most robust theories I've ever seen for these kind of society-wide problems. You can peruse the After Babel Substack for the evidence if you're not convinced, but Jonathan Haidt has consistently done incredible work here.
All due respect, I do not think the substack of one of the world's leading proponents of the theory that screen time is harmful is a good source for evidence that runs contrary to that narrative.
Here's Nature reviewing his book:
> Hundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations. Most data are correlative. When associations over time are found, they suggest not that social-media use predicts or causes depression, but that young people who already have mental-health problems use such platforms more often or in different ways from their healthy peers
> These are not just our data or my opinion. Several meta-analyses and systematic reviews converge on the same message. An analysis done in 72 countries shows no consistent or measurable associations between well-being and the roll-out of social media globally. Moreover, findings from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, the largest long-term study of adolescent brain development in the United States, has found no evidence of drastic changes associated with digital-technology use. Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University, is a gifted storyteller, but his tale is currently one searching for evidence.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2
And Haidt forcefully refuted this a couple years ago: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi...
I’m not sure highlighting studies that seem to agree with his thesis is a particularly strong defense against the charge that the totality of the evidence is mixed and inconclusive. He’s a good writer though.
Why did one study in Spain find an association with the rollout of high speed internet, but a much larger international study specifically looking at Facebook usage did not? Seems like that one should even more directly measure what’s alleged to be occurring.
I actually do think that Dr. Haidt is a good source for getting a fair understanding of both sides of the issue. If you've read or listened to him you'll know that it's a huge part of his ethos.
Here's his rebuttal to that article: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi....
I think you'd struggle to find someone more earnestly trying to get an unbiased understanding of the reality of this topic.
Even the author of your link says "considerable reforms to these platforms are required, given how much time young people spend on them" whilst stopping short of a ban. The problem is these "considerable reforms" will always be half arsed.
I think considerable reforms are needed too!
There are a lot of problems with the way these platforms treat adults too. I think an age gate is the wrong solution and in many ways it doesn't go far enough.
Do you think there is a more compelling explanation for the mental health decline in teenage girls?
Yes, it's the culture going to shit; the same decline hasn't been observed in e.g. Asian countries.
This is not surprising at all. HN’s perspective seems to generally go further with banning under 18 year olds from having smartphones in general.
> kids are just going to find places to hang out online that are less moderated and less regulated and less safe. How is that not worse?
Some will. But I bet a lot of kids "have to be" on Instagram/TikTok/etc because everyone else is. I don't think they all gonna flock to 4chan because they got locked out of the big platforms.
I'd argue even the darkest corners of 4chans aren't as bad as the average daily dose of brain rot delivered to hundreds of millions of people through infinite scroll algorithms on TikTok &co. And once you remove the sickening parts of 4chan I'd say it's overall a much more pleasant place than most other social medias, it's one of the last mainstream website that still somewhat feels like the golden age of internet
4chan is categorically bad. The combination of humor + racism/misogyny is like crack at brainwashing kids.
It isn't so black and white as people paint it to be. /g/ is probably the best place on the internet today to discuss technology even with occasional dumb jokes. The crassness of the site and reflexive reaction from you and others has turned out to be a great wall to prevent the corporate enshittification that affected the rest of the internet.
I’ll take harmless enshitification over genocidal racism
Harmless? The internet is dead. Genocidal racism? Not what I see on /g/.
>I'd argue even the darkest corners of 4chans aren't as bad as the average daily dose of brain rot delivered to hundreds of millions of people through infinite scroll algorithms on TikTok
Then I'd argue you haven't actually been to the darkest corners of 4chan.
I like that this article at least links to a document with the features they want under scrutiny, but they do avoid a definition, and nearly all networked systems have at least some of the features in the document[1].
Is google docs social media? It certainly has social features and I've been witness to cyber-bullying via a shared google doc.
What about Spotify? It has social features far beyond just sharing playlists
WhatsApp? Discord? MMS?
1: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GVO7sNuCNmNwqVK64PHQ...
As you say 'social media' is not a good category, we should specify exactly the things that are concerning. Here are the ones where I'm concerned about their effect on young people:
1. a user is shown new content based on extensive profiling and a secret algorithm that the user does not control
2. a users activity can be discovered and tracked by people that intend to take advantage of the user
3. the operation of the site is optimised for addiction (or more euphemistically "attention")
I absolutely don't think that a book club or a kids own website comments or person to person chat systems should be included in the rules.
