New York Set to Restrict Social-Media Algorithms for Teens (cnbc.com) 63
Lawmakers in New York have reached a tentative agreement to "prohibit social-media companies from using algorithms to steer content to children without parental consent (source paywalled; alternative source)," according to the Wall Street Journal. "The legislation is aimed at preventing social-media companies from serving automated feeds to minors. The bill, which is still being completed but expected to be voted on this week, also would prohibit platforms from sending minors notifications during overnight hours without parental consent."
Meanwhile, the results of New York's first mental health report were released today, finding that depression and anxiety are rampant among NYC's teenagers, "with nearly half of them experiencing symptoms from one of both in recent years," reports NBC New York. "In a recent survey conducted last year, 48% of teenagers reported feeling depressive symptoms ranging from mild to severe. The vast majority, however, reported feeling high levels of resilience. Frequent coping mechanisms include listening to music and using social media."
Meanwhile, the results of New York's first mental health report were released today, finding that depression and anxiety are rampant among NYC's teenagers, "with nearly half of them experiencing symptoms from one of both in recent years," reports NBC New York. "In a recent survey conducted last year, 48% of teenagers reported feeling depressive symptoms ranging from mild to severe. The vast majority, however, reported feeling high levels of resilience. Frequent coping mechanisms include listening to music and using social media."
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When the blue areas censor stuff it's because people are getting hurt. When the red areas censor stuff it's because they can't stand the existence of beliefs that aren't the same as theirs... rightly fearing that they'll lose people from their group as they're exposed to something other than constant fear, hatred, and barely-concealed greed.
I mean, look at you! You don't even have enough conviction in your beliefs to post under your account name, you hide behind the 'AC' system. Why should anyone listen
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Post that question without using AC mode.
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When the blue areas censor stuff it's because people are getting hurt. When the red areas censor stuff it's because they can't stand the existence of beliefs that aren't the same as theirs
Thought this was a nice satirical quip until they next sentence suggesting... you are apparently serious?
It's understandable and expected that people who come down hard on the left or the right are motivated with harsh criticism of the opposing policies and beliefs motivating them. It may even be true that the goodness of intentions is not distributed equal between them. But it's only with your mind and emotions inducted into an insular cult that you can say with plain earnestness that the world is divided
Re:Make up your mind New York! (Score:4, Interesting)
Or, well, the Democrats are. The Republicans haven't adopted a platform since 2016.
Of course, the parent was replying to someone who was talking about New York. Which is an area. So... I don't know what you really expect the parent to do in that situation. Perhaps to resist the temptation to stereotype in the same way that the grandparent did? Except you opted to reply to the parent's stereotyping instead of to the original grandparent's stereotyping for some reason that I don't understand.
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This is a reasonable point. The parent said "blue areas" and "red areas," which is painting with too broad a brush. Likewise when people complain about "the left" or "the right," or "progressives" vs. "conservatives." There's way more intersection between these notions than is acknowledged by such blunt terminology.
Fair enough. In fact, detailed polls show that most Americans are in between, neither as far left as the stereotype "liberals," nor as far right as the stereotype of "conservatives".
The things that we should really focus on, at least when it comes to American politics, are Democrats and Republicans. These are groups with distinct, unambiguous, well-defined ideologies.
They are well defined in some ways, but the members of the parties are not actually homogeneous in beliefs.
Re: Make up your mind New York! (Score:2)
But it's only with your mind and emotions inducted into an insular cult that you can say with plain earnestness that the world is divided into the good half and the evil half
New York and Texas for example, are "blue" and "red" areas, and they have concrete policy objectives set by the respective politicians in charge of them and vastly different laws currently in effect that fit the context we're talking about, censorship.
Nobody said evil until you brought it up, but Florida is a real place, Texas is real. Do you even follow state level politics, Frodo?
Texas banned porn for Christ's sake. That IS evil!
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When the blue areas censor stuff it's because people are getting hurt. When the red areas censor stuff it's because they can't stand the existence of beliefs that aren't the same as theirs...
Wow, thank you ... I dropped in to point out your lot's hypocrisy on this topic, but I see that you already took care of that! :D
"When we do X, it's for good reasons." Well, okay then, lol!
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When the blue areas censor stuff it's because people are getting hurt. When the red areas censor stuff it's because they can't stand the existence of beliefs that aren't the same as theirs.
Nice troll. University campuses are flooded with people who try to stop [theguardian.com] people from simply speaking if they don't agree with their views. One UK university cancelled a talk by an Iranian woman who is a global women's rights activist because the LGTBQ group got together with the Iranian student's association to protest
Well... (Score:3)
Now if I ever use non-Slashdot social media I'm going to pretend I'm in my teens instead of past 50.
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Now if I ever use non-Slashdot social media I'm going to pretend I'm in my teens instead of past 50.
You don't want that quote to be taken out of context!
Change the subject line (Score:1)
Texas Set to Restrict Social-Media Algorithms for Teens
Slashdot would be saying how amazing this piece of legislation is
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No, they wouldn't. They'd be explaining to you why it's basically impossible to enforce in any meaningful way.
Ban tracking altogether (Score:3)
That solves everyone's problems at once.
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How about banning the stuff that makes social media harmful, like algorithms designed to increase interaction rather than benefit the user?
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And then we can ban computers entirely, and maybe go back to the good old days of living in trees. Brilliant!
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"Nobody under the age of 18 needs to use social media"
In theory this is correct, but if a child's circle of friends communicate a lot on Instagram or other social media site then the child will miss out on a lot of social interaction.
