But don’t worry, folks in the free world, this won’t apply to you! Douyin (Tiktok in China) may restrict what kids see, but Tiktok abroad will still serve up to your tween daughter videos that tell her if she isn’t pretty enough, she might as well kill herself.
They probably saw the Russian culture war brain rot play out with American youth and decided to have a circuit breaker.
Behind the Bastards has an episode about how YouTube went right wing to create site engagement and an anger economy, and an episode about Facebook doing thr same for boomers.
Some governments are looking into limiting those influences.
EDIT: oh yeah, China might also be protecting children from hearing about the periodic stabbing attacks that happen at schools over there. Forgot about those.
The rest of the world needs to learn from the US’s failure like this ASAP. I think Europe might already be doomed judging by the way the UK and Germany are going, but others might be able to swerve to avoid a fascist future with the right moves.
It’s not only the US that got hit by that russian campaign to mess with youths and even younger children. Europe for its fair share as well. It also plays into their “oh look at the degenerate west” playbook perfectly.
They’re responsible for so much damage that I have no idea how it’ll end. Not even children with tech savvy parents are immune, as I can attest to myself.
It’s important as fuck to have discussions about bad content to children ass soon as they get any kind of screen available to them, and it should never ever be a babysitter unless it’s under controlled circumstances.
It’s also a good idea to start teaching your children how any tech they use works and what happens under the hood if they’re interested. They’re certainly less likely to get influenced by any bad actors if they know what’s what.
They already have the GFW and state control of the media.
I see a lot of well-meaning support for this. I can’t help but think there has to be a way to implement these kinds of controls without taking power away from the user.
Like the Fediverse implementing better mod tools rather than expecting Twitter to effectively moderate the internet.
deleted by creator
I completely agree Internet should be regulated especially for children. Should be done in Europe as well. But of course this regulation should not be misused for propaganda.
Look I will be clear to you. You can not have a free and open internet and governments unable to misuse their power to shutdown websites, information whenever they please. And at the same time regulate the internet “to protect the children”. You can’t have both at the same time.
It’s not the 90s; we don’t have a free and open internet anymore.
The vast majority of the web is run by a handful of corporations. Something needs to be done, and I think that preventing children from getting access to websites owned by evil companies like Google/Alphabet, Elon Musk, and Meta/Facebook is a good start.
The internet is firmly in the grasp of mega corporations. There is no free internet anymore. This shit needs to be regulated.
I run my own service all hosted on my own infrastructure. And fully independent from other big corps. No cloud. No cloudflare etc.
More people should do that, but do not tell me to just give up and hand me over, and fully regulate the internet. Then we are doomed for sure.
Its not really something kids can do though. The overwhelming majority of parents neither. Hell, I consider myself somewhat tech savvy, but I’m just starting on that journey.
I have no idea what a good regulation might look like, but just letting techbros do whatever they want is not an option.
I guess we don’t exist, then
A tiny niche that’s only accessible to people who know how the internet works. Ask your regular Joe if they’ve even ever heard of the Fediverse. Kids will flock to the easiest accessible and largest platforms. Not Lemmy. And even Lemmy would be toxic for kids.
This is really good point. The internet has been completely taken over by American oligarch gangs, on an outcome basis it’s not too far from internet censorship China (just implemented via alternative means).
Well this kind of regulation needs to be democratically. So there need to be independent institutions who regulate. The Same way like the law, police and politics is independent from each other.
If we keep the Internet “free” this means the Internet will be controlled by corporations like meta, Google and tiktok and thus by undemocratic billionaires. And also networks like these Russian fake news propaganda will control the narrative and so indirectly control our society.
I agree with you that regulating the Internet and thus the media need to be balanced against freedom. But if we do not regulate the internet than democracy is doomed.
Parents need to do their fucking jobs and keep their shithead kids out of my business.
There we go… This is the only correct answer here!
Internet is controlled by corporates like meta, Google, tiktok right now. In other words the undemocratic billionaires control the power. And also networks like the Russian bot farms spread fake news and destabilize our society. Parents can not do much about it.
Democracy is doomed if the Internet is not regulated in a way.
Fuck this
deleted by creator
You don’t want kids to research, let’s say controversial, content of CCP wrongs and critism of policies ofc. Totally a smart move
This isn’t for the kid’s benefit you know
deleted by creator
The point is censorship of viewpoints
And my point is that certain viewpoints are already being censored on the major platforms.
Say something anti-MAGA on YouTube the next time you get a chance, then load the page in an incognito window. You’ll notice that your comment is nowhere to be found. Check your comment history, and you’ll see a “some activity might not be visible yet” message at the top. Yet anything praising Trump gets to stay.
Google/Meta/etc.are dangerous entities that are poisoning kids’ minds with conservative propaganda, and no one seems to notice or care. Something needs to be done.
These laws are about censoring LGBT stuff, you think the MAGAs would do anything about MAGA propaganda?
deleted by creator
I can’t take seriously articles about the Internet that don’t even capitalize “Internet” correctly.
‘The Internet.’ You are almost correct, an internet is a descriptor of two or more interconnected networks. The Internet is a proper noun which should actually be capital ‘T’ he capital ‘I’ nternet. You have “an internet” like ‘a universe’ and ‘The Internet’ like ‘The Universe.’