Note - I'm not saying these things should be banned, just that I think it's reasonable to restrict their use to adults.
…why do all of those things happen? to sell paid digital advertisement. remove that incentive and I suspect the “social media” problems largely go away
The simple answer is that children should not have access to a cell phone at their leisure, or unmonitored access to a computer or tablet. Access should be limited, purposeful, and monitored when possible.
Discord is 100% social media. Just like WhatsApp. MSN definitely was, remember MSN Groups? MSN Chat (the IRC knock off), and a bunch of other things. As someone who has consumed social media and chat platforms, I will note that most chat platforms are social media in their own regard. Habbo Hotel is another example of social media. :)
Is SMS social media?
No, it is a protocol that allows a user to create their own social network within their Messaging app.
Wait, how is that different from WhatsApp?
How is that different from Discord?
> Just like WhatsApp.
Sorry but I don't consider WhatsApp to be in the social media category since it's just a chat app for your contacts, not an A/B algorithmically driven carousel of media to keep you hooked in and for strangers to hit you up (unless they have your phone number). However I do think Meta will try to slowly make it a social media app.
Kids in 5th grade use WhatsApp for entertainment to send hundreds of messages per day filled with memes and slop. From the perspective of one kid in a class chat, this is indistinguishable from an algorithmically curated feed.
> this is indistinguishable from an algorithmically curated feed
If a classmate is sending you slop memes, then it's human curated content from an acquaintance, and not algorithmically driven, unless you consider your friends bots.
Is it? If kids grab the top result of a massively A/B tested algorithmic feed trying hook people and/or maximize the controversy / engagement, then arbitrage it onto another simpler less gamified platform... is that really human curated? There's some truth to the idea that, as long as there is any social media, everything is social media.
The impacts of social media on children (and adults for that matter) are becoming more clear by the day but a question, I think, is is it the format/function or is it the algorithm to drive the feed that is the issue? So, for instance, pushing damaging teen influencers at a child's feed or pushing negative/polarizing content, etc etc. Could there be safe social media, that wouldn't need verification, if for instance the algorithm was 'dumb' and just showed friend feeds and feeds specifically selected to follow?
One study tested whether using TikTok/Reels/Shorts in the typical way, skipping videos any time the user wants has a short-term impact on prospective memory. The result was that there is a significant negative impact immediately after a ten minute session.
That's cause for concern given that people regularly use these apps on short breaks throughout their days, and especially problematic if they're using the apps as their main source of news.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/09658211.2025.252107...
The necessity we have for infinite unsustainable growth will always result in unsafe social media. Safe social media requires altruistic and benevolent intentions.
>if for instance the algorithm was 'dumb' and just showed friend feeds and feeds specifically selected to follow?
That is how it used to work on facebook But social media was still toxic to teens even back then from the pressures they'd put on eachother, expectations for posting, etc.
I absolutely agree that gamified, algorithm-driven social media should be banned for those under 16. My issue is how that should be done. I sure as shit don't want to have to present my ID to look at dank memes.
Why for those under 16 in particular? It has no value for anybody at any age, and has apparently driven tons of adults insane.
But the right answer is still to ban advertising. And I don't mean just to those under 16.
> But the right answer is still to ban advertising.
Banning platform owned advertising on social networks is already impossible. If you have any concept that is broader than that, rest assured trying it will create a dystopia that still has advertising.
Agree, targeted advertising in particular is a trojan horse for many other internet-fueled social ills.
I don't think it should be banned, but I'm all for encouraging alternatives that use simple reverse-chronological and don't have the same tendency to create FOMO, a desire to check repeatedly, etc.
>I absolutely agree that gamified, algorithm-driven social media should be banned for those under 16.
I agree. It's purposely addictive and harmful to peoples' mental health.
The current situation is akin to having absolutely no regulations on cigarettes.
Personally, I'd take it a step further and ban targeting algorithms for all ages and pair that with strict data privacy laws that make the entire user data industry collapse.
Its not only gamified and algorithm driven. People are also monetarily incentivized for socially harmful behaviors. Irrespective of political affiliation. Political content is highly engaging and also highly toxic.
