MikeMugabushaka

Hi @andrey@sigmoid.social , thanks a lot for your work on this. Community platforms won't exist without people like you and the many others who contribute to its financial stability. Of course there will be "teething troubles" but I am sure the community here will be supportive. merry Xmas (if you celebrate it) and happy new year

@tama@aoir.social : I consider myself quite liberal, but I think as it is for smoking, alcohol : sometimes parents need in form of regulations. To simply say "it won't work" or "it does not foster digital literacy" seems to miss the point in my view. I wish our governments in Europe would do the same.

@tama@aoir.social The arguments against the ban (yours and Emily's) rest on the fact that we can regulate the social media and they can become better and safer. I think that a ban is a regulation: If the Social Media target children /young people as a market, let them come up with products which are safe in first place.

@tama@aoir.social I really appreciate Emily's story and am happy she found a supportive community online. (It would be interesting to know which platform she used.) But let's remember that those platforms are not created to help people like Emily. Maybe the efforts could go into supporting those platform. I don't think we are going to agree on the "ban", but I am really curious. I started using tiktok few days ago: can anyone tell me which benefits it has ? (genuine question)

@tama@aoir.social : Dear Professor, I respectfully disagree with your opinion. As a father of teenagers, I don't know which tools you are referring to "make things better" (or which improvements you have seen). You seem to imply that bans don't matters as kids will find ways to get it. Some parents - me included - were able to hold off the kids from the platforms by pointing out to age limitations (13).

@tama@aoir.social Hi, thanks for the reply. It took years for the society to realize the harms of smoking and act upon it. (and as you say, the harms were relatively easy to research and agree upon). We don't have (yet) the same research years for Social Media . But I think agree that in their present form, Social Media have harmful effects (that you call euphemistically "carrying risks") . and yes, they have advantages too (communication, entertainment ...).