Instead of imposing an online surveillance state, have you tried being a better parent?
Fuck you, I'm not giving up my photo ID to use the internet.
It’s moral panic time! Everyone, have a moral panic, our children are at stake! New-fangled technology is going to consume the souls of our youth! Sure, the last fifty times we’ve said this, it was complete bullshit, but don’t worry, this time the moral panic is totally justified and not mass psychosis!
Sigh. Listen, I know that history tends to rhyme, and in many cases I look forward to some of the things that repeat. Nonetheless, one of the tropes of human culture I have the most distaste for is the phenomenon of the moral panic. The public is whipped up into a massive fervour, told that something is irreparably corrupting our youth, and that the only solution is to curtail personal freedoms and embrace authoritarianism.
It happens again, and again, and again, and again. Comic books did not corrupt our children, but after a moral panic they were subject to a strict censorship code that restricted basic artistic expression. Rock and rap music did not corrupt our children, but Tipper Gore made sure musicians would have to put a scarlet letter on their album covers that limited the places the music could be sold. These moral panics can do serious, lasting damage to our cultural framework.
And just as these moral panics were triggered by ignorant masses fearful of what they did not know, the age of technology has led to a new wave of moral panics. Games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, with cartoonish violence best described as laughable, triggered Congressional hearings in the 1990s. Doom was ludicrously scapegoated for the Columbine Massacre. Significant effort was made to stifle a growing art form for the sake of this moral panic.
Now, the moral panic du jour surrounds children and social media. The ability to talk to people on the internet is now considered a threat to the fabric of the social order. Mind you, we don’t give kids any spaces they can spend time together in the physical world, but now we plan to take away their spaces together in the digital world as well. Countries like Australia have imposed strict age limits on social media, gated by the requirement to break anonymity and show your government ID to prove you are an adult.
Mind you, I have no illusions about the specific problems that individual platforms have with their algorithms and moderation. Meta’s various platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, bear some culpability in the Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar. This is a very real and legitimate problem that deserves government action.
But I must firmly reject the concept that online communication is itself a moral harm that the government must curtail. The fact that I can connect with human beings from around the world, and that we can share our experiences with each other, this is a beautiful thing! Through social media, I have made close friends whom I treasure greatly. I fear that those with dissimilar experiences may simply be using social media in the wrong way.
Nonetheless, the Liberal Party of Canada is now discussing a similar ID requirement for social media in Canada. As will be debated by party members at their convention next month, and as supported by MP Rachel Bendayan, all Canadians would be required to present their government ID to private companies before using any online forum.
And as per the formula for moral panics, this manufactured fear over our children is used to justify stripping all anonymity from the Canadian internet. You will no longer be able to criticize wealthy business magnates or elected officials without attaching your full legal name. While our digital surveillance state is already extensive, this would be an order of magnitude more pervasive, and remove even the illusion of a free and open society.
It is not a coincidence that such policies arise in the current time. Many Zionists have said the quiet part out loud, admitting they believe criticism of the Israeli government should be censored from social media. According to this polling by Pew Research, 59% of Israelis believe that mere expression of sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza should be banned from online spaces.
Indeed, Hillary Clinton has made explicit that she thinks young people are only sympathetic to Palestine because of TikTok, claiming this presents “a serious problem for democracy”. And the so-called Kids Online Safety Act in the United States primarily serves to censor information about the existence of queer people from the internet. It is very clear that the moral panic over social media “corrupting” youth is merely that it will cause kids to learn about things their parents want to hide from them!
But hey, if parents want to raise their kids in a bubble and shelter them from the basic truths of the world, that’s their prerogative! It’s a terrible idea, one that will permanently warp their child’s social development, but in Canada we legally give parents the power to do this kind of stupid and abusive thing to their kids!
However, let me offer these shit heel parents a friendly suggestion. You see, there is an alternative solution for this problem, instead of asking the government to impose a massive, sprawling surveillance state over the entirety of the internet. This parenting technique works as follows: Since a child cannot afford a phone themselves, their parent must have given it to them, and thus a parent can simply take it away.
If you don’t want your kid to have a phone, don’t buy them one! If you need them to have one for certain things, use the parental controls settings! And if they misuse the device you bought them, act like a real parent and take it back!
It’s very easy, parents. Instead of imposing authoritarian measures across all society, simply take responsibility for parenting your own children! Keep your moral panic to yourself, and stop making it our problem!
The internet is a free and open space, transcending the divisions of borders to connect human beings. The moral panic surrounding social media threatens to destroy this delicate social fabric. If we seek to defend the communities we have built online, the Liberal proposal must be opposed.