Or perhaps we should watch what happens in Australia and draw lessons from it? I have a hard time telling a teenager that they cannot socialize with people just because it is via electronic means. I also do not like teenagers identities manipulated for commercial ends. Though we have done this since the 1950s. Also shouldn't we ban MTV and rock and roll music in general? It's destroying the youth!
It's the social media, not the digital communication.
AIM/ICQ didn't rot our brains or attention spans.
Can someone link me something that shows that attention spans are decreasing?
I looked into it briefly and the following two is what I found. The rest seemed to just be repeating or debunking these two claims.
1. An infographic that claims we went from 15 second attention spans to 8 seconds attention spans (as opposed to a goldfish having a 9 second attention span (how was this measured?)).
This seems BS.
2. A study that measured how long knowledge workers spent on a single screen. This dropped from 250 seconds in the early 2000s to 72 seconds in 2012 and 47 seconds more recently.
This data shows something, but I think connecting this to attention spans 1:1 doesn't seem quite right. It could just as well be that people work differently now. Eg they're more likely to pull information from another screen or document than they used to be.
That's a good point. The problem for me is where the line is drawn. Is a car enthusiast forum social media? How about youtube comments? I think society is generally improved when the teenage generation is at least part of discussions. We need to protect the young people but excluding them and suppressing them leads to unintended consequences. I am not a tiktok apologist. Hey Facebook used to be enemy number 1 and now it's an afterthought for many people.
I would draw a line at user customized wall of content. All content on sites should be organized in a similar way for everybody (by date, by category, etc.). I think this would reduce a lot the problems that we see currently.
If you want to be bold and imaginative, although doubt this would ever pass, any platform that focuses or allows user content, should not be allowed to show advertisements. Then the incentive to have people stay more to watch more ads would disappear.
I think mostly you know it when you see it.
Infinite scrolling, algorithm based (not timestamp-based), "stories" (short videos), public (non-friend) accounts make up most of the feed, ads selling views and therefore companies trying to capture attention.
A car enthusiast forum is not doing this. phpBB sites get a pass. YouTube is, though. I think YouTube is part of the brain rot, although not the comments section.
FB, Instagram, X, tiktok, YouTube, Snapchat, etc.
"you know it when you see it" is a trap and ripe for abuse in its own right. Your description however is pretty spot on for this moment in internet evolution.
Interesting to me is that I pay for youtube premium so I don't see any ads. They even have the jump ahead feature where you can skip in video project promotions. It's the most ad free experience I have on the internet. The comment sections are about the lowest of the low knuckle draggers and outright dimwits.
I'm also a bit out of touch because I quit all social media. Youtube shorts is about the closest I get and that's a mind sink for sure. [Edit: and hacker news which I consider social media without the ads]
I mostly use YouTube without ads, and with sponsorblock, so a similar experience.
I think YouTube shorts is exactly the experience we're talking about. And the youth watch it by scrolling up, not by selecting shorts that look interesting.
I resisted shorts for a long time, but I watch them now as well. Prefer them, even.
The fact we're not seeing ads, and that the comments are atrocious content, is irrelevant--our attention spans are at stake, not our wallets.
Anything that promotes short-form video should be looked at.
Youtube promoting shorts is bad.
A youtube long-form video about, say, car repair, or quantum physics, or a history of eastern asian languages doesn't contribute to brain rot.
The Chinese, take it for what it's worth, knew how to control TikTok. They simply banned non educational content on the platform. You want to watch a 5 minute video explaining the basics of a math theorem, or explaining a chess opening? Sure, that's cool. Stupid 30 second clips of dances, memes, reactions, etc? Nah, that's dumb.
That's better imo, but creates a new problem.
As we can see anywhere and everywhere, moderation teams have to use their power, even when nothing is in violation of the rules. They'll start policing more content, and pretty soon they'll be arresting people.
Youtube content moderators can arrest people?
Everybody exactly knows where to draw the line... No one gives a shit about car enthusiast forums, everyone is talking about infinite scroll x targeted content x advertising powered by algorithms exclusively designed to extract your time, money and attention.
