'I’m sorry for everything...' Facebook's Zuck apologizes to families at Senate hearing Executives from the top social media companies faced contentious, sometimes contemptuous, questioning from the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a hearing titled: Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis. Senate lawmakers made it clear they're displeased with how social media firms Discord, Meta, …
"'Today’s hearing shows once again that many Senators are actively helping Big Tech harm kids because they’re more interested in creating sound bites for TV than the actual work of legislating,' said Fight for the Future director Evan Greer."
Pot, meet kettle. Naming and shaming is unfortunately the first step. There can be no legislation if there is no demonstrated problem.
The senators are just mad because Big Tech doesn't pay them off to the same extent Big Pharma, the NRA or Big Fossil Fuel does.
Pharmaceuticals / Health Products Recipients
Which senators have benefitted the most from NRA money?
"Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like NASCAR drivers, then we know who owns them” -George Carlin.
Due to the way the US govt works they won't do anything. This is partly because if they solve a problem they can't constantly campaign on 'only I/we can fix it' and also if they treat the big company well they will get a seat on the board when they retire from politics with a nice paycheque and pile of shares.
Lost count, this is like the umpteenth time Zuckerberg has apologized or given some sob story of how little knowledge he has about the internal workings of his company. False sincerity pours out like an oil slick every time they trot out this farse of fumbling Corporate Execs and Congressmen with their phony outrage and insincere pulpit pounding about privacy, security and values. Their only sincerity is in wealth and power!
Quite. Bread & Circuses.
And since the US is coming up on another election cycle, it was probably about time for another table-pounding show, with fake outrage and sound bites all around.
Hawley is such an insincere fake and shameless opportunist, but he's hardly alone.
At this point even the CEO's probably know it's a show, you can imagine the back-stage prep sessions...
"Look, I'm going to say a bunch of critical things about you CEO guys, throw some fodder to the drones in my district so they think I'm actually doing something..."
"Just sit there and look uncomfortable when the cameras are on, don't fight back too much, maybe work up some kind of theatrical apology if an opportunity comes up, and it'll be over in a couple hours."
"We'll go get drinks afterwards. And don't forget my campaign fund checks, right? See you next time!"
IMHO, at this point, a parent letting their child create accounts on social media is like a parent letting their child smoke, drink or use hard drugs.
I believe, as parents we need to shoulder some of the responsibility of raising a child who understands the risks of social media as well as the risks of drugs or unprotected sex.
I am in no way saying let the Zucker go free. They need to be held accountable more robustly than Big Tobacco were back in the day when they knowingly sold cancer sticks.
If parents would parent, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Consider that in this country (USA), a minor is not legally allowed to enter into a contract. Their parent or guardian has to sign it for them. Thus kids having access to Internet pr0n and etc. is squarely on the backs of the parents, who have tacitly allowed it by giving their sprog the tools to easily access it.
And of course the kids WILL access it if they can. Remember when you were that age? Does anyone reading this truly believe kids have changed appreciably in the last couple decades?
No, even though I think it is a parental problem, it doesn't follow that I think that BigMedia should be off the hook ... There is still such a thing as maintaining an attractive nuisance.
"For some time now parents have delegated responsibility for the upbringing of their kids to other people."
But where is it written that this is a good thing, or even legal? Last time I checked, the law says in no uncertain terms that the parent/guardian is responsible for their sprog's actions. The fact that nobody is doing anything about it has nothing to do with the actual law.
Is laziness on the part of the parent a good legal defense? Should it be?
Will another law or laws actually fix the problem, when it's quite clear that the existing laws covering the problem aren't doing any good?
Will a hastily prepared and passed into law cause more problems than expected? (They seemingly always do ... )
I'm hard pressed to think of a situation where more laws solved any problem caused by bad or ignored laws. There is always some cursed monkey paw type after effect.
ReasonTV on youtoob have a great series called 'Great Moments in Unintended Consequences'.
