Post #1637741
2026-04-24 08:30 UTC
Replies (30)
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@Xavier@infosec.exchange 2026-04-24 12:08
@quinn@social.circl.lu because the people running the social media companies have bought our politicians.
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@Di4na@hachyderm.io 2026-04-24 08:35
@quinn it speaks to the old way the government do things around children. Just wall them out to their own little society.
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@GustavinoBevilacqua@mastodon.cisti.org 2026-04-24 08:42
@quinn As I wrote some days ago — https://mastodon.cisti.org/@GustavinoBevilacqua/116444599131702480 — people barks for "protection" of minors. But from what they have to be protected? From pedo priests? From parents leaving loaded guns around their home? From people who don't put a lid on a ground-level well? All these figures can't be usually found on the net.
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@SamUpstate@hachyderm.io 2026-04-24 12:06
@quinn though it's not like those people have been any better at making laws to ban social media from harming children. New York passed a problematic SAFE for Kids act a few years ago, and the only practical effect it's had that I've seen is that Instagram now has to get parental permission (I don't know how they do that for kids who have lied about their age) before poisoning my teen.
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@petros@literatur.social 2026-04-24 12:34
@quinn I am not confused. It is easier to target children instead of billionaires.
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@FranceskaMann@freeradical.zone 2026-04-24 12:42
@quinn Mark Zuckerberg lied to Congress. He said that children don't access Facebook. When returned to testify again Zuck admitted that not only do children access Facebook, they are being harmed knowingly by the platform because it's profitable. He lied to Congress under oath. Which he then admitted when he returned to Congress. Why isn't he in jail? I have been reading about his crimes for the past decade. No legislation. No protection. He creates addiction for ad revenue.
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@EndicottAuthor@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 13:24
@quinn I think the legislators are working on the wrong end of the problem.
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@GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 14:12
@quinn That's because it's not about protecting children, it's about forcing adults to upload their private identifying information so they can be better tracked under surveillance. It's similar to when the FBI recently said using a proxy will place you under government scrutiny. The USA's corrupt oligarchs really, really hate privacy.
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@pmc@mastodon.ffcentral.net 2026-04-24 14:26
@quinn @eniko If we ban them from harming children, what’s next? Banning them from harming adults? How will the poor multi-billion dollar tech companies survive???
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@AlexanderVI@stranger.social 2026-04-24 14:37
@quinn tech giants have lobbying budgets; kids don't
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@8r3n7@mstdn.ca 2026-04-24 14:51
@quinn All such "protections" are like most other kinds: protection for investors from liability risk.
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@djohngo@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 14:53
@quinn The social media companies are the ones pushing this legislation because it moves the liability away from them, and puts it on the child, the parent, and whatever age/identity verification service ends up being used.
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@nini@oldbytes.space 2026-04-24 14:58
@quinn To me it's a "not just but also", it affects everyone besides kids and we should be banning social media companies who have been shown to harm anyone. Free speech is nice and all but falls apart at the point it is actively harming others, you might be free to speak but it doesn't mean there is no limit on what you can say nor that you'll suffer no repercussions for the harm they could cause.
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@argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org 2026-04-24 15:18
@quinn Whenever some politician or lobbyist group says children should be banned from social media, substitute “children” with “women” or “black people” and see if you still think it's a good idea. See if you think justifications like “their developing brains” still hold up. Because I assure you, if social media was invented a century ago, the proposals to ban women and black people from it would have used the exact same excuses.
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@Epic_Null@infosec.exchange 2026-04-24 15:28
@quinn It makes more sense if you drop the premise of age verification and look at the mechanism: Identity collection.
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@fbulow@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 15:56
@quinn Yeah, it IS crazy! I am amazed I never thought of it that way. You are completely right and I bet this applies to many aspects of tech and privacy. Thanks!!!
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@alienghic@timeloop.cafe 2026-04-24 16:00
@quinn Honestly the simplest idea is the social media ban is to prevent kids from learning about Gretta Thunberg and how the old people are destroying a habitable planet with global warming and trying to organize protests against the oil industry. It may also be about trying to block kids from learning about black history and LGBT people too.