Below is how New York's new law requiring social media sites defined the covered sites. It's based on how the site works, specifically if they have an "addictive feed" which is defined in the law. I'd expect most laws concerning social media would be drafted in a generally similar way.
> "Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:
> (a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users;
> (b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;
> (c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
> (e) the media are direct and private communications;
> (f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user;
(> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or
> (h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article.
> I have a hard time telling a teenager that they cannot socialize with people just because it is via electronic means
There are still other means to chat with other individuals or groups that don't involve social media.
it makes sense in terms of grooming. Most parents want to deny their children agency until they're no longer minors and giving them the internet massively undermines that idea. You're plugging your child into a stream of information that is mostly a sewer of misinformation.
The school system is a sewer of bias with 90%+ of teachers leaning left. Decentralised media is the only chance many kids have of hearing both sides of the story.
> The school system is a sewer of bias with 90%+ of teachers leaning left.
Good thing people give a shit about teachers and pay them properly so everyone is eager to become a teacher in order to address that bias. Instead of idk, leaving it entirely as it is and just whining in a partisan fashion about how education has some sort of bias. I mean education has a lot of women who are teachers and the GOP don't appeal to a lot of women because they want to ban abortion and shit like that. So that'd probably explain it simply enough. In terms of priorities what if the massive funding went into teaching instead of recruiting for ICE? Shows to me what's important to people.
Tbh, I don't think minors need to be angry about misinformation about migrants (which is what I got in like 5m last time I created a fresh twitter account), they can wait until they're old enough to vote. They'll still fall for that shit all the same, so there's no need to be upset about it. Might as well ground our kids for their first 16/18 years before unleashing the Nick Fuentes community on them.
> 90%+ of teachers leaning left
Is this a US thing? Maybe it's because your Overton window is flying miles beyond the right-end of the spectrum and you lost touch to what "left" even means?
> I also do not like teenagers identities manipulated for commercial ends.
This. If western “liberal” “democracies” are concerned about children’s privacy then we should push back on surveillance capitalism, not force people to submit government id in order to express their opinion online.
Ah yes, the limitless benefits of anonymous posting.
>they cannot socialize with people
they can socialize online perfectly fine. Excluded from the ban in Australia are among others, WhatsApp, Discord, Steam and Facebook Messenger. TikTok, Twitter or Instagram are not and never have been platforms in which people form social communities with their peers.
>Also shouldn't we ban MTV and rock and roll music in general?
No, because there was never any evidence that rock has harmed the youth. Jonathan Haidt, author of this piece, has conducted extensive research to show that social media does.
> Twitter or Instagram are not and never have been platforms in which people form social communities with their peers.
By peers do you mean people they know in person or demographic peers?
I'm not going to anecdata [edit: then I do] but on platforms like Facebook I only have friends that I know personally (or at least when I used to use it). Twitter was the opposite.
Oddly the most online abuse I've had is during in game chats and providing open source software but I digress...
The "rock and roll" thing is because "think of the kids" is a perennial siren call. Only sometimes is it valid. I can't speak for everyone but there seems to be a consensus that "social media" can be deeply harmful for some young people and we should not ignore it. That this one guy made a study and it happened to support his hypothesis isn't enough for this one voter to want to ban online networks of pesky teenagers calling each other names and buying stupid crap.
I'd go for 80 as the minimum. As if adults are immune to the depressing doomscrolling and skewed algorithms on social media
The question is, what falls in the scope of social media?
Would IRC count? And considering it's not entirely difficult to set up an IRCd server (you can literally run it on a spare computer or inside a VM), would the state be branding teenagers as criminals for doing so?
Is anyone else old enough to remember when D&D and rock music was supposedly ruining the lives of young people and cause them to worship Satan?
Neither were algorithmically designed to cause addiction.
Then why are "earworm" songs so hard to get out of my brain? Listening to Kpop demon hunters sure does feel like an addiction.
> Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for [Manipulation] Media Accounts
FTFY.
That is the real problem, no? The combination of surveillance, analysis of the surveilled data, very active feed manipulation based on that surveillance, and indirect business models that both finance and direct the specific manipulation.
Kids should be social. They should connect.
I think we do a grave disservice to our ability to reason about online safety by letting "social" be applied to what is largely interaction with adversarial/amoral value extracting algorithms, model-in-the-middle intermediating human connections, as if the result was any kind of natural social behavior.
