{"id":1657,"date":"2026-01-02T16:05:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/?p=1657"},"modified":"2026-01-02T16:05:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:05:58","slug":"politicians-who-barely-know-how-to-open-a-settings-menu-keep-trying-to-legislate-an-operating-system-they-do-not-understand-and-kids-are-the-ones-who-pay-for-the-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/02\/politicians-who-barely-know-how-to-open-a-settings-menu-keep-trying-to-legislate-an-operating-system-they-do-not-understand-and-kids-are-the-ones-who-pay-for-the-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"Politicians who barely know how to open a settings menu keep trying to legislate an operating system they do not understand, and kids are the ones who pay for the crash."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"559\" src=\"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jump-1024x559.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1658\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jump-1024x559.png 1024w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jump-300x164.png 300w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jump-768x419.png 768w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jump-1536x838.png 1536w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jump-2048x1117.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">France\u2019s new push to ban social media for under\u201115s is not bold leadership; it is copy\u2011cat politics following Australia\u2019s under\u201116 ban and pretending that \u201cjust block it\u201d is a strategy rather than a slogan.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<br>The same class of lawmakers that waved through platform consolidation, underfunded digital literacy, and ignored online harms for years now wants credit for yanking the cord out of the wall after the damage is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">baked in<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"429\" src=\"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-11.02.52-AM-1024x429.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1659\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-11.02.52-AM-1024x429.png 1024w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-11.02.52-AM-300x126.png 300w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-11.02.52-AM-768x321.png 768w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-11.02.52-AM-1536x643.png 1536w, https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screen-Shot-2026-01-02-at-11.02.52-AM-2048x857.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The parental clich\u00e9 \u201cIf your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?\u201d has become actual governance: Australia jumps first with a world\u2011first national age ban, and Paris sprints to the edge of the same bridge yelling \u201cme too!\u201d instead of asking whether anyone checked the water below.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<br>This is not evidence\u2011based protection of children; it is vibes\u2011based mimicry, where the measure of success is how \u201ctough\u201d the press release sounds, not whether the rule is enforceable, proportionate, or even compatible with higher\u2011order law like EU regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">These bans outsource all complexity to a few crude switches:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Platforms must somehow know the true age of every user, without turning the entire internet into a passport checkpoint that harvests even more sensitive data.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Schools are told to ban phones again, even though France already tried that in 2018 and the law is \u201crarely enforced,\u201d demonstrating exactly how quickly a symbolic rule collapses when it meets reality.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Meanwhile, the same politicians duck the hard work: mandating safer product design, funding independent research, embedding digital rights and literacy in curricula, and building services kids actually want to use that do not monetize their every interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">What makes this so infuriating is that the people writing these laws are generations removed from the stack they are trying to regulate:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">They do not understand how recommendation systems, dark patterns, and engagement loops are engineered, so they treat \u201cscreen time\u201d as a moral failing instead of a deliberately tuned outcome.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">They still think in terms of \u201cthe internet\u201d as a single place you can fence off, not a mesh of platforms, back\u2011channel apps, VPNs, game chats, and emerging tools that kids will pivot to the second a ban takes effect.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If they truly understood tech, they would recognize that an age line on a mainstream platform often pushes teens into less regulated, harder\u2011to\u2011monitor spaces, making harms harder, not easier, to address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Real leadership on kids and tech would start by discarding the bridge\u2011jumping, optics\u2011first mentality:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Put binding obligations on platforms: privacy by default for minors, algorithmic transparency, dark\u2011pattern bans, and real penalties for amplifying self\u2011harm and abuse content.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Build national digital literacy and media education the way past generations built public libraries: as infrastructure, not an optional afterthought when the headlines get scary.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Involve technologists, psychologists, educators, and, crucially, young people themselves in designing systems that minimize harm without criminalizing teen social life.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lemonde.fr\/en\/france\/article\/2025\/12\/31\/france-seeks-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-15_6748972_7.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a>\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Until that happens, watching one government after another jump off the same policy bridge is not reassuring; it is proof that many of the people holding the law books still cannot tell the difference between a power button and a panic button.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France\u2019s new push to ban social media for under\u201115s is not bold leadership; it is copy\u2011cat politics following Australia\u2019s under\u201116 ban and pretending that \u201cjust block it\u201d is a strategy rather than a slogan.\u200bThe same class of lawmakers that waved through platform consolidation, underfunded digital literacy, and ignored online harms for years now wants credit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[129,198],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alexandra-kitty","tag-australia","tag-france"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexandrakitty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}