Social media is not that dissimilar to sex and drugs.<p>At some point we just have to acknowledge that young teenagers are going to use it no matter what. So maybe we should focus more on education and harm prevention as opposed to trying to ban it.<p>Unless of course we ask adults to provide their credit card or driver's license to sign up. Which I suspect they won't.
Skimming the story...it sounds like the AG's "single largest market" claim is pure fluff. Sure, he's got plenty of evidence that Meta's crawling with pedophiles (and doesn't much care). But there's no mention of data on (pedophile activity on) other platforms.<p>(The NCMEC is mentioned, and they probably have a decent feel for whether the headline's claim is true...but they might be reluctant to talk on this subject.)
I don't expect logic to follow "think of the children", but what's the argument for a marketplace? So criminals can send pornography to each other b/c it's a communication platform. But how do they use facebook to exchange money for pornography? As far as I know you can't buy digital media on Facebook?<p>If people are just using it as a medium to communicate and then doing deals offline or through other channels then it's about as absurd as holding the phone companies accountable for all deals arranged by phone
A bit surprised over this with mighty suspicious Telegram bot spam that I've come across, and the recent trends in Telegram based revenge porn that often finds its way to underage subjects. I haven't dug deep but Telegram looks like the worst cesspool that I know of that is operating "in the open" (rather than Darknet).<p>But maybe he is talking of contacts and communication that might lead to distribution by other channels? The initial contacts happen on the popular (e.g. Meta) platforms via DM's, and then it's distributed in these stashes on Telegram and whatnot for cash as they groom people?<p>Might be two different sides of this coin so to speak
Does this come in the context of this Senate hearing [0] ?<p>According to Guardian (UK)<p><pre><code> """ tech executives faced four hours of intensive questioning from
Congress members """
</code></pre>
Four hours doesn't seem like much. My students can sleep through a 4
hour lecture!<p><pre><code> """ Parents of children who died by suicide after experiencing online
harms packed the Senate for the hearing on Wednesday. Senator
Lindsey Graham said the event drew "the largest [audience] I've seen
in this room". """
</code></pre>
If so, this headline is a distraction from the issues at
hand. Paedophilia is not what is primarily being discussed here. It's
more generally that children are harmed by social media. And as far as
I am concerned that is a solid fact.<p><pre><code> """ In his first remarks, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cast doubt on the
relationship between social media use and a decline in mental
health. "The existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal
link between using social media and young people having worse mental
health," he said. """
</code></pre>
Zuck is an outright liar. There are now mountains of exceptionally
good research showing a solid <i>causal</i> link between social media use
and negative mental health impacts on young people (no, I will not
google that for you, please do your own homework).<p><pre><code> """ Twitter, became the first tech firm to publicly endorse the Stop
CSAM Act """
</code></pre>
Of course, because CSAM, while abhorrent, is the perfect distraction
from the problem that your entire platform is socially corrosive.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/live/2024/jan/31/congress-social-media-hearing-tiktok-meta-twitter-child-safety-latest-updates" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/technology/live/2024/jan/31/cong...</a>
No doubt Meta has issues here, like all social platforms.<p>But Meta at least has some level of verification and active moderation. You can't generally get away with posting explicit porn for any amount of time.<p>Try signing up to Meta with a disposable email address or without a phone number. Sure these things can be side stepped, but for the average person it's a hurdle, and ultimately many petty criminals will be identifying themselves if it came to that.<p>On the other hand Xitter is so DESPERATE for you to sign up they don't care about dodgy emails or even insist on phone numbers any more.<p>And, let me tell you, Xitter makes ZERO effort to even LOOK at porn, so hard core porn is THRIVING on there, including stuff that leans heavily on youth taboos. I don't click or search for illegal stuff, but I've certainly scrolled past some dodgy posts.<p>It's ridiculous how Xitter is getting away with this while Musk is fully and openly demonising Zuck. Sure Zuck has a history of being an arse, but this new wave of tech bro reality bubble is just... a whole new level of insane.
Putting aside the obvious thing that anyone hurting children in a sexual way, weather direct or indirect by financially supporting it should be appropriately punished.<p>What has me wondering in the article is that they speak about the platform Meta.<p>But Meta is like Alphabet a parent company which owned multiple platforms, something I think most people are aware of to some degree (like Facebook+Messenger are one platform, Instagram is another, probably Threads is it's own platform, too).<p>Now for some contexts it's reasonable to treat them as one (most legal regulatory ones), but in others (e.g. blame framing) it can be misleading.<p>Meta owns one of the biggest social networks (Facebook is still the biggest when it comes to certain categories, like older people, connecting Family, self help and hobby groups outside of the tech sector etc.) one of the biggest "picture" platforms and two(!) of the largest messengers.<p>So absolute numbers can be very misleading, like they THEORETICALLY could be the safest platforms for children doing the most against pedophile but still have the largest absolute number simply by shear total user count. Similar not clarifying what 'market for pedophiles' means is an issue like does it mean Meta seriously messed up and someone should go for prison for it, or does it mean people providing pedophilia services elsewhere use it so that customer can find them by providing fully legal content but sneaking in some "subtle but telling hints" about what kind of people they are (e.g. something equivalent to large black leather boots with red laces hinting that you are a neo-nazi in Germany, but sometimes it's just a unlucky coincidence and the person is not).<p>Similar misleading can be the use of absolute numbers, Meta owns one of the biggest social networks (Facebook is still the biggest when it comes to certain categories, like older people, connecting Family, self help and hobby groups outside of the tech sector etc.) one of the biggest "picture" platforms and two(!) of the largest messengers (which tend to exist at the border line between social platforms and "just" modern sms).<p>The main question is, is that case done to actually help protecting children or is it another iteration of abusing the suffering of children to push for more legal espionage or other questionable goals with no intend at all to do anything which effectively would help children?<p>It pains me that we even have to question that.<p>But too many lobbyist have abused the suffering of children to try to push through bad things, sometimes things which even would have made it worse for the same children they claim they want to protect.<p>Anyway while there are many gaps in the article it seems that it might be a well intended which would be nice but then it's done by a AG which is meant to act profit orientated which huge that looks sus flag.<p>Let's just hope that whatever happens the situation does actually get better for children.<p>But then there are so many many things which can be done in the US to reduce child abuse which are systematically ignored by so many of the people claiming to work to protect children it's really sad. But then in part of the US grooming and child marriages is still a think even thought it's basically legalized pedophilia, like it's just absurd.
The largest communication platform will inadvertently be the largest for nefarious activities.<p>Parents should work on keeping their kids away from social media, what’s the point of a kid having a Facebook or Instagram anyway?