Comment on France seeks to ban social media for children under 15
Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 6 days ago
Whenever this comes up, it feels like a play to harvest people’s data and / or to slip additional laws into place under the guise of “protect the children”.
On one hand I don’t think it’s terrible to try to guide kids more. I think parents should be doing more parenting tbh.
On the other I think it runs the risk of preventing kids from accessing information online, finding safe spaces online, and isolating kids more than they already can be. It also limits things like teaching kids about technology and how to use it safely.
vga@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
What do you mean by this? How can an online space be safe for a child?
Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 5 days ago
First I think it depends on what we are considering kids. I was online from age 8 but didn’t get into online games or communities until about 10. But in the case of the law, they’re often saying anything below 16 or 18 etc. It depends on the country/jurisdiction.
There are lots of places kids can find community. When i was a kid I was playing on neopets, club penguin, old school runescape, guild wars. I made friends with people from all over the place. One of my best friends in my youth is from across the continent, and we have been friends for 20 years now.
I think the bottom line is parents should parent. When I was a kid the PC was in the main room. My parents spoke to me frequently about staying safe online and asked me about what I was doing on the PC. They made sure I was only accessing kid appropriate sites and that I wasn’t getting myself into trouble.
Could I have gotten in trouble? Yeah possibly. I also could have gotten kidnapped at the local park
Carrot@lemmy.today 4 days ago
The old canned chat Club Penguin was a safe space for kids on the internet in my youth. Sure, you could have snowballs thrown at you, but since there were canned-chat-only servers, it was a safe space to hang out and make friends, despite not getting to know them very deeply.
I think it was a pretty solid approach to teaching children how to interact with the internet
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
Why can’t they be?
vga@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s also a total dice throw with nobody responsible watching over the result. And the potential consequences of unsafety are pretty bad.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 5 days ago
We need to build it for them