The problem with lazy parents extends way beyond letting their kids use social media. Kids are turning up at school not toilet trained. Parents complain of schools not teaching their kids how to zip up their coat or tie their shoes.
I'm from the latchkey and 'go watch TV' era of parenting. Now it is 'give them the tablet with some 'mind-numbing flashing bright colours game' to keep them quiet. And they wonder why kids have zero attention span. I had to keep an eye on the clock and then sit through un-skippable adverts to watch what I wanted on TV. It took planning!!
Personally I believe that kids computers/devices should be air-gapped from the internet. If a parent is worried enough to want their child to have a phone then get them a Nokia 3310.
"...And they wonder why kids have zero attention span..."
Personally I don't believe kids are any worse now that the latchkey kid generation of the 80s and 90s. Of course you are free to disagree
ADHD and related issues existed, but were undiagnosed back then. Affected kids were "just" stupid/lazy/a space cadet.
I'd argue this. I do believe that a fair number of ADHD diagnoses, certainly at the start of the 'we have a drug for that' era, are given to kids who simply need to burn off energy by running around. If I'd been growing up during this era I am pretty sure I would have been given ritalin as my mum was one of the types who constantly read books about how your child is 'not normal' and 'needs fixing'. Many times I was screamed at as I was not as 'well behaved' as my sister.
We are in an era of instant easy dopamine hits and I think this is just cooking people's brains. Be it gambling, ebay/amazon, binging a series, games with cute noises and sparkly flashing images, tiktok videos or pron. Its all at your fingertips.
In the US, definitely, it's much easier to get a diagnosis and consequently drugs.
But in Europe somebody would need to see a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis that would allow them to get their hands on medication.
With kids, again in Europe, cognitive behaviour therapy is the preferred treatment...then medication.
Also, the stereotype of ADHD being a kid with running around endlessly is not really accurate. Hyperactivity is just one type...there's also inattentive type (seen most often in girls), and a combined type.
But yes, I'll agree with you on the access to dopamine hits. That's what everybody wants :D
Totally random but I literally just found this link on another site and thought I better check back here :)
https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/08/virtual-autism-explain-rising-asd-diagnoses/
It ain't the vaccines :)
Even as a grumpy old git too much screen time gives me ADHD. It is nice to have some time off work and after about a week if not sitting infront of a computer my concentration level goes up as does my motivation to do stuff. Digital detox is real. Getting a dopamine hit from finally decorating the last 2 rooms nearly 4 years after we started is a lot better than mindlessly scrolling the interwebs.
My OH is 'murican and yeah they hand out the drugs like sweets over there. I was dragged from doctor to doctor by my mum in her search for a cure based on reading many a book written by 'murican 'specialist' on childhood issues. Even got dragged to some new-age guy who used a vega test machine on me and determined I was allergic to a laundry list of things. It has about as much scientific value as a thetan meter :)
Personally I don't believe kids are any worse now that the latchkey kid generation of the 80s and 90s.
The empirical evidence says otherwise.
There's been a huge surge in young women seeking elective cosmetic surgery and treatments such as Botox. The suicide rate for children aged 10-14 in the US tripled from 2007 to 2019. 20% of high-school students report being bullied.
I am very suspicious of diagnoses such as ADHD and autism myself — not because those are not real conditions, but because they are trendy, so parents and teachers are prone to folk-diagnoses and then try to convince medical providers to endorse those diagnoses, and medical providers are under various sorts of pressure (economic, legal, social) to do so. I also haven't seen any persuasive studies connecting ADHD, for example, to online activity — unlike body dismorphia, depression, and some other conditions where I have seen such studies. Doesn't mean those studies don't exist; this is not my field.
But "distraction" is by no means the only danger of online activity for children. And while, again, I am very reluctant to side with anything that smacks of dangerism, which currently plagues at least the US,1 there does seem to be extensive evidence that online activity is in general likely to be unhealthy for children2,3 and that this is having a statistically significant effect on rich-nation populations.
