Item — HN Reader

The problem is we’re regulating individual behavior by adding to the surveillance apparatus. We should be regulating the companies and dismantling the surveillance that makes the apps addictive to kids.

It’s a way of socializing the losses, this time you lose civil liberties and they get to keep acting unrestricted

1 comments

Regulating the companies also socializes the costs of implementing age verification measures.

The correct solution that does not do this is to put liability on the parents.

So do you think we should remove all laws on selling cigarettes, alcohol and guns to children, make it the parents job?

Do you think we should mandate fridges should have locks if they can contain alcohol?

Liability? You want to make give parents fines for their children accessing Facebook at a young age?

No, I am just saying what policy will allow the legislators to achieve their goals.

So if your goal is for the state to decide what is good or bad for children, then yes, giving parents fines when their children access 18+ content will motivate those parents to parent their children. That will be an effective way to achieve your goal. Other policies have issues with externalities (ignoring the inherent externalities of creating liabilities ex nihilo, which will exist no matter what policy you choose).

If you believe that parents should get to decide what content their children, then like me, you would oppose any kind of legislation with this goal in mind.

> ...giving parents fines when their children access 18+ content will motivate those parents to parent their children.

And, like most such policies, will disproportionately impact the working poor.

All regulations, because they cause increased costs, will affect the poor the most, since an increased cost will cause the marginal consumer/producer to become submarginal. That is the choice that is made when regulation is enacted, whether the regulatora recognize this fact or not.

> No, I am just saying what policy will allow the legislators to achieve their goals.

I guess we made a mistake in not consulting the oracle of all legal matters. Very sorry, we will consult you on all future proposals.

All while these companies employ thousands of people whose only job it is to bypass parent's controls and find a way to get children hooked anyway? A mere slight imbalance, I would say ...