I'd say: no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

In the same way kids aren't allowed to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or gamble. That shit's addictive, and we as a society don't expect children to be able to properly consider the long term consequences when making the decision to use it. (Of course one could make the same argument about adults, but I digress.)

Being able to talk to classmates or relatives is not any kind of addiction I’m concerned about.

To me, the main question is about introducing kids to a branded product in order to build affinity for the main product. Building that affinity is going to be a significant reason these kinds of products are made.

I imagine we wouldn’t feel great about feeding our kids food that was branded with Johnny Walker or Smirnoff. Curiously, I think most parents would have little problem with a kids board/card game that was co-branded with a Las Vegas casino.

> Being able to talk to classmates or relatives is not any kind of addiction I’m concerned about.

I'm not worried about plain chat either.

Platforms like Snap, Instagram and TikTok however are optimized towards obsessive behavior. They're relying on concepts like instant gratification, frequent rewards, social pressure, FOMO, etc. That's what I was talking about.

So who is supposed to make them? I don't disagree that big tech shouldn't make them, but this is different from big tobacco. Tobacco/alcohol is completely banned for kids under 18. Kids will be using the internet.

I've been learning in my law course about how laws are built from precedent and often need to be based on real things that have happened, rather than in anticipation of something bad maybe happening in the future.

So when it comes to facebook and other big tech companies, I feel like they should be regulated similar to how toy companies can't advertise violence to children, and tobacco companies can't advertise to children at all. Those laws are incredibly strict and written with the understanding that kids are vulnerable and naive, and can't really think for themselves. But that vulnerability still has to be demonstrated, and tangible harm has to be shown before a robust law can be written (meaning, one that won't be struck down as unconstitutional or unreasonable or whatever), and such laws are still in the process of being written for the tech companies.

So you could argue that they should back off of marketing to kids as a moral thing, but equally you could argue that they need to stake out their territory before laws are written that block off entire lines of business. The tech companies are behaving rationally, but the results can be awful. Society needs to fight back and protect ourselves with strong laws.

J.S. Mill in action.

As an aside: You’ll enjoy learning law and being in IT. You’ll see a lot of parallels between the jurisprudence of centuries ago and the current state of tech. A lot of the same type of issues thrown up every time society goes through a major change.

The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are inherently harmful to children.

> The whole premise rests on the idea that FB products are inherently harmful to children

It's also that it's Facebook doing it. I'm not writing off social media or messaging for kids. But Facebook's culture is broken, they constantly lie about everything--I don't trust them with our next generation. (Similar situation tanking their crypto play. Had Libre not been a Facebook project, it would have likely worked.)