1Just saw a survey in which 40%+ of parents would not allow their 11-year-old child to go unaccompanied to a different aisle in a department store while shopping with them. Because, you know, 11-year-olds are abducted from Target all the time. It's insane.
2I make no claims about whether it's healthy for adults.
3And of course there's plenty of fine educational or otherwise beneficial material available online too. Again, this is a generalization.
I regards to your note 1, the 24hr a day news cycles amplify every day stuff into a complete frenzy and people fall for it. At age 11 I was taking the bus on my own, I would cycle to friends houses on my own, I would go to the local shop on my own. So long as I was home for supper my parents didn't worry. We have a generation, or maybe two, of kids who have rarely been out of their parents sight other than at school and I believe this is a cause of some of the anxiety and associated issues being seen. The kids are so used to mummy (usually) or daddy (less likely) being there to help them that they struggle on their own.
《Because, you know, 11-year-olds are abducted from Target all the time.》
I remember that in future if I have any irritating rugrats in tow. Suppose it has to be Chez Target? KMart not de rigeur with child abduction community? Lower quality stock?
Really is insane when its obvious that the world is becoming noticeably more dangerous for everyone. Extreme weather events in one years probably account for child harm than a whole decade of lurking department store abductors without even considering anything firearm related.
"For some time now parents have delegated responsibility for the upbringing of their kids to other people."
Deep into the distant past that has included grandparents and older siblings. It has also included the community in which they lived. It's natural human behaviour. One problem here is that not only has the community suddenly expanded, it has allowed its less desirable members to be unchecked.
"a minor is not legally allowed to enter into a contract"
All that means is that they're not legally entering into contracts. If the sign-on simply requires them to state they're of age to bypass parental consent then they can get access, it's just that there's no actual contract involved.
Consider that in this country (USA), a minor is not legally allowed to enter into a contract. Their parent or guardian has to sign it for them. Thus kids having access to Internet pr0n and etc. is squarely on the backs of the parents, who have tacitly allowed it by giving their sprog the tools to easily access it.
Even if a parent didn't give their kid a phone, they'd use a friend's and use any social network they wanted to. How could you stop that happening? The "parents should parent like I did back in my day" brigade have no answer to that.
You're blaming parents when you should be blaming billion-dollar corporations in Silicon Valley which knowingly enter into illegal contracts and do not offer useful parental controls.
Social network apps should not be included by default on phones. The OS should have a child mode which does not allow them to be downloaded if the parent so wishes. If the parent allows it, the apps must also have a child mode (or they're not getting into the app store) which limits the child to logging into one nominated child account.
The parent should be able to log into the nominated child account at any time to change settings and see what they've been posting. It ain't difficult. Instead of tying ourselves in knots over age verification, just offer tools which don't rely on age verification but on the parents' wishes.
But you blame the parents when in your day the most complicated thing around was a spinning top.
Oh, good, the blame-the-parents argument.
How exactly are parents supposed to prevent their children from using social media? Forbid them to associate with anyone who has access to a web browser? Supervise them every minute of the day?
It's impossible for a parent who doesn't treat children as prisoners to deny them access to any of the other scourges we love to fret over — drugs, sex, Wrong Ideas, &c. And some of those at least have the advantages of being concrete objects or leaving discernible traces. When your pre-teen comes home from a friend's house, are you going to sniff her breath for the unmistakable odor of Facebook?1 Will you search his room for baggies of TikTok?
Sure, parents can impose restrictions on web and social-media use, and some of those might even be followed, to some extent. But forbidding it will also make it that much more desirable, of course.
Perhaps rather than pulling out our favorite axes to grind, we should look at empirical evidence and research. For example, there's some evidence that programs such as the one implemented at Vertex Partnership Academies, where student electronics are locked away during school hours, are effective, in part because most students *like* them — locking everyone's devices away removes peer pressure to use them and participate in social media during that time.
1Obviously an absurd question, since pre-teens don't use Facebook.
"Will you search his room for baggies of TikTok?"
I am having flashbacks to the South Park cheesing episode with the cat in the ziplock bag.