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@OvertonDoors@infosec.exchange 2026-04-24 16:04
@quinn Put a couple hundred scaffolds on the national lawn and haing corporate tech leadership from them en-masse one month. Intergenerationally wealthy bastards the next. Leave the tech-bros there untill you string up the 2025 financiers. But @OvertonDoors that's torture! That's cruel! Yes. It's the language these people are most fluent in. That's why it will reach them when none of our collective arguments against their cruelty ever do.
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@Dofain@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 16:26
@quinn @Enalys easy: minors can't bribe politicians
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@Zergling_man@sacred.harpy.faith 2026-04-24 16:27
@quinn how the fuck is cyberbullying real lmao just turn it off and walk away
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@AccordionBruce@mastodon.social 2026-04-24 18:46
@quinn @rebeccabanner All we need is a really strong privacy laws That would’ve put the people who started Facebook in jail all those years ago Instead, what we’re getting is the opposite It would put people who don’t want to hand over their personal information to organizations like Facebook in jail The violaters of privacy have won the Internet
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@naufraghi@social.slug.it 2026-04-24 21:13
@quinn Yes, what makes me angry is that families and children will be blamed for not following the rules, while the corporations are not held accountable. This is not the free market tale, markets should do the hard work of adapting, not the reverse!
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@jet@cloudisland.nz 2026-04-24 21:14
@quinn my confusion reduced when I read about the companies themselves lobbying for age ID stuff https://tboteproject.com/
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@ala_ans@mastodon.social 2026-04-25 09:54
I really don't think there is much free speach left in social media. It is algoritmus owners controlled influence tube, full of bots. I would rader say, it is selling and political media and as such should be regulated. But I agree with tyle statement that tech companies should be obligated to make their product safe, not society.
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@Crovanian@mastodon.social 2026-04-26 12:55
@quinn hear me out: why not make these ‘digital town squares’ be municipality/ publicly run mastodon instances, such that they simply lack all of the negativity of the banned media sites? (I mean the real reason for the ban is to silence young folk now that the internet has ‘matured’, but that’s beside the point)
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@asie@mk.asie.pl 2026-04-26 15:18
@quinn@social.circl.lu the companies are pushing for legislation which makes them do the least work and minimizes harm to their revenue streams. banning social media companies from harming children could easily be extended to banning social media companies from harming adults, and would require them to put in actual effort. banning children from accessing social media is a flag check - and you can push the implementation work on OS vendors or public institutions
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@yuvalne@tooot.im 2026-04-26 18:46
@quinn i got a really good insight into that logic when the merits of such a law were discussed on the Czech radio and the invited expert said "well technically social media is already illegal for under-15s". they want to punish people for them not being able to enforce their own laws. that's all.
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@mxchara@seattle.pink 2026-04-27 04:03
@quinn I am less confused, maybe. I remind myself that the chief proponents of such censorious legislation are the Christofascists, who feel themselves entitled by their religious feelings to clamp down hard on what media and technology their own children are allowed to use. There's been a very high-powered social movement abroad in the United States since the 1950s maybe by the Christofascists: they carefully learned how to present themselves as if they were secular authorities on parenting and child psychology and so forth. One of their aims has always been to cut children off from international media so they can be indoctrinated fully as Christian Americans. Basically...I'm saying that this legislation was surely in response to specifically "Christian" or "biblical" political pressure, under the surface.
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@brib@bribstodon.xyz 2026-04-27 07:39
@quinn My best guess is the "age verification" framing is pushed by social media companies who want regulation without wanting regulation. Why decouple themselves from their profitable business model when they could just kick the (unprofitable) kids off their platform and get detailed information on the (profitable) adults who stay?
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@n_dimension@infosec.exchange 2026-07-13 12:52
@quinn@social.circl.lu "Wave of legislation to ban children from social media" is a scam. Its about de-anonimising adults. The statists and authoritarians LOATHED the semi - anonimity of the internet. They have tried to bring in "Internet passport" for the last few decades. Source: Retired internet liberty activist #ageverification