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I really do think a lot about how big tech systematically destroyed all the reasonably-safe places intended specifically for kids online…. and now powerful interests are turning around and claiming that we have to destroy Internet privacy because being online is obviously dangerous for kids.

Perhaps the problem is that we turned the Internet into an ever-smaller number of walled gardens run by vicious big businesses, thereby forcing children into the same shit-ass disinformation online soup with everybody else, instead of letting them have their own separate, smaller spaces

I am not the only person by far to observe this, but I do think there’s some real truth to this. When I was a kid online, I think there was some safety in my being able to hang out in more decentralized and explicitly kid and teen focused spaces (which nobody was really making big money off of).

I do in fact believe we COULD create an online world that’s safer for kids without destroying everyone’s online privacy from big tech and repressive governments - but this would also require more and more nuanced work than the authoritarian sledgehammer solution of age verification.

The Internet IS a festering plague-hole right now compared to what it once was and could be again, but the thing is that it’s awful for everyone, not just for children - children are just the canaries in the coal mine.

I’ve believed this for a very long time…humans were not ready for the internet