Am I crazy for thinking setting age limits is just a lazy half measure by politicians who don't want to actually draft meaningful legislation for social media?
Like the negatives of social media aren't just isolated to just kids and while shielding them from it is generally a good thing it still seems like putting duct tape over a giant crack in the foundation.
No at all, this is my actual problem with the proposal.
We're 6 months away from the news report about "the new thing kids are using on the Internet" but the open propaganda and AI forgeries on Twitter and Facebook will continue to do their work on everyone else.
its better than the alternative. I think generally in terms of grooming the internet is an insane thing to give to minors.
Which alternative are we talking here? Doing nothing? Or the alternative I mentioned where governments actually do something for a change?
doing nothing. Governments typically marginalise techies when it comes to decision making, so the least they can do is make the call of lesser harm.
If kids really want to use social media, they'll find a way. Its more about making it hard/impossible for those who haven't yet grasped their agency. As ever, its about electors and in this case: parents.
Whenever this comes up people point out, 'Come on, let parents decide for their kids!' -- I sympathize with this argument, but let me explain why I don't believe that actually fixes the real problem. For reference, I'm gen-Z, COVID hit while I was in highschool, and I have seen and to this day see Tiktok / Reels / Shorts used every day by my friends (and to some extent me).
I may not be having kids for a while yet, but if I had teenagers today I would absolutely move somewhere where it is not legal for kids to have social media accounts. The underlying problem is that this isn't an individual problem, it's a social one! If a teenager's friends all have social media, he is going to be left out! It is going to severely hurt his life. Even if he never watches short-form video (the main component of social media I think is detrimental), his friends will! When I was in highschool sometimes my friends and I would get together and we would be bored, have no clue what to do. Instead of messing around doing random things, a couple of them would just open up Instagram reels and bam, afternoon wasted. If the half the group isn't trying to do something, you aren't going to do anything. Contrast this with before I was a teenager and before phones, I vividly remember me and my friends just exploring and doing random things. It's just a different experience and I think social media needs to be banned for everyone for it to be effective.
What counts as social media? Is discord social media? What about Roblox? What about youtube?
Many sites don't need accounts to access, is the account the issue or the access?
Re-posting an older comment of mine on the subject:
Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban:
1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."
2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."
3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."
All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.
>All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.
I have categorised my opponents, defeating them forever.
No wait hang on.
There are two objectives that western regimes have for pushing these draconian measures: the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.
On the idea that this is needed to “protect children” it is the job of parents not the state to decide what media their children consume. If you want to make that easier for parents then regulate and mandate parental controls and make sure parents always have the choice.
We shouldn't ban social media we should ban algorithmically curated feeds that push any specific type of content. Outrage sells and so platform curated feeds have curated outrage and extreme content.
In practice I haven't seen much useful political discourse by the average person, but as long as we don't selectively amplify voices through machine signals and they NATURALLY accrue followings then whatever I guess.
Ban targeted ads while you're at it and throw around the most savage fines for companies who don't comply.
The world will be better for it.
So you say, but I don't think social media companies are benign or have the best interest of visitors at heart. If anything they make it far easier to identify users who are susceptible to propaganda and feed it to them in bulk.
Then the social media companies need regulation.
Too bad, they have too much money to bribe lawmakers with. Zuck is worth a quarter trillion dollars, and he ain't in a rush to give up so much as a penny of that if it doesn't fufill his goals of enriching himself further.
Giving the state the power to regulate social media will just allow the the state to censor and control information again like it does with traditional media.
Exactly. The fact that western governments have held that the corporations themselves have a free speech right to control your feed and speech but you do not have a free speech right to choose what the algorithm feeds you or what you say is absolutely stunning and reveals that capitalism is more powerful than liberalism in the west.
i totally agree, but the solution to corporate manipulation of our feed is to regulate social media so that the first amendment applies to the algorithm so the companies themselves dont have the power to push their own propaganda. People should decide for themselves what perspectives they agree with online.
> i totally agree, but the solution to corporate manipulation of our feed is to regulate social media so that the first amendment applies to the algorithm so the companies themselves dont have the power to push their own propaganda.
