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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • I don’t think it’s especially likely that you’ll find consistently interesting, well-reasoned discussion through any platform bringing together anonymous strangers in an ephemeral manner.

    I think consistently interesting discussion has shared stakeholding as a foundational aspect - participants need to actually care, either because the discussion is a product of some commitment they’ve each made (e.g. reading something for a book club), or because the participants are familiar with each other and the outcome tangibly matters (e.g. a physical town hall meeting).

    Otherwise, I think you’re more likely to get what you’re looking for from adopting some tangential hobby and having those discussions with the friends you get through that.


  • Good.

    I’m far from a social media fanatic, but make no mistake that the primary purpose of legislation like this is to increase the degree of control that parents can exert over their children - not to improve the wellbeing of young people.

    For teenagers from marginalised groups living in oppressive households: social media can become an outlet for self-expression amongst trusted peers which might otherwise put them at risk of retaliation from abusive parents, or a venue for them to discover like-minded people and organisations who might be able to help them cope or increase their available options by offering sanctuary should they ever need it.

    It also can’t be overstated that social media is one of the main venues for political expression nowadays, particularly beyond the orthodoxy. There remain issues with misinformation and the far-right, but nonetheless the breadth of opinions can help people to develop a degree of political consciousness which they might not otherwise. Consider how infrequently sympathetic portrayals of protests, strikes, and unionisation drives make the mainstream media in comparison to social media.

    It’s unsurprising that the politicians most aggressively pursuing legislation like this are also the ones who are trying to prevent, for example, queer people and especially queer youth from being able to express themselves without fear of reprisal - and who are actively trying to prevent access to information and depictions which might contradict their political ideology through mechanisms like internet censorship and book bannings.