These arguments are not very strong. It also makes the assumption that these platforms are the only possible place on the web for minors to get information. That's only true because these platforms literally made it that way. It also makes the absolutely insane assumption that children are on there consuming meaningful content and not literal brain rotting slop or worse.
There's no amount of mental gymnastics in my head I can think of to get to the conclusion this is bad for children, somehow. Bad for the web and privacy? I don't doubt it will become that way, but that's the world we already exist in, and again, no other large players are behaving well there either. That's an entirely different battle that should never have been mixed in with this one.
It also makes the assumption that these platforms are the only possible place on the web for minors to get information. That's only true because these platforms literally made it that way.
The platforms cannot stop someone from publishing information on a website outside of the platform.
Does an honest reading of what I said seem to imply I'm saying they are stopping it? No, they can't, but they can dominate and incentivize the market to make those websites outside of the platform irrelevant or basically invisible. This is a well known thing. These sites, facebook/IG in particular, also can link outside of their site, and do frequently, and have a heavy say in what types of sites get linked and how heavily those are weighted.
They might incentivize, but the problem is with the public. If the people don't want to do the effort of typing in a few letters in to a URL bar and reading, then I can't blame the businesses.
You don't get the benefits of a market without putting in the work of shopping around. If people don't want to do that, then it is what it is, but shopping around on the web is about as easy as it gets.
Comments
These arguments are not very strong. It also makes the assumption that these platforms are the only possible place on the web for minors to get information. That's only true because these platforms literally made it that way. It also makes the absolutely insane assumption that children are on there consuming meaningful content and not literal brain rotting slop or worse.
There's no amount of mental gymnastics in my head I can think of to get to the conclusion this is bad for children, somehow. Bad for the web and privacy? I don't doubt it will become that way, but that's the world we already exist in, and again, no other large players are behaving well there either. That's an entirely different battle that should never have been mixed in with this one.
The platforms cannot stop someone from publishing information on a website outside of the platform.
Does an honest reading of what I said seem to imply I'm saying they are stopping it? No, they can't, but they can dominate and incentivize the market to make those websites outside of the platform irrelevant or basically invisible. This is a well known thing. These sites, facebook/IG in particular, also can link outside of their site, and do frequently, and have a heavy say in what types of sites get linked and how heavily those are weighted.
They might incentivize, but the problem is with the public. If the people don't want to do the effort of typing in a few letters in to a URL bar and reading, then I can't blame the businesses.
You don't get the benefits of a market without putting in the work of shopping around. If people don't want to do that, then it is what it is, but shopping around on the web is about as easy as it gets.