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I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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But what’s the cost of them being forced to use these online spaces to connect? Is it greater or less than the cost of not using them at all? Seems to me the balance is going farther and farther to the side of using them being worse than not every day. Body shaming, predators, addiction. We didn’t let kids smoke because it increased their social circle did we?
I don't think kids should be "forced" to use social media to connect. I was trying to say that the current reality is that kids rely heavily on the internet for social connection, whether we like it or not, and telling kids to "just stop using it" is not going to help those that are struggling.
I think there is a need for better government regulation to make social media a healthier place for both kids and adults, but I'm not yet sure what the best implementation of that should look like. Leaving age verification to private companies has already resulted in damaging data breaches and will continue to do so.
Many people advocate for a social media ban for kids under 16, but the predictably imperfect implementation of that means that some kids can easily bypass facial verification and continue using social media, while others cannot and get excluded. I'm reminded of a quote from this article:
We need a way to regulate social media that is both privacy-preserving and also avoids excluding or isolating kids. Maybe some kind of ban for under 16s is the right path, but at a minimum, it needs secure identity verification provided as a service by the government, where your identifying information is never visible to the private companies running the platforms. Because they will fuck it up or abuse it.
Maybe instead of a full ban, we should instead ban advertising targeting youth, and ban algorithmic feeds & suggested content for kids. Make it so teens can only see posts from people they follow, in chronological order, so they eventually run out of new things to see and close the app for the day.
The day they offer an ad free experience with chronological feeds, all us Millenials will be saying we were born in 2010. :-D That's all I want from my social media. I agree on the advertising point; getting at kids to get the parents to spend money is evil. If we don't already have them, every school should now have a class on recognizing AI, social media vs. reality, and advertising tactics. Kids should know the playbook so they don't get sucked in like a boomer watching QVC.
This is the solution. If companies cannot profit off of their platforms, they will not have them any longer. Literally just ban all advertising. Amend all free-speech laws in all countries to define speech as rights of individual citizens, with corporations explicitly excluded.
Where advertising does exist, for example a phone book, it should be factual and pertinent to the product, not a big titty model or sad puppy dog trying to tap into people's caveman brain. I imagine more of a product registry, maybe even with a model of every registered device made available at a library of things so you can try before you buy. What do we as consumers benefit from having our product research obscured by catchy tunes and manipulation tactics?
On a similar note, I think we should end all loyalty programs. In addition to privacy concerns, they obscure the actual cost of a good by making it dependent on previous purchases and sometimes by giving prices in points rather than currency. How can I know whether my Kroger or Walgreen's points will result in better long term deals. It's intentionally complicated so I as the consumer can't make an informed decision.