Banning kids from social media won’t work, as they “will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media,” Estonian Education Minister Kristina Kallas said.
Banning kids from social media won’t work, as they “will find very quickly the ways to go around and to still use social media,” Estonian Education Minister Kristina Kallas said.
True, but we needn’t hand them even more control in a time where freedom of expression is already under siege. Persecution for things you said is one concern. Lowering the hurdles for things like being “banned” from participating in discourse, automated charges for viewing illicit content (particularly dangerous in case of identity theft) or doxxing by malicious actors are far more volatile.
The primary strategic objectives of a state, regardless of government structure*, are those crucial for its survival: to defend its sovereignty against other states and to maintain coherence within. An organised military and some enforcement of the state monopoly on violence to prevent people from robbing, ruining, killing each other, are the most effective ways to achieve that. Healthcare likewise is an important pillar of stability and survival.
The problem with individual tracking is that it gets into that difficult conflict between infringement of liberties and security objectives. I’m not convinced that the gain in security is worth exacerbating the problem with privacy we already have.
I was always of opinion that if you were going to be surveilled or controlled online by government that’d happen regardless of whether you have a government ID or if your account is ID verified. We gave up privacy and freedom of who we contact the moment our communications moved to government sanctioned internet and telephony providers.
My point is that internet is critical infrastructure and ability to exchange ideas on the internet is under siege from state and corporate actor funded troll farms which are now also force multiplied by LLMs. We formed states/governments so that we can act collectively in common interest, including everything from regulating market interactions to societal norms - they are the appropriate tool here since they’re selected mostly democratically.
I don’t want to be so free that I’m only free to be exploited by bullies exercising their freedoms.