I think rather than banning it which won't work if you made the SM companies financially responsible for any damages they cause the children.
The government would make it easier to seek damages from SM companies that cause harm to children. For example if you required the SM companies to provide proof they actively tried to help or stop in cases of bullying and if they don't the pay a large fine.
That would make it more costly to ignore and I'm pretty sure you'd fine a report button on that post to allow you to report bullying pretty quick.
Yes they are. They are not 100% responsible no but it's the main party as it provides the platform and encourages the behaviour. If their platform has become unsafe and causes harm that's the bit that they are responsible for. It's the same thing as suing a car manufacturer if the car was designed / built with a safety flaw.
> The playground builders are usually not considered responsible when bullying happens at a playground.
That's a great point thanks for making it. By "playground builder" I assume you are meaning the company/org that built the playground and actually they are responsible for the safety of the equipment and if a child gets hurt because of their negligence they will be sued. In my estate we have to pay for insurance for this express purpose.
In terms of bullying though you don't use playground equipment to bully someone. Bullying on the school grounds is the schools responsibility and they have a duty of care to the child to help. So just because the builders built the school doesn't mean they are responsible for all actions that occur only on defects on their work that cause harm.
While I appreciate your thorough response (I'm not exactly sure about what to make of this topic myself) I'm still a bit skeptical of assigning the responsibility for bullying to SM companies.
Physical safety in a car (or on a playground) is about the equipment itself.
Bullying can also happen in a car (or a school bus!) but we wouldn't typically consider the car company responsible.
Regarding SM I think it's a case of we-can-so-we-should. We've moved our social interactions to a technical platform, so now social problems are more amenable (superficially in my opinion) to technical solutions.
But bullying is not a problem that has a technical origin nor a technical solution, and I think trying to approach it that way might do more harm than good.
> I'm still a bit skeptical of assigning the responsibility for bullying to SM companies.
Actually I never said this either. They should pay for the damage caused by the design of their system. The problem with these companies is they are legally shielded from any of the damage they cause. This is specific to Social Media companies. Car manufacturers are not afforded the same legal shield, neither are airlines or doctors ...etc.
Let's take a controversial subject guns. The gun manufacturers can't be held responsible on who they are sold to that would be the merchants and vendors but they should be responsible if they release a gun that explodes and kills you every 1000th bullet. They have a duty of care to design it to be safe for the user of the gun. So if you buy a gun and shoot up a school the gun manufacturer isn't responsible. It's either then vendor who sold you it (gun regs opinion) or the school (NRA opinion).
For example: Right now if you have intimate material posted about you without your permission it very difficult to get it taken down and people will just re-upload it. This has already cause many deaths. Social Media crave engagement as they use that to sell ads. That's fine but if that engagement causes damage they should pay for it. At the moment you can't really sue them for example in the USA as there is a law covering them Section 230.
> But bullying is not a problem that has a technical origin nor a technical solution, and I think trying to approach it that way might do more harm than good.
Who said this ? It wasn't me what technical solution did I propose?
I would disagree though with you statement that bullying doesn't have a "technical origin". Cyberbullying 100% has a technical origin. If you think teens are bullied in the playground first and then online that's false. Mostly now-a-days teens are bullied online first often about something on SM about them (for example an explicit picture).
The government would make it easier to seek damages from SM companies that cause harm to children. For example if you required the SM companies to provide proof they actively tried to help or stop in cases of bullying and if they don't the pay a large fine.
That would make it more costly to ignore and I'm pretty sure you'd fine a report button on that post to allow you to report bullying pretty quick.