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In contrast, if smartphones for teens are banned, they'll all have to communicate through regular mobile phones instead. In the slightly longer term, we may end up with fewer voters who believe in quack therapies, the lunar missions didn't happen, & that populist politicians will solve their p
Depression in NYC (Score:1)
Pretty much if you live in NY or NJ you're subject to depression.
Go blame social media for that one.
Re:Depression in NYC (Score:4, Interesting)
The suicide rate is nearly twice as great in the most rural areas of the U.S. compared to the most urban areas (18.9 per 100,000 people in rural areas vs. 13.2 per 100,000 people in urban areas). This difference in suicide rates between rural and urban areas has widened from 1999 to 2019, increasing 50% in rural areas compared to 31% in urban areas. In some states, the suicide rate in rural areas continues to rise whereas in urban areas it has remained stable [ruralhealthinfo.org]
Now if we are just tracking depression as in the mental illness, it's about a wash.
Are mental disorders more common in urban than rural areas of the United States? [nih.gov]
Now is social media contributing to problems across the board? Absolutely. Social media scrutiny should be a united issue, it affects everyone but ironically social media is being usd to divide us along these very lines.
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Suicide rates are much higher among the elderly, and rural people tend to be older.
Suicides are also correlated with gun ownership, which is higher in rural areas.
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True but if we were looking to focus maximum effort on how to reduce suicide we would just start with men which is the biggest outlier at 68%, same with crime.
I guess i shoulda made my point clear that just to me the rural/urban divide which we seem to be living in is to me a bigger product from media and social media than it is on actual value systems, it just seems like the most artificial thing we could argue about since all the problems are intertwined with eachother.
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Cultural issues are just that so I personally don't see too much benefit in going over them, that's just a thing over time.
Economically though I agree with all that but for men, especially in the boomer and gen-X generations while I do want to help them they make it pretty difficult as men in the 30-60 age range for the last 40 years have been the electoral bedrock of the Republican party (the polls today show Trump's highest support base is men 45-65, even stronger than old folks) so there is a bit of scha
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Biden has been the biggest supporter of the NLRB we've had probably since maybe Jimmy Carter or earlier. When we've had 30 years of unions being gutted it's going to take some time to bring that back. Of course in 5-ish months all that work could be (in my opinion) quickly rolled back but that is democracy, it's up to us.
While both parties have done their damage that does not make them equivelant, especially when looking at the party positions today.
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Well if you look at history and decide "both these groups are just the same" that tells me you're just skimming at best.
Talk of "the nation is burned down" is just populism and at least for me populism is where political progress goes to die.
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Good thing the only person who used the word "fault" is you.
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Yeah that's up to the reader though becuase I wouldn't use such a normatively loaded word like fault because I can steelman where those people are coming from and why they made the decisions they did.
You talked about history in your other post, the history of why people vote the way they did and do today is far more complicated a concept as reductive as "fault".
Just like boiling everything down to "The Powers That Be" is just simplistic enough to be useless.
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Yup it is one big game of stop hitting yourself so OP should probably avoid punching first, uncalled for, on everyone in a like 30m+ metro area (where I grew up and my family lives), especially when their fact (which I am sure came from social media) isnt even true.
If they had made their point with the level of insight you had I would t have said anything, hell id probably agree.
Sorry but if urban folks have been getting unfounded cheap shots taken at them for decades sometimes they need to shoot back, only
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Pretty much if you live in NY or NJ you're subject to depression.
According to TFA, only 48% are depressed, but the "vast majority" (presumably the other 52%) are not.
Congratulations President Trump! (Score:1)
For being the first person convicted in a New York court this year!
Great (Score:2)
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To be honest (Score:3)
IMO, the two worst inventions of modern times are Social Media and Smartphones.
Both have addiction levels right off the charts and the negative impact they can have are too numerous to ignore.
Society is more divided than ever and Social Media definitely plays a leading role in keeping those fires stoked.
( by design ? )
Lots of bias.
Lots of hatred.
Lots of lies.
Too many bots stirring up shit.
Algorithms designed to keep you scrolling forever.
Data mined by everyone and their brother. ( including AI now apparently )
Monitored by the Government(s).
Used by the Government(s) for manipulation of public opinion and propaganda purposes.
For every story / image / meme that's useful or funny, there are a dozen more that are toxic as hell.
Just let the damn things burn.
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Giant Meteor 2024: Just Get It Over With
Re: To be honest (Score:2)
Smartphones are not the problem. The software running on them - is. The device is just a tool, and a handy one. How you use it is up to you.
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Oh good (Score:2)
Why just teenagers? (Score:3)
I'd argue that if an algorithm is exploitative or otherwise destructive, then it should be restricted/banned for everyone.
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Because then they would have to be a whole lot more specific about what kind of algorithm they were banning.
Show posts based on day/time they were submitted? Algorithm. Show posts based on whether the user had looked at them previously? Algorithm.
They're absolute clowns, these legislators.
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I'd argue that if an algorithm is exploitative or otherwise destructive, then it should be restricted/banned for everyone.
I'd argue that adults are (should be) more capable of recognizing the destructive nature of social media and therefore more able to make an informed choice about how they use it. Same argument as tobacco. It harms adolescents and adults alike, but society has decided that at a certain age (usually 18 years) a person becomes mature enough to make the decision for themselves, if they decide to harm themselves with tobacco then we allow that (but also in civilised nations impose a tax on tobacco products tha
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