The Campbell Academy Blog (37)

More on Technology and Politics

So, it's started to happen now.

If you read this article in the New York Times, you'll see the lawsuits that have started coming in the United States against Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and against TikTok.

People are now starting to see that social media companies deliberately target vulnerable people (children, usually) to make money.

No shit Sherlock!

It seems that we as a society lack agility and the ability to adapt to new technology or products.

It's not ok for your children to watch an iPad while they're eating dinner in a restaurant. That is f*ck*d up!

It's not ok for your children to spend hours and hours on multiple Instagram accounts when they're 12 years old. That is completely f*ck*d up.

It's no surprise that when you drop back into social media after nine years away (I did this in Germany for a short while), you cannot believe the mess, the state it's in, and what the algorithm suggests.

I watched with sheer horror and black humour as our country was overtaken by disposable vapes targeted at children in fancy colours with fancy tastes, and nobody did anything about it.

I'm watching again as there is an epidemic of chewing tobacco among teenage boys that is a total aberration, a health disaster waiting to happen.

I watch again as every spare piece of land is taken up by a Costa, a Starbucks, a McDonald's, a KFC, or whatever you want, and then people wonder why the average weight of someone in the United Kingdom has skyrocketed.

It's not about the nanny state. We need to be nannied because big businesses, big corporations, are way cleverer than us, way more powerful than us, and way more likely to control and manipulate our behaviour to make money.

When will we learn as a society giving unfettered access to the internet to under sixteens was an utter disaster, something which wrecked our society?

It's no clearer than that.

There is no argument to that, and now we watch.

It's like when they went after the tobacco companies, after all those years, when they had the evidence, an individual started to sue tobacco companies, and they resisted. Governments resisted because it was too valuable, and then people said, "Oh yeah, it does actually cause cancer, and it is actually a disaster, and so let's transfer to vapes because that's better, not worse".