Canada was not available to be blamed.
It’s down to parenting, or lack thereof. No politician can say “parents of America, quit giving your children unrestricted internet access and being surprised when they see horrible shit” and keep their job.
Kids don’t need smartphones.
Sites can be blacklisted on home and school routers.
Strict parents can be blamed by kids if they catch flak from their peers for not being on social media.
It ain’t rocket surgery, but you need to be willing to spend time with your kids instead of slapping a phone in front of them to keep them quiet.
I’ve got a kid that’s magnetically attracted to any screen. I get the temptation but I don’t need a study to tell me that unrestricted internet access is fucking horrible for kids.
31337@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Meta could’ve done a lot of things to prevent this. Internal documents show Zuckerberg repeatedly rejected suggestions to improve child safety. Meta lobbies congress to prevent any regulation. Meta controls the algorithms and knows they promote bad behavior such as dog piling, but this bad behavior increases “engagement” and revenue, so they refuse to change it. (Meta briefly changed its algorithms for a few months during the 2020 election to decrease the promotion of disinformation and hate speech, because they were under more scrutiny, but then changed it back after the election).