What does it mean for the 1st to apply to the algorithm? For example, who would have to do what in order to violate the algorithm's 1st amendment rights?
> the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.
Yet my motherland, the nation with arguably the most liberal social media in the world and the least functional school system among "western regimes", is the most socially polarized, has voted in an insecure bully on a platform of hate and prejudice, and is about to plunge into imperialistic conquest, possibly against our allies for 70 years. I can't see how age-gating social media can do any more harm.
>least functional school system among "western regimes"
Its the least functional because its the most dedicated to erasing history and promoting pro state propaganda.
Well said. The value of free speech is that all perspectives are heard, so that the best hopefully prevails. Social media is not doing that. You only see the shit you already agree with or the most ridiculous and extreme points on the other side.
> The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people.
Sounds like you're complaining that these measures will make it hard for authoritarian governments to astroturf young western people so that they radicalize and hate each other more.
I think fighting authoritarianism with authoritarian measures is counter-productive.
Because everything my government does is good and everything the other governments do is bad, as that's what the state-sponsored media I consume told me!
I don't think that social media has had that effect in practice.
We're all scrolling through algorithmic feeds on walled gardens owned by some of the greatest capitalists in history. Domestic and foreign disinformation campaigns are not uncommon, and have affected election results and fomented atrocities (as in Myanmar). The US, which birthed most of these technologies, has grown more imperialistic and conservative since their adoption.
EDIT: I saw your edit. I agree that enforcing an industry-wide standard for parental controls, preferable one that can be set per-device and must be respected by all social media services, is the right way to do this. Internet ID laws are dystopian insanity.
Or, you know, they actually want to protect the mental health of people.
You may argue that the approach is bad (I would agree) but it's not because of some evil mastermind plot.
There's been some pretty clear information from countries enacting online ID laws that they want it precisely so that they can control discourse, not for any kind of protection. This isn't a hypothetical, it's the actual stated goals.
https://bsky.app/profile/tupped.bsky.social/post/3lwgcmswmy2...
> The U.K. Online Safety Act was (avowedly, as revealed in a recent High Court case) “not primarily aimed at protecting children” but at regulating “services that have a significant influence over public discourse.”
> There's been some pretty clear information from countries enacting online ID laws that they want it precisely so that they can control discourse, not for any kind of protection.
Please do share that information.
Free speech violations in UK and the country pushing for more ID checks is a simple example.
I'm not seeing how it's an example showing that they're doing it "precisely so that they can control discourse".
You could still argue that ID checks are done to partition content by underage/adult which for many is a reasonable thing to do absent any better solutions.
Edited the comment to include an example.
There are a lot of problems with age verification schemes, but you are doing your position a disservice by suggesting that anybody that doesn't want their kid to be bullied on Snapchat is actually just a puppet of fascist regimes trying to stifle political speech.
You should learn to appreciate the nuance of opinions that differ from your own if you actually want to, you know, convince anyone of anything.
>anybody that doesn't want their kid to be bullied on Snapchat is actually just a puppet of fascist regimes trying to stifle political speech.
They are fascists if they want to prevent everybody else's kids using social media just because they're too shitty parents to teach their own kids that sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me.
This too shall pass.
In 2050 people will say "Do you remember social media?" and someone will say "Oh yeah, those online systems where everything you said was used to build a marketing profile of you? Where every picture you posted of your girlfriend / wife / sister / daughter / aunt / grandmother or child was taken by some weirdo and turned into porn? Where our kids hung out and were radicalized by fanatics and foreign powers?"
"Oh yeah, whatever happened to them?"
If this were to take effect with the bulk of social life taking place digitally we can expect minimum voting ages to be decreased the same and in the case of the US, the age of consent for sex to be standardized in the same direction too with a deemphasis on 18 as the de facto minimum at the cultural level.
And we can expect 15 year olds to hit the workforce full-time around then too I reckon. Or younger. Imagine 9 year olds stowed away in Waymo taxi trunks with socket wrenches and cyberdecks.
Or we could stagger the introduction to adult society, like we do today.
Drinking beer at 16, drinking liquor at 18 for example.
In some circles I believe that’s referred to as ‘grooming’?
