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by dmitrygr·5d ago·view on hn ↗

  > parents genuinely do worry a lot about their kids
As they should. Perhaps they can put their efforts into parenting and not into limiting our freedoms?
2 comments
When irresponsible parents raise irresponsible children, the effects will not be limited to themselves. I don't want to go back to open smoking, causing increased rates of cancer to everyone just because some people want their freedom to smoke. Preventing tobacco sales to children greatly reduced that.
This is coming up again and again because The current status quo does. Not. Work.

There is direct evidence from trials, in which Meta researchers told executives that features like infinite scroll and others “ are inherently at odds with well-being”

There is no effective fight for freedom if there is no effective understanding of the politics and social forces driving change.

The freedom of the internet in the 90s was in itself a social revolution, not just a technological one.

Fighting for a status quo that didn’t work for children and even for many adults is a losing fight.

Fighting for privacy and against ad tech, and against addictive design features for all users is a far stronger fight.

Those who sacrifice freedom for a functioning society deserve neither. We should just keep doing the thing that doesn't work, because the alternative is sacrificing freedom.
Those who defend freedom should do so by being effective at it.

The internet was a magical thing when it was introduced to society at large. However this is NOT the same era.

If we are fighting for privacy and freedom, then why the heck is ad tech still allowed to be accepted as part of this conversation? If we are talking about freedoms, this is one of the greatest moments to say lets not sacrifice any privacy at all in the first place?

There is no functional and effective defense of our values if people are showing up to argue what they feel like fighting, instead of where the challenges actually are.

> If we are fighting for privacy and freedom, then why the heck is ad tech still allowed to be accepted as part of this conversation?

Completely agree. Adtech, most of big tech in general, is harmful, and is pushing these panopticon solutions to preserve their own existence and profits. We should treat the root cause.

I agree. We should make a browser that blocks all ads, and a phone that comes with this browser and also doesn't track you, and all that. It should also ask you if you want the account to be parentally controlled, and if so, to what age.
I’d argue on the idea that parental levels are self set - since that defeats the features goals.

Other than that I would agree.

> We should just keep doing the thing that doesn't work

That's not what he said.

He said:

> Meta researchers told executives that features like infinite scroll and others “ are inherently at odds with well-being"

> Fighting for a status quo that didn’t work for children and even for many adults is a losing fight.

By "status quo" he means the exploitative and addictive business models of big tech.

Why are we bending over backwards to preserve big tech profits?

That's what all of this is. It's big tech lobbying for draconian laws that "solve" the problem in a way that simultaneously preserves their business models. It's big tech saying "sure it's harmful and addictive but look it's adult only now!"

Which is of course total bullshit. Their "get people addicted" business models are the root cause, and "kids are harmed" is merely a symptom of the problem.

Treat the root cause by wiping out their harmful business models.

Incidentally, that was the conclusion:

> Fighting for privacy and against ad tech, and against addictive design features for all users is a far stronger fight.