this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
159 points (97.6% liked)
Decline into censorship
1253 readers
342 users here now
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I hate how dumb this argument is, everyone likes seeing Meta get fined a massive amount, myself included, but this stupid abstinence culture style approach to social media for younger people is really really nauseating.
We have been through this so many times with so many moral panics and I just want to actually hold these people accountable and have an actual conversation about why kids are miserable which is that... well look up.
It's not abstinence culture though?
If the only offence was providing social media things wouldn't have gotten this far. There's plenty of evidence Meta has intentionally optimized their system to damage mental health to increase profit.
And enabled chatbots to have sexual conversations with children... https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines/
And used photos of children from parent's accounts to created targeted advertisement to adult men implying those children would be available to chat with them... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/20/parents-outraged-meta-uses-photos-schoolgirls-ads-man
I mean the fact that Zuckerberg is only now taking notice of a consequence for his actions says a lot. It feels like a bad faith argument to imply the courts are somehow in the wrong/taking things too far.
Right I mean that they should be punished for doing those things, not for the basic act of providing social media to youth, which I am afraid this will continue to morph into as a moral panic as it is elsewhere in the world like Australia and the UK for example.
That's a separate concern. I will point out it's the same way we treat alcohol, and that direct messaging with friends apps aren't banned.