> I still feel this is different. We're just handing it to them.
I think you are right to be worried, and I think you are correct that it is different:
IIRC, there were some Kremlin leaks some years ago indicating they knew how to "infect" a population with certain propaganda and have the disinformation live on or linger. Together with Meta's/Facebook's (illegal?) study where they experimented on people to try to make them sad by showing them certain types of posts.
So, I think it stands to reason that controlling what you consume means being in control of what you think; in other words: we are what we watch.
We know there are some feedback loops occurring, but I think that it is easier to get desensitized and start becoming accustomed to very extreme content due to the pressure to fit in; perhaps — once one has participated, it might be even harder to be deprogrammed (it requires facing the fact one behaved wrongly towards others).
There's also the fact that being a good person takes a lot of willpower, dedication, is inconvenient and is notoriously difficult to market as "fun".
It is more palatable for an impressionable kid to watch cheap foreign-state-backed radicalizing-propaganda than it is to learn about injustices being perpetuated in our behalf by the state apparatus.
We have developed the habit of being wary of what we consume in order to police our emotions (i.e. minding our mind so no desensitization happens in our watch).
We have seen what the "baddies" can do: the indifference to the suffering they cause, and the cruelty and pettiness they are capable of.
But I digress,... I think you are right to be worried, but I am unsure about how to train kids to not fall into the pipelines.
Or it's our state apparatus that doesn't want teenagers seeing the injustices they're perpetrating, and the think of the children argument is being pushed right now to hide videos of what's going on in Chicago with ICE, and elsewhere.
I think you are right to be worried, and I think you are correct that it is different:
IIRC, there were some Kremlin leaks some years ago indicating they knew how to "infect" a population with certain propaganda and have the disinformation live on or linger. Together with Meta's/Facebook's (illegal?) study where they experimented on people to try to make them sad by showing them certain types of posts.
So, I think it stands to reason that controlling what you consume means being in control of what you think; in other words: we are what we watch.
We know there are some feedback loops occurring, but I think that it is easier to get desensitized and start becoming accustomed to very extreme content due to the pressure to fit in; perhaps — once one has participated, it might be even harder to be deprogrammed (it requires facing the fact one behaved wrongly towards others).
There's also the fact that being a good person takes a lot of willpower, dedication, is inconvenient and is notoriously difficult to market as "fun".
It is more palatable for an impressionable kid to watch cheap foreign-state-backed radicalizing-propaganda than it is to learn about injustices being perpetuated in our behalf by the state apparatus.
We have developed the habit of being wary of what we consume in order to police our emotions (i.e. minding our mind so no desensitization happens in our watch).
We have seen what the "baddies" can do: the indifference to the suffering they cause, and the cruelty and pettiness they are capable of.
But I digress,... I think you are right to be worried, but I am unsure about how to train kids to not fall into the pipelines.