If something is unacceptable for a 15 year old, it is unacceptable for the majority of the adult population too. I do not support age restrictions on information in any form. If you don't want your kids to do or view certain things, that is your problem to solve. There are plenty of parental control options and apps already, we have had legislation proposed to label adult content, the reason all this verification crap keeps getting pushed is because corporations want your full identity to sell and fascist supporters want to dox everyone and their ideas and activities for the government to control and punish people for.
Is this ban actually effective and going to be enforced, anyway? My 15-year old niece just returned from Australia where she reports she was definitely still able to access Tik Tok and Instagram while in the country. Her similarly-aged Australian cousins thought it was all a bit of a joke too, apparently.
I am not a fan of governments controlling the internet and of Australia in this regard in particular, but Feature 4 makes it all acceptable to me. We shouldn't ban all of web 2.0, people, including children, have right to talk to each other, but gamified, attention-leeching design is absolutely harmful, and I would be happy to see banned for everyone
Just ban social media entirely. You would find a lot benefits to society for doing exactly that.
No, ban the ad-based monetization model.
That's the most important perverse incentive. Others can be dealt with later.
Is HN social media?
I'm certainly visiting HN somewhat compulsively.
Assuming someone won't harm themselves or accept sacrifice for a cause is a poor argument.
If burning HN to the ground deleted Facebook and Tiktok out of existence, then let it burn.
Maybe the problem isn't the teens. Bullying is bullying no matter where it happens.
Profiting via dark patterns is despicable, whether it's preying on teens or the elderly. How many elderly people are fed distorted, sensational news and believe it wholesale? At least our teens have learned to be skeptics.
Instead of punishing the innocent to gatekeep a system that is one of the most important innovations in history, maybe we should focus on the root cause: the crappified, ad-based internet that glorifies "clicks" above all else.
We might have to face the fact that "free" accounts have become too expensive. If the cost of a free internet is a business model that monetizes outrage and addiction, it's not working. I don't love the idea of paid-only access or enforced identity, but applying a single standard to everyone might be better than what we have now.
I still believe in the free internet, and I know what I want to do to build it: Make excellent content. Teach good things.
I want to prove the value of an open and positive system.
Good luck trying to enforce this!
I think it would be much easier to pressure the ~ten companies or whatever to implement policies.
Does it worry anyone else that this is all actually a government attack on anonymity?
I have 2 kids and I agree under 16s shouldn’t be on social media.
But everyone then has to prove they’re 16+
Is this just stealth digital ID cards?
Or am I conspiracy theorist?
Honestly it should be even older than that. Should be 21. Let's not let easily influenced teenagers on what are effectively mass advertising platforms designed to make the likes of Mark Zuckerberg even more money.
It’s hard not to blame Meta for this.
Did they really need to push the evil lever to 100% just for engagement? Or could they have pushed back on shareholders just a teeny bit, in the name of long term legislative freedom?
Blaming a company that allowed bots to hold "sensual" conversations with children? An outrage!
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/15/meta-ai-c...
No, social media companies need to fucking moderate.
That’s not going to happen
I don't really like how western governments are coordinating all these massive law changes together. Something distinctly sinister about it.
Amen to that.
I don't think Europe and the US share enough values to do it on a lot of fronts, so perhaps that will shield me as an American.
But it seems like a lot of that coming down the hatch for most of Europe.
Sounds like you'll have problems sourcing NATO national IDs in St. Petersburg to create fake accounts.
It’s governments with similar cultures and practices, all tackling a relatively new phenomenon.
Coming up with similar laws could just be convergent evolution rather than coordination.
You also can’t discount that once one country has tried it others that we’re considering similar legislation are much more likely to take the plunge if the outcomes in the first country aren’t negative
something sinister in the masses of misinformation, especially political/social that takes place in those spaces too.
People under 16 should not be permitted to socialize or express themselves, nor should they be allowed to hear words from adults at all, not just online.
/s
It’s better to just ban social media all together. It clearly doesn’t provide enough good value to society, regardless of age.
This would disadvantage young business owners, cutting them off from a crucial marketing channel for businesses in the modern age.
Children shouldn't be business owners.
I disagree, many children have a unique view into problems that adults may be unaware of. Since they don't have to make back living expenses, they have a prime opportunity to make a start up.
According to who?
Laws in most countries require the age of 18 for signing contracts or anything legally binding.