This feels exactly like people fighting against gun control while schools are shot up on the regular. Get over your individualism and sparkling ideals and realize that something has to be done. If your privacy and personal freedom are tied to Facebook and Twitter, maybe that’s a you problem.

Why does every country on earth need to do it? Will a massive majority of the population switch to VPNs just to watch some YouTube videos? Is that any different from kids trying to circumvent other age gated activities? Does YouTube even want that VPN traffic if it makes them less money? Why not just ban smart phones for kids?

What measures do you need to enforce it beyond what already exists? The only ones that matter are massive mega-platforms. If a platform isn’t complying just punish it.

The main question is how much of your life really needs to exist in a digital space? People paid bills, shopped, watched porn, played games and read news before the internet. Democracy falls when an entire generation of voters is raised on supporting Tate-endorsed fascism. This is not a non-issue. It’s happening no matter how much you tut-tut everyone’s parenting.

The solution is to give those laws teeth. Harsh regulations on platforms that serve unmoderated content open to everyone. Enforce transparency on content serving algorithms. Massive penalties for security breaches. Ban platforms that don’t comply.

If you’re worried about state actors having access to your clearnet data, that’s pretty much unavoidable in the internet age. You can lessen that by pushing against the digitization of society. You shouldn’t need a smart phone or internet service to live daily life.

Support brick-and-mortar stores, your local library, a local hobby group. Campaign against always-online car features, IoT e-waste, traffic surveillance laws, etc… Don’t make me choose between subjecting children to a stream of unregulated bullshit and the right to privacy. It’s a false dichotomy propped up by our need for digital convenience.

It’s not social medias fault. This is POOR PARENTING. Plain and simple.

Sounds like absolving social media to me.

The complexity of social media engineering and the scope of its impact is unprecedented. It’s not at all the same thing as video game or TV panic. When you account for how much real-life peer discussion is driven by these platforms, protecting your child from this toxic rhetoric is nearly impossible.

You used to have to show your ID to rent a movie in person, why is doing it online any different? If you (rightfully) are concerned about data collection and surveillance, push for legeslative protections on that topic. This is a completely separate issue with a very clear root cause.

If you believe there should be no accountability or oversight for the richest companies ever that have deep personal access to billions of people across the globe, you should wake to the realities of the 21st century.

So over a few years millions of parents decided to collectively take a hard pivot into bad parenting? Couldn’t possibly be an unprecedented media environment with algorithmic targeting?

Where does Soros get the money to pay all these protesters?? /s

Forget 1914. Try 1905. George Cove’s solar electric generator is remarkably similar to modern solar panels.

Step back everyone, we’ve got an Enlightened Centrist here!

Don’t call for violence, let’s just compromise to allow a little fascism! 🤏

Nobody here is calling for purging wrong-think. There are very obvious and visible threats to our society from an enclave of people tearing it apart. You’re making a strawman to conflate targeting them with targeting freedom of thought

That’s not totally true.

Republicans turned out at slightly higher numbers than Democrats relative to their representation in the U.S. population (8 points vs. 5 points).

And there’s a lot there suggesting a leftward lean from the independent portion (eg. disproportionately non-white, non-Christian and urban)

Edit: If anyone has a counter argument I’d love to hear it. Its just weird to dismiss the entire massive non-voting bloc in a country with a long history of right wing voter suppression and anemic left wing opposition.

Republicans put a ton of effort into voter restrictions, ostensibly to prevent mass voter fraud which study after study proves does not exist. Why do they go through the trouble?

Is that any worse though?

Fascista Leggera ⚖️ Full blown McFascism

Conspiring to make and keep people stupid is a conservative top 10 hit. For them the ideal populace is homogenous, fertile, docile, fearful and uneducated.

Anti-intellectual attacks have been the go-to for centuries, they’ve just gotten more modern and efficient. Look into groups like the heritage foundation, prager u, the heartland institute and (most importantly) the people bankrolling them.

Its a long legacy of chipping away at the foundations of democracy and critical thinking. Blaming technology and the free market is buying their propaganda. It’s the same lie they use to frame climate collapse as an unavoidable natural cycle.

Someone needs to make an inverse-xwitter platform. You’re only allowed to tweet if you prove you’ve been banned on X.

👆 Room temperature IQ take.

This is the opposite of a headless mob with no goals. This is an explicit show of support for these politicians and their platform. The goal is to elevate the message both generally and within the Democratic party.

If nobody shows up to support it then the top brass can ignore them. The large crowds force the issue, it’s a de facto primary on policy. Suppressing and ignoring the issue is a bad look. It only works if opposition doesn’t reach a critical mass to tip the scales.

The exact same thing happened when Trump hijacked the Republican party. Opposition Republicans were faced with getting on board or losing on a split ticket, and suddenly every primary at every level was a MAGA-off

The maga problem isn’t just Trump. This is the culmination of decades of work by christo-fascist conservatives. They’re not resting on their laurels and lining their pockets like a normal regressive administration. Every effort is being taken to solidify their power and deconstruct any threat that might rise up post-trump. Even if they did eat themselves there won’t be a government to rebuild.

We’re passing an inflection point in American politics. People want change and polls indicate they don’t care what side it comes from. The Democratic party has never polled lower. Being the milquetoast neoliberal corporate party is objectively the worst anchor to tie around your neck.

AOC and Bernie’s message isn’t wildly popular on accident. That energy needs to be captured and amplified, Democratic party or not. What’s the worst that happens from a split ticket? More people stay home?

Edit: you don’t even have to run against them to capture the Democratic party. Just have headliner progressives threaten it with a broad show of support and you force them to open up the primaries. Their policies have no support, they have no chips to call the bluff.

I’m sure, but a watch is 1000% more convenient if you don’t need any normal smart phone functionality (social media, games, internet access, media player, etc…). Its simpler to not have the option to use those features at all than to blacklist everything.

On top of that, it’s less likely to get lost or dropped/damaged like a flip phone. Probably has better battery life too. For small form-factor messaging + GPS its the most functional package.

Eh, I feel like every day there’s a new story of Tesla’s being torched. That’s a pretty directed and forceful form of protest that gets no credit.

Also, it’s not like America never has large scale protests. Hundreds of thousands of people fill the National Mall pretty regularly, skimming Wikipedia I counted 14+ since 1950 of over 200,000.

Just 5 years ago 15m-26m people participated in some especially roudy protests across all 50 states, but no credit for that either.

Large protests that get even slightly out of line in the USA usually end with:

• well armed, paramilitary police violently dispersing everyone
• the CIA assassinating protest leaders
• and/or the 6 media conglomerates suppressing coverage at the behest of the ~15 people that own them

If you’re criticizing Americans for anything, it should be for their response to that and not their ability to organize and orchestrate protests.

True, and I’d agree on the civil war point.

If you’re prepping for an invasion your best bet would be supporting wartime mobilizations instead of personal defense. Bootstrapping a total war economy is no joke.

Your government can probably handle the logistics of recruiting/arming/training people better than local defense cells. However, even if you’re not enlisted they’ll still need people to work the factories, drive the trucks, sell war bonds, etc…

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/01/111286/access-guns-increases-risk-suicide-homicide

https://time.com/6183881/gun-ownership-risks-at-home/

It makes sense, more proximity to a weapon is more potentially deadly encounters. An intruder very rarely enters your house, but you pass the gun safe in your closet every day.

You just described what the minimum wage was supposed to be, and plenty of red blooded American patriots already hate that.