Comment by vintagedave
3 hours ago
> Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day.
Aussie here. Great to see this. I don't think this goes far enough: I'd like to see addictive algorithms, content, and doomscrolling banned entirely. Not an option to see a different feed. Illegal. It's manipulative, hurts people, hurts children: make it illegal.
Please don't start randomly prohibiting things because you dis-approve of those things.
We have, at this point, over a 100 years of evidence showing that prohibition of psychoactive substances (alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, etc) doesn't actually do much to reduce consumption but do create an immense amount of suffering not just for anyone participating in the trade or consumption of those substances, but also anyone remotely connected to them - cf the immense violence perpetrated by drug cartels in the Americas, mostly because people living in the US seem to be in denial about their appetite for drugs.
So please, stop banning things you don't like, tax and regulate them instead. Use the tax proceeds to fund "social media rehab" clinics if you'd like.
Draconian "I don't like it, it gets banned" government wasn't a good idea in 15th century Spain, it's still not a good idea now. Let your fellow citizens make bad decisions, just ensure that the government is poised to profit from them.
Australia is and always has been a nanny state. It's cultural.
"tax and regulate" isn't immune from second-order effects either. Set the tax high enough and you'll get smuggling gangs with all the same tendencies.
no, it's not a perfect system, but better.
Look at the alcohol market in the U.S.
Or even the tightly controlled Systembolaget [0] in Sweden, compared to the modern markets for cannabis and cocaine.
Tax and regulate lowers violence and increases tax revenue, outright prohibition/making it illegal increases violence and lowers tax revenue.
I do believe "sin prohibition" policies, for not just drugs but gambling, prostitution, etc, are one example of "low-hanging fruit", where there is a noticeably better option that is usually not implemented.
Really, for all trades usually controlled by violent criminals (so everything the Mafia/Yakuza/crime groups traditionally specialize in), I believe that the citizens of a given state will be happier if the trade is controlled by the state and not given over to criminals, which is functionally what "make it illegal" does.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget
2 replies →
As if this guy had the power to ban anything, you’re begging him not to?
Is there anything you think would be appropriate to prohibit?
things that directly harm other taxpayers - murder, physical violence, theft, false slander/reputational attacks...
prohibiting things that harm the individual should not be the role of government, IMO. Government, in the liberal/Enlightenment tradition, is there as a protector of your 'rights' to life, liberty, and property. While it has a duty to protect you from things which could harm you (eg junk food/sugary drinks), it also has a duty to let you do what you choose to do, even if it's 'bad' for you (eg eat junk food and drink sugary drinks).
Hence the compromise - you can smoke cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola, but the makers of cigarettes and soft drinks have to warn you beforehand, and the transaction may be more taxed than things like basic foods.
1 reply →