The Era Of Declining Parental Accountability

I guess the first word you come back to always with these things is grandstanding. Nothing ever gets accomplished at Congressional hearings. What happens is that guys like Ted Cruz get their staff to print out comically-large tweets, or bring along books where gay dogs get married, and then the people on the Congressional dais chastise Big Tech leaders, and there’s some nice sound bites and moments, but ultimately the Big Tech leader flies back private to the Bay Area and we mostly forget about all of it for another 1.5 years, or another until grandstanding hearing.

The last little cycle we had, last week, was about “child online safety,” and basically you saw some of the clips Josh Hawley will use in his 2032 Presidential run on display, including forcing Zuck to stand up and apologize to parents who had lost children to online bullying, tainted drug purchases, etc:

Again, mostly grandstanding. Josh Hawley is huge on “modern masculinity” and “ways to improve men,” and while his performance here has some of the rage and need for authority common in lots of men, I’m not sure boxing some autistic CEO into a corner and forcing a fake apology is per SE “masculine.” It does land you some applause and points from the assembled hoi polloi, though.

The biggest question here is twofold:

1. Why is this the Senate’s responsibility?
2. Why is this Facebook’s responsibility?

The answers are seemingly easy, but in reality much more complicated.

As for “why Senate,” you’d say: “Well, it’s the role of the government to regulate and monitor things that are not helping us live our best life.”

Indeed. But again, how often does the modern form of Congress do that? They’ve been gridlocked since roughly 2005, if not before that.

As for “why Facebook,” well, it’s their damn product. Shouldn’t they care?

Indeed. But again, Facebook/Meta/whatever is a for-profit, traded company. Their focus is not really on “child online safety.” It’s on money. If a few kids die from fentanyl-lacing, or die because of online harassment/suicide, honestly to an enterprise company, that’s basically “the cost of doing business.”

Who aren’t we often holding accountable here?

Right, right. Parents.

When it comes to social media usage, most research seems to indicate kids shouldn’t be on it until 16, if not 18, and in reality probably not at all until they’re ready. I know mothers who let their girls on it at 8 or 9. That’s literally criminal, but in those social circles, it’s viewed as “Oh, Mary is progressive!” or “Lindsay must be such a good mom to keep tabs on all that!”

I’ve long thought maybe the main reasons for parents letting their kids on social earlier than they should are:

• It allows the parent to have to interact with the kid less as the kid is reaching an age with more sullenness and back-talk. Remember: we love babies, but not so much teenagers.
• Some parents are afraid of their kids, and they don’t want to deal with a fit about what so-and-so friend has access to.

• Some parents just know absolutely nothing about the research, are stressed in their own lives, and just approve whatever.

Ultimately, though, “online child safety” is an issue for parents and guardians. Don’t let kids on social very young. If you do, monitor it a bit. Talk to your children (GASP!) about who they’re interacting with and how they’re using it. Meet their friends; meet their friends’ parents. Most of these have been parenting gold standards for about 100 years, and yet it seems like in the current “Gen Alpha can destroy Sephora for TikTok vibes” era, we’ve lost track of it.

Before I leave, let me show you this Bill Maher clip where he also says: “Hey, what about the parents’ role in all this?”

What’s your take on where “accountability” comes down for protecting kids online? Ideally you’d want Facebook to have some role, and the government to be aware of this problem, but shouldn’t this mostly be on parents, especially the ones who claim “no more important job than this?”