#I also think banning minors from social media would be cool if social media wasn't integral to society like was the case in 2004

[cheetour]

"Friendship between adults and minors has an innate power imbalance and can easily be exploited by predatory adults" is an important statement and it's good that everyone is concerned with it

But it sucks that internet culture has gone, "Therefore, adults and minors should never interact in a social environment" or "We should ban minors from social media" and not, "As an adult on the internet, you have a responsibility to be kind, patient, and gracious with minors who interact with you, especially if they like and admire you, and if they cross an inappropriate boundary, it is 100% your responsibility not to take advantage of that"

Mainly because forbidding adults from interacting with teenagers outright just means that when adults DO go looking for young immature friends to exploit for sexual favours, there aren't any normal adults in those online spaces modelling what ACTUAL healthy adult/kid friendship looks like, e.g. mentors, stand-in parental figures, career role models, etc etc