@nileane I bet "should we start selling alcohol and drugs to children too" hits so hard if you're a moron of the first order.

@nileane @kimlockhartga Well, unfortunately, to mobilize people, you need to meet them where they’re at. Which means using different appeals for different audiences.

@nileane what!? children aren't property and should actually have agency? that's crazy talk*

* there may be some sarcasm in this reply

@nileane
We can teach the kids how to break the laws (or find alternatives where these laws aren't really enforceable) if they can't figure it out themselves, and what tools they have at hand to make such information spread.

Be the older person you wished you knew as a kid.

And if there are no kids around you, question how to make the spaces you're in more welcoming (if appropriate) for kids and their caretaker.

@nileane when all children were forced back into closed re-breathing chambers 2020/2021, it was made abundantly clear to governments no one cared about the children, not even the parents. Accordingly there are no appeals to the freedom of the child.

Everyone understands it is not about the children, so it's not a big talking point.

(And the children have already bypassed it.)

@nileane @glynmoody my number 1 objection is "who decides what's adult?" closely followed by "who's paying for this?" because a lot of UK forums have gone dark because cyclists, football fans, and other hobbyists didn't want to pay that tax. It's silencing small sites and safe spaces

@nileane When i was a kid, i would often complain about my lack of rights and autonomy. I would always be told that I would feel differently when I was an adult.

They were correct! As an adult, I feel EVEN MORE STRONGLY that minors deserve more rights.

@nileane I see a danger in a system that transmits user data to corpos. But the system can be designed intelligently, and the law can also be written intelligently. The idea that the internet is ‘freedom for all’ is strange to me. Public spaces on the internet should be the same as public spaces in real life. The state must protect everyone everywhere. ‘We have more freedom here than in real life’ = you need to improve the state, elect better people, for a better future

https://mastodon.social/@Distante/115690486816477978

@nileane also the fact that these verification processes are giving big tech companies like Microsoft, palantir etc EVEN MORE power, control and citizen's data like wtaf?!?

@nileane I feel conflicted about it because I do see how much harm social media can do and how its design definitely amplifies abusive behaviour by creating a system which rewards bullying with the serotonin of likes and boosts.

But the fact they're choosing to age limit it instead of force redesigns as if bullying is something only kids experience (it isn't, we just call it harassment instead when it happens to adults) and ignore how this will kill support networks for queer kids is telling...

@nileane the reason for that is because fascists already won, so most of society enjoys hurting minors, so you gotta spin it in a way that affects them, not minors, because hurting minors is why this even managed to pass in the first place

Aka, if you try to explain to the average person that the law hurts minors, they go well that's good, that's why I voted for it!, whereas if you explain to them that it hurts their privacy, they will go wait I don't want that (hopefully. On average they will not care but hopefully enough of them will)

On average, more people care about privacy than about not hurting minors.

And trying to convince normal people that hurting minors is bad is mostly a lost battle, they love it too much. It's encoded in laws, in society... I hate that fact, but what can I do? All I can do is not cause harm myself and just pray I don't end up dead too soon because of it.

@nileane conservatives want to be in charge of what everyone else's kids get to see, with isolating queer kids being explicitly the goal. they've admitted it. if I was still a teen I'd want help getting around these evil laws.

@nileane It’s not just that even.

It’s entirely within the realm of possibility, that the large social media companies will actually lobby for the #agerestriction laws to become even more complex and broad.

Making complince with the law become prohibitively expensive would drown out competitors and alternatives like the #fediverse

@nileane i think its because as a society, even if you you were to try and push the "children deserve rights and are people too" thing, most people reject that on principle,

Sure you could say it but i dont think it would sway many people to be against these laws

@nileane a lot of people go mask-off fascist when the victims are kids

@nileane it seems like instead of cutting off access for kids, we should make social media less actively harmful and addictive.

but then they might make less money, so no, hell with them kids.

Think about this very hard next time you hear or read leftists take a stance in favor of putting kids in digital jail.

No matter your opinion on Big Tech, and how evil Meta, Google, Snapchat and all the others are. The plain and immediate result of these social media bans for minors is a jail. You're forcibly cutting them off from entire chunks of the Internet.

And as usual, think of who this is going to affect the most. Spoiler alert: it ain't gonna be the cis white boys, it ain't gonna be the neurotypical children, and it ain't gonna be the rich kids.