How Weak Evidence Is Fueling a National Push to Ban Social Media for Youth

If the evidence were undeniable would that be cause to ban social media for the youth?

We cannot simply ban things if they are bad, however weak or strong the evidence is. We have to examine access on the basis of rights alone. If the right exists then it could kill all kids and it would still be the correct decision to allow it.

I don’t need 1000 studies from Harvard or MIT to confirm what I can see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears. Part of the reason we are in this mess at all is an over reliance on statistical modeling and peer reviewed literature etc and so on when if you are of a certain age you can literally just notice how things are different. I would vote to ban it, and a bunch of people with fancy regression analyses are not going to change my mind.

With subjects like this, the outcome variables are things like “suicide” and “eating disorders”. So, what, we have to wait until R² > .95 to be convinced of the utility regulation? Seems the least-harm approach is actually to index on the side of regulation first instead of pretending the null is true in this case.

The children cause is obviously a justification to push for digital ID, digital ID will be the ultimate tool to use to further domesticate the public and control them. It was pushed during covid lockdowns and when that didn’t work, other justifications are waiting, sometimes children, sometimes illegal immigrants, depending on your audience.

But the children one is very effective, because there’s this overprotective hysteria about them, especially when most aren’t technically children (a 16yo isn’t a child for example), and this is very new concept that had serious impact on both the young ones or their parents, back in the day kids used to play outside, used to live their lives and learn, now in the Karen-led society kids can’t be even left alone in the house, or having your 3 kids using the public transportation to go to school (https://globalnews.ca/news/7145065/vancouver-dad-appeal-kids...), it destroyed kids independence or learning how to be one, while adding extra overhead on parents that eventually they stopped having kids entirely.

The full title is:

> The Science is Not Settled: How Weak Evidence is Fueling a National Push to Ban Social Media for Youth