Government Regulation of Social Media to Protect Children?
Saw this tweet today: (whoops, tweet deleted!)
Which led me to this article at Virtual Worlds News. It seems that politicians in the UK are worried about the virtual age-play that occurs in Second Life:
In particular for virtual worlds, the report references Age Play in Second Life, where sexual abuse of children is simulated, though noting that “no-one in particular is a target.”
Now, I don’t want to discuss the ethics of age-play or online sexuality. What I want to address is the idea that we somehow are capable of protecting children from reality, even virtual reality. It seems we have a deep belief, especially in western democracies, that children are to be sectioned off, away from all of the things about life that make us uncomfortable. Historically these things have been sex and death.
So every time the realities of life come into contact with children, we act like this is somehow abusive. We say that we must “protect the children”.
Now, here is the question:
We never stop being emotionally sensitive creatures. Our psyches are no less sensitive when we are adults than when we are children. We are still just as capable of getting screwed up by exposure to certain influences. So why do we only protect the psyches of children? It has been proven again and again that almost every aspect of what we consider “normal” life, from careers to living in urban centers, is “bad” for us, not just physically but mentally and emotionally. We allow these things for ourselves and yet try to protect our children.
But we do more than allow them, we act as though they are inevitable and that any attempt to avoid them is simply irresponsible, and thus immoral in itself. We tell our children that certain things are wrong and hurtful and corrupting, and then the minute they are “old enough” (which seems to shift with each generation) we drop the whole world on them, death, sex, taxes and all.
Why do we protect them but not ourselves? Are we really protecting them when we end up giving them baggage about these issues? Is it better to simply leave cyberspace unregulated, allowing children to understand that sex and death exist and that some ways of interacting with them have a tendency to hurt us? Or should we focus the effort instead on ourselves because, after all, if it’s “harmful”, then it’s harmful for all of us?
What about all the other harms we take for granted, that we allow to happen to ourselves in both the physical and virtual worlds? I don’t mean smoking or eating bad food. I mean the world which we all acknowledge is full of ongoing pain that we simply take for granted. In theory, we could live however we wish. Why do we choose to live in such a way that so many of us are in pain, and why do we instead choose to protect ourselves from things like sexuality (which is mostly pretty fun) and death (which is annoying, but we are working on)?
It seems to me that we spend an awful lot of effort trying to avoid things that make us uncomfortable while ignoring the things that actually cause us real suffering. So many aspects of what we consider “normal” have been show to be harmful, so why do we obsess on the things like sexuality while ignoring those?
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David Bridger 2:21 pm on August 2, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I don’t know who said first that the value and goodness of a society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable and dependent members, but I believe it is true.
Children are vulnerable to many kinds of harm, and they dependent upon others to protect them. We can choose, individually and collectively, to protect them. Or we can choose to let them fend for themselves. I’m with those who choose to protect them.
Members of other sections of society are also vulnerable to various forms of harm, and they too need and deserve protection from those things. But in this post you talk about children, so I’ll confine my remarks to them.
When discussing a section of society, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the group is made up of individuals. And, sometimes, individuals get horribly hurt. When we get close to such an event it gets more difficult to dismiss a potential danger with a generalising wave of our hand.
I defy anyone to listen to an interview with a child who has been harmed, sexually or otherwise, and then to wax philosophical about whether or not we are capable of protecting children from reality.
David Bridgers last blog post..How did you start blogging?
thePuck 5:33 pm on August 2, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
@David
I do not contend that we should not protect children from harmful things. What I am questioning is why we accept so many things that we know are harmful (that are not necessary) as normal after we are adults. If it is only harmful in certain contexts, then we cannot legislate because legislation refuses the notion of context for the sake of universality of the law.
Essentially my argument is thus:
p1. It is a moral duty to protect and defend people from harm.
p2. Children are people.
p3. Adults are people.
p4. We know certain things are psychically (as in pertaining to the psyche) harmful to children thanks to observation and research.
p5. We know the same thing about adults.
p6. Many things considered “normal” by adult standards, such as the way we live, think, act, and believe are known to be psychically harmful.
Thus:
c1. It is our moral duty to protect both children and adults from what is known to be psychically harmful.
c2. If there are activities deemed “normal” that are psychically harmful to adults or children, then they must be examined and reassessed.
Igor The Troll 8:19 pm on August 2, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I believe instead of sheltering our children from experiences that we feel are evil for them, why not help them grow and understand these experiences.
If you have a teenage daughter and you tel her do not go out with boys, she will go out anyway! Then at 15 while you could not watch her every move, you find out she is pregnant!
It is better to teach your children about sexuality and have them be responsible than to just say I told them not to do it!
If you going to have children raise them, not just set rules on them!
Rules are meant to be broken! You are not NYPD!
Igor The Trolls last blog post..The Jewish People
David 3:03 am on August 3, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
@thePuck
It’s difficult, isn’t it? I don’t suppose anyone ever said it would be easy.
Several forces pull me in opposite directions on this one:
1. my personal liberalism and resistance against attempts by any authority to curtail my freedom or the freedom of other people;
2. my love for the global community that is blossoming, mostly free from constraint, before our eyes; and
3. my instinctive drive to protect vulnerable people from harm, and my support of others who have that same protective drive.
The most confusing pull occurs when a body that wants to curtail unharmful freedoms is the same body that wants to protect vulnerable people from harm. I find it necessary to withhold full support for any such body, to avoid the possibility of them making claim to my support on issues when they certainly don’t have it. In fact, I think the only way I can hope to deal with such issues is by taking each one individually and as it comes.
