Post #2811255

2026-03-17 20:12 UTC

None of these surveillance companies trying to break your kid’s brains would exist if we hadn’t made it illegal to reverse engineer their manipulative crappy software and produce compatible none-manipulative clones. But they have been granted legal monopoly, so they can do what they like. If you want a law to protect internet users it isn’t “Force them to consent before you spy on them” or “age-gate chat forums”, No. The real solutions are more like: “Buying and selling data about an individual is illegal and punishable by years in jail and a penalty of 2x yearly profit” or “Advertising must be based on the content of the page context not the tracking of the individual”. If a legal intervention is warranted then we don’t want a system where website operators have to pick between a list of monopoly providers to hand over their data to and force them all to spy on their users to age-check. We want companies to be explicitly allowed to reverse engineer and reproduce other company’s proprietary access methods, to increase competition and end these rentier monopolies that allow them to push their manipulative phone apps. End the DMCA and the similar laws which they campaigned for to prevent competition. It’s those laws which give the corporations the power to push their algorithms and limit alternatives.

Replies (1)

@pre@boing.world 2026-03-17 20:13

I see no sign of any recognition from those who would want such a ban that they see any of the collateral damage a successful ban would have on the majority of kids who are not falling for this bullshit. That they are banning any good at all along with the bad. Under 18s only I see that the lobbying for these laws are funded by the absolute worst companies on the internet, those who will be entrenched by the legal compliance costs, that will cement themselves as the arbitrators of who is allowed to access the internet. It’s a gift to Palantir and other surveillance companies. The very people running these algo-feeds are the ones who benefit from IDing every user and stalking them across the internet on their government-approved internet-licence IDs. I don’t think even a successful ban on social media for kids would actually address the issue of kids being exposed to sexism and misogony or reduce the kids alienation and depression. A ban can’t help, will make many things worse, won’t address the problem, and will make competing with the worst surveillance capitalists on the planet more difficult. Going to war with every internet site and advice forum and making internet access harder won’t fix anything, and will have massive collateral damage against everyone seeking support from strangers or trying to learn things their parents won’t teach them. But I see we are going to do it anyway. The direction is clear. Those companies do get what they lobby for, and they are lobbying hard for ID checks on every website, wrapping their desire to enclose the internet commons for themselves in a faux concern for children’s welfare. And governments wish to monitor and control the internet, so they will pass these laws. I wonder how many parents have a family group-chat that they’re going to accidentally ban their kids from using, not realizing that ‘social media’ might include Whatsapp? 😆 It won’t fix anything, it will make the situation for kids worse, impose costs and rents and hacks and exploits on all of us, and increase government and corporate power. Many will lose access to their networks of support and help. So it goes. We will build a better more censorship resistant internet. It’s already here really: Briar. Matrix. Nostr. Bitchat. Veilid. Spritely. And the rest. The laws may push us there faster. The race will go on.

Open ##2811256