The internet has permeated every part of our society and it is very hard to get away from it. Long ago in days of old there was always the kid at school who had gotten into their parents booze or ciggy stash or found their dad's collection of playboy or collection of 70s german pron on betamax. I think the difference now is that kids are getting teased if they are not on friendface or whatever and don't have the latest phone. Its moved on from who has the best BMX, coolest yo-yo or largest collection of GPKs.
Well ... in theory parents would/could be able to shield their kids from all sorts of harm.
However ... there's a good reason why some potential dangers are taken care of by the law, and not relegated to the conscious individual.
The only effective way to prevent kids from creating social media account is probably preventing them to have a smartphone or access computers, because how high is the bar one needs to pass to create such an account? The existence of an email address?
If underage kids want to buy booze or cigarettes, there's a good chance that this is prevented since the cashier sees them in real life, and may demand a proof of age.
Does anyone really think, that the age limit for social media is remotely similar effective?
Whoever did not lie about their age as a kid throws the first faecebook like.
It's also worth noting that that those parents of children of say 8-14 years are probably in their late 20s to mid 30's and have also grown up in the era of internet access, games consoles etc. Those just about to embark on the journey of parenthood have grown up in the age of social media. Those of us old enough to have been in on the ground floor of the home computing age are more likely to grandparents now :-)
"Social media companies, as they're currently designed and operate, are dangerous products," said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), ranking Judiciary Committee member, in his opening statement. "They're destroying lives, threatening democracy itself. These companies must be reined in or the worst is yet to come."
I watched the hearing, and my ears pricked up when Lindsey Graham berated Zuckerberg, saying he had "blood on his hands"
The gun companies long ago washed their hands of any responsibility for deaths caused by their products. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act protects weapons manufacturers from liability resulting from criminal activity.
Maybe the social media companies need to unite in a similar way?
I find it amazing how they can do so little to protect users, but give me a 3 day ban for "breaching community standards" (no warning to edit or remove) when I remarked on someone getting a bargain on a retro sales site with "That's an amazing price, I'd have snapped their hand off for that".
Apparently this age-old UK expression is a threat of violence to them.
We live in a lovely world, as long it doesn't involve petty crime, perpetrators are never persecuted.
Companies knowingly do bad things, nobody ever goes to jail.
It is not until a few dozen execs of a company get mass sentenced a decade or two for knowingly doing harm to people, things won't change.
Now they get away with having to listen to half a day of cursing from politicians, they pay the small fine, and continue business as usual.
Perhaps DA's should start reading proceedings of Nuremberg trails, where people didn't get away with "Ich habe es nicht gewusst" or "Befehl ist Befehl..", but were held personally accountable for things that happened under their command. In a new world, where execs know they end up in jail for doing harm, they won't be that eager to do harm for the next quarterly bonus.
Given that this entire swathe of companies has been enabled by primary legislation from Congress, maybe they should look at changing the law they wrote that allows social media to act like publishers without any of the liabilities or responsibilities publishers have?
Most of those politicians are arguably worse.
That is, we *know* that Zuck, Beezos, Larry and Elom et al are money-grubbing power-hungry buggers. There's no realistic doubt at this point, and while the CEOs occasionally give a bit of token lip-service to charity or public works or what have you, it's no great secret that lot is focused on share price and their spot on the richest sod in the world list.
Whereas the politicians are basically the same, but still pretend to care about the public and country and their constituents etc. And lie about it.
that the ultimate solution might well involve implanting Musk's Neurolink chips in the kiddywit's gray matter to control or filter what they do, watch, see or even think.
Probably will start therapeutically with those severely affective individuals having various behavioural and cognitive impairment whose quality of life might well be improved and then gradually extended to eventually encompass most teenagers pretty much as I suspect happened with neuro-pharmaceuticals like Ritalin.
A return to the stone age might be preferable to the veritable smorgasbord of dystopian futures now confronting us.
"Facilis descensus Averno."
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