@Igor
If your NYPD point is aimed at me, you’re preaching to the choir. I share my home with three daughters who are now in their twenties and, having lived with them through their teenage years and come out the other end a happy family, I can vouch for the fact that iron rules are useless because they are easily broken. After love, I believe the best parenting qualities someone can possess are: flexibility; and the ability to recognise and acknowledge each child’s distinct personality.
However, before those exciting and demanding teenage years, come the equally demanding and far more scary childhood years. There is harm out there, and children deserve to be protected from it.
Davids last blog post..How did you start blogging?
Igor The Troll 10:00 pm on August 3, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
David I do not aim my comments at anyone, and I do not preach! I state my opinion and to each its own!
Igor The Trolls last blog post..The Jewish People
Ed Healy 4:19 am on August 4, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I could not agree with you more, when you say “if it’s ‘harmful’, then it’s harmful for all of us.” However, you state a couple things I’d like to comment on:
(1) “It seems we have a deep belief, especially in western democracies, that children are to be sectioned off, away from all of the things about life that make us uncomfortable.”
Yes. Absolutely. I have two little girls. I want them to be innocent and ignorant of pain and ‘bad stuff’ for as long as possible. Once you lose your innocence, you can never get it back. I’m in no rush to put my kids into the ‘real world’. I say… let them be ignorant. Let them be kids.
(2) “Our psyches are no less sensitive when we are adults than when we are children.”
Untrue. Adults get calloused and jaded. We can endure certain things that children can not. This is why children need protection. Yes, adults can get screwed up. Yes, we should watch what we do as a society, as a whole. There is a reason we protect children, though…
RE social media and regulation? I’m against it. Make strict laws involving the loss of life or limb (yes, that limb) for taking advantage of children, regardless of the platform for that crime, and leave it at that.
If someone wants to pretend they are dating a 7-year-old on their own time, let them. The second they approach a 7-year-old? Lock ‘em up. Touch one? Snip snip. Hurt one? Kill ‘em.
My opinion.
thePuck 6:39 am on August 4, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
@Ed
I’m afraid that I have to disagree. I understand your emotionally driven argument and the intuitive appeal of it, but that is a dangerous way to do philosophy, and is generally considered fallacious.
1. Children and adults are equally vulnerable to psychic harm, but different harms and in different ways. While an adult is unlikely to develop a phobia of clowns from a bad trip to the circus, the child is also unlikely to grasp the depth of existential angst or the death of a life-long mate. The jadedness you consider a virtue is the symptom of the harm we as adults are subjected to. We should not be jaded to horror, nor inured to harm. While I understand and commend your desire to keep your children safe, the meaning of “safety” is precisely what is up for debate. To fall back upon it is to beg the question.
2. Structure so long as it is not oppressive is nothing to fear. It is structure that gives rise to possibilities for action. Certain structures simply give rise to better possibilities or worse ones. For example, free markets over feudal structures. Under a feudal structure, all resources are governed by a lord but the whole population uses those resources, thus if there is scarcity the whole population starves. Under a free market, the possibility for scarcity is moved to the individual, so individuals may starve but never whole populations. An imperfect solution, but definitely an improvement. I am suggesting a concerted effort in the same way, making there simply be more positive possibilities for actions for everyone instead of negative ones, rather than the other way around, which is what we seem to have now.
Ed Healy 6:55 am on August 4, 2008 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Don’t get me wrong, Puck… I don’t think an adult’s jadedness is a virtue. In fact, I believe it is a defense we put up to protect ourselves from the bad things that life throws at us. Do I like it? Not really. Do I wish we didn’t need it? Yes. Do I think there is any way – in the near term – that we’ll live in a world where people don’t need such defenses? Alas… no, I don’t.
As much as I wish there was a way for us to have a world where people didn’t need to wall their souls off from bad things, I don’t think we’ll get there any time soon. I’m all for trying, though.
But, in the meantime… In the meantime, I will continue to protect my children from losing innocence for as long as possible. Will I lie to them? No. Will I shelter them? Yes. I will do this so that, when the day comes that they experience the evils of this world we live in, they have something to look to for hope. When they see bad things happen, they will hopefully remember the good things about their lives and find the strength to come through those events ‘less harmed’ than if they had nothing positive to lean on.
Rain 4:47 pm on June 24, 2009 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Ed –
What good is hope if it was derived from what was essentially a dream world. I feel nostalgia every time I look back at my childhood and remember the lack of responsibilities. It was a wonderful time in my life, however it was a false construction. It wasn’t “real life” (and I believe there’s an important reason we use this term. If, at some point in early adulthood, we make it into “real life,” what does that say about the way we lived up until that point, and what sort of effect does that upbringing have on our adult life?
For instance, children who were sheltered from alcohol (including those in high school), often reach college with a naivety not suited for life in the real world. What happens? They don’t understand how alcohol works, and often inadvertently abuse it – I’m speaking from observation of my peers here. Whereas those who had a less sheltered upbringing, children like myself who regularly saw their parents consume alcohol, had a much better understanding of it.
My point is, why spend 18 to 20 years allowing our children to adapt to an artificially constructed fantasy land where sex, drugs, and rock and roll do not exist, and then one day, when they’re “old enough” leave them deserted in the real world to fend for themselves?
And Ed, you mentioned earlier that the reason adults are less vulnerable to the harsh realities of life is because they’ve become callous and jaded, though as you admitted, we are all still vulnerable in some ways. Perhaps, if we had the chance during the first quarter of our life to experience real life, we wouldn’t be as vulnerable to the stresses it imposes on us as adults.
It should really be no surprise that we find reality to be harsh and unforgiving when, for the period of time when we were supposed to develop our foundations, we weren’t even exposed to reality.