You were convinced to endorse censoring social media through draconian government measures by an incoherent moral panic and yet ostensibly you are a fan of open decentralized social media?
You are gullible as hell.
You do realize this all started in Australia from a sports gambling company wanting to distract from the real damage unregulated gambling on apps is causing to youth right?
So not only are you gullible, you were successfully sent on a moral crusade by gambling companies to distract you and others from paying attention to the real harm occuring.
I don’t think this all started in Australia, there have been movements for this for awhile now. And while I do have concerns about silencing dissidents, I think we do need some kinda of age-gating on the internet though. It is too easy for children to access dangerous material, and these apps are purposefully designed to be addictive. We regulate addictive drugs, and I think we’re past time to regulate addictive media for children.
Your arguments are lazy, there is a clear difference between drugs that are PHYSICALLY INGESTED INTO THE BODY and the human body seeing something visually. The fact that people keep conflating that is absurd and intellectually insulting.
You have zero evidence for us needing to take extreme actions like the ones you are casually suggesting.
Social media is not the same thing as cocaine or cigarettes, come up with a better argument.
The reason Gambling Addiction is serious even though it isn’t a physical drug is because being manipulated into throwing away all of your money even when it isn’t really what you want to do tends to do a massive amount of damage to your life.
At ANY time someone can delete their social media app and begin living their life without it, on the other hand the damage that serious drugs or gambling debt do is permanent, brutally material and inescapable.
At any time someone can just stop gambling. But over hundreds of years, we have seen it is an addictive behavior. Social media has been meticulously designed to be the same.
Gambling physically takes your means to eat, have shelter and support yourself away from you, permanently, stop comparing that to a sensation that does nothing of the sort.
And while I do have concerns about silencing dissidents
You have helped set off an avalanche while making the comment “Well I guess I am concerned about this becoming a dangerous thing but we can always just stop the snow tumbling downhill if it becomes a problem!”.
I just read “The Anxious Generation” and I think this is the right choice.
You are a fool.
You make a persuasive argument.
You were convinced to endorse censoring social media through draconian government measures by an incoherent moral panic and yet ostensibly you are a fan of open decentralized social media?
You are gullible as hell.
You do realize this all started in Australia from a sports gambling company wanting to distract from the real damage unregulated gambling on apps is causing to youth right?
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/12/15/australias-social-media-ban-was-pushed-by-ad-agency-focused-on-gambling-ads-it-didnt-want-banned/
So not only are you gullible, you were successfully sent on a moral crusade by gambling companies to distract you and others from paying attention to the real harm occuring.
Let’s extend this to the gambling sites too.
I don’t think this all started in Australia, there have been movements for this for awhile now. And while I do have concerns about silencing dissidents, I think we do need some kinda of age-gating on the internet though. It is too easy for children to access dangerous material, and these apps are purposefully designed to be addictive. We regulate addictive drugs, and I think we’re past time to regulate addictive media for children.
Your arguments are lazy, there is a clear difference between drugs that are PHYSICALLY INGESTED INTO THE BODY and the human body seeing something visually. The fact that people keep conflating that is absurd and intellectually insulting.
You have zero evidence for us needing to take extreme actions like the ones you are casually suggesting.
Social media is not the same thing as cocaine or cigarettes, come up with a better argument.
The reason Gambling Addiction is serious even though it isn’t a physical drug is because being manipulated into throwing away all of your money even when it isn’t really what you want to do tends to do a massive amount of damage to your life.
At ANY time someone can delete their social media app and begin living their life without it, on the other hand the damage that serious drugs or gambling debt do is permanent, brutally material and inescapable.
At any time someone can just stop gambling. But over hundreds of years, we have seen it is an addictive behavior. Social media has been meticulously designed to be the same.
Gambling physically takes your means to eat, have shelter and support yourself away from you, permanently, stop comparing that to a sensation that does nothing of the sort.
Social media, gaming and porn addiction could do all of that by robbing you of time and desire to do anything else, the same way gambling does.
You have helped set off an avalanche while making the comment “Well I guess I am concerned about this becoming a dangerous thing but we can always just stop the snow tumbling downhill if it becomes a problem!”.
At this point your internet signature is enough to identify you online. Coming up with age gating technologies will not meaningfully change that.