A letter I sent my senators, please consider similar.

[Ken]

“Personal responsibility” and “parents” were the excuse the tobacco industry used for years to market and sell harmful, addictive products to children for years. I’m quite suspicious of anyone who thinks they need to push responsibility for mass phenomena backed by billions of dollars onto relatively powerless parents.

The sale of tobacco to minors has been prohibited for generations. I was curious and so I looked up the actual laws in our two states.

Ohio passed a minimum age of 18 for purchase of tobacco back in 1939 and that remained state law until it was raised to 21 in 2019 by federal law

Washington passed a minimum age of 18 for tobacco in 1901 which is raised to 21 in 1909. It remained 21 until 1971 when it was lowered back down to 18 and then raised again to 21 in 2019

Did kids still smoke? Yes. At my HS there was actually a student smoking section outside and this was the 1980s. Was it just the over 18 kids out there smoking? No, of course not. Because the ban on youth tobacco was sieve-like. Cigarettes were readily accessible to kids despite the ban. It frankly had little to do with advertising and everything to do with the fact that kids could get cigarettes anywhere. Bumming them from their over 18 friends, stealing them from parents, etc. I expect there were kids over 18 who bought cartons to keep in their cars in the school parking lot to sell to kids under 18. That was what was getting children to smoke, not Joe Camel.

Government regulation of internet content will be ridiculously more sieve-like than the ban on tobacco sales to minors.

[Josh]

As we all know, tobacco companies marketed to minors and took measures to ensure they could buy or get cigarettes right up until the MSAs.

Both parents and society at large are responsible for children. I’m not even sure how this is controversial.

[Ken]

As we all know, tobacco companies marketed to minors and took measures to ensure they could buy or get cigarettes right up until the MSAs.

Both parents and society at large are responsible for children. I’m not even sure how this is controversial.

And what is your regulatory proposal for limiting the effects of social media on children?

[Josh]

As we all know, tobacco companies marketed to minors and took measures to ensure they could buy or get cigarettes right up until the MSAs.

Both parents and society at large are responsible for children. I’m not even sure how this is controversial.

And what is your regulatory proposal for limiting the effects of social media on children?

I would argue at the very least not to engage in marketing towards children.

[Ken]

As we all know, tobacco companies marketed to minors and took measures to ensure they could buy or get cigarettes right up until the MSAs.

Both parents and society at large are responsible for children. I’m not even sure how this is controversial.

And what is your regulatory proposal for limiting the effects of social media on children?

I would argue at the very least not to engage in marketing towards children.

What marketing of any kind is TikTok itself engaged in? I don't recall ever seeing an ad for TikTok directed at children or anyone else.

[Josh]

And what is your regulatory proposal for limiting the effects of social media on children?

I would argue at the very least not to engage in marketing towards children.

What marketing of any kind is TikTok itself engaged in? I don't recall ever seeing an ad for TikTok directed at children or anyone else.

Marketing takes more forms then advertisements. I assure you that TikTok has a marketing department and hires marketing professionals.

[Ken]

I would argue at the very least not to engage in marketing towards children.

What marketing of any kind is TikTok itself engaged in? I don't recall ever seeing an ad for TikTok directed at children or anyone else.

Marketing takes more forms then advertisements. I assure you that TikTok has a marketing department and hires marketing professionals.

So what, specifically are you going to prohibit and how is that going to solve the problem of children getting sucked into TikTok?

It is nothing but meaningless platitudes to wave your hands and say you are going to prohibit social media companies from marketing to children like the tobacco companies were prohibited from using "Joe Camel"

[Josh]

What marketing of any kind is TikTok itself engaged in? I don't recall ever seeing an ad for TikTok directed at children or anyone else.

Marketing takes more forms then advertisements. I assure you that TikTok has a marketing department and hires marketing professionals.

So what, specifically are you going to prohibit and how is that going to solve the problem of children getting sucked into TikTok?

It is nothing but meaningless platitudes to wave your hands and say you are going to prohibit social media companies from marketing to children like the tobacco companies were prohibited from using "Joe Camel"

I’m not a legislator and don’t have to figure that out.

I’m just saying I don’t think social media multi billion businesses should be marketing to children to use their stuff.

[Outsider]

Wait. I thought you wanted the government to regulate social media like TikTok and that was the whole point of this thread.

Did you change your mind about that?

The first line in my post, if I recall correctly, was "Rather than banning TikTok..."

[temporal1]

P.2: repeat repeat repeat

Rather than banning TikTok, make it illegal for young people under the age of at least 18-21 to produce content for social media of any sort.

Such an idea would be blatantly unconstitutional. The right to free expression under the First Amendment doesn't kick in at age 18 or 21.

You're not banning their right to free expression. You're banning them from an adult space- like a bar, or a smoking lounge, etc.
If a 15-year-old can't go to express himself in a nudie bar, is his free expression being compromised?
Even soldiers under the age of 18- who are expected to lay down and die for our corporatist overlords on a whim- aren't allowed to be in bars.

It's a recognized precedent that young adults and children shouldn't be allowed in some spaces.

children and teens are not small adults.