wHAT dO yOU tHINK? Are Republican-led Efforts to Ban Popular Social Media Sites Because of their Own Fears or For Safety Reasons?

There are certain U.S. Congressional representatives who have expressed concerns for the "left-leaning liberalism" of the largest social media sites in the world.

They say they are concerned about "our" safety and the indoctrination of "our" kids, but they don't present any evidence that we or our children are unsafe or indoctrinated by social media to back up their reasons for banning the sites that they would like to get rid of.

There seems to be more of chance of an adult over the age of 18 to become "addicted" to SM that seems uncontrolled and outrageous most days, but it appears that rather than leave it to parents to control at what age their children see or hear things Republicans consider "not for minors," the largest advocates for smaller government are the most intrusive when it comes to outlawing anything they don't like, even if they can't back up their "fears" with proof that social media is detrimental to children.

Most people think, rightly, that if you don't like it ... turn it off, and make sure your own children can't access it. Is it truly pure concern or is it government overreach? If they start with the children, who will they ban from participating in today's upgraded IRC's* next?

What do you say about it? Ban children under 18 from the most popular media sites (though they'll see it anyway), or tell the Republicans to back off and FOCUS ON THEIR OWN FAMILIES?

______________________________________________________
Feb. 23, 2024, at 2:55 p.m. (Reuters) -Florida's Republican-controlled legislature has passed legislation that would ban anyone under age 16 from social media platforms in a move that supporters have said would protect young people from online risks to their mental health...U.S. News & World Report

National Conference of State Legislators / SCOTUS casts doubt ... 

From Wikipedia: *Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and data transfer, including file sharing. Internet Relay Chat is implemented as an application layer protocol to facilitate communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client–server networking model. Users connect, using a client—which may be a web app, a standalone desktop program, or embedded into part of a larger program—to an IRC server, which may be part of a larger IRC network. Examples of programs used to connect include Mibbit, IRCCloud, KiwiIRC, and mIRC. IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users. In April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than 200,000 users at a time.