it's crazy how "adults should be mindful of kids in online spaces" is such a controversial topic and by that i mean that i hope that anyone that disagrees with that never interacts with any children ever
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The problem is that any variation of “think of the children” with no additional contest is mostly used by people to silence minorities, oppress victims, and generally promote censorship. It is a historical fact that “think of the children” is, generally speaking, a dog whistle for “things I don’t like shouldn’t exist.”
Examples include teaching kids about the existence of gay people, teaching kids about racism (this one is current, Florida just made it illegal to teach critical race theory in school), and the justification is *always* some variant of “think of the children”. This was the justification used to ban homosexuality in the Soviet Union, it was ta justification for the war on drugs, it was used as a justification for segregation.
This next part is going to sound a bit rude but I mean it in the most neutral, non judgemental way possible. If you don’t know this, then you are ignorant of one of the most important, widespread, and effective manipulative political tactics there is. And most critically, it relies on your ignorance for its effectiveness. People push conservative values by claiming they are “thinking of the children”, which gives them the weight of every person who ever “thinks of the children”. People start to think “well if it is for the children...” and “I saw this person I trust say that too, so they must support these kinds of measures too!”. It spreads a specific type of group think that pushes conservative, right wing agendas.
This is why the statement “adults should be mindful of kids in online spaces” absent explicit clarification is controversial, because people who are not ignorant of this political tactic know that this is one of the most effective methods of pushing conservative politics. The first thing you should do when someone says any variation of "think of the children” is question their motivation, because the vast majority of the time time it is pushing some right wing political goal.
People who say “adults should be mindful of kids in online spaces” without explicit clarification are either ignorant, careless, or manipulative.
The people who are careless or ignorant are usually relying on the Shirley Exception. That is to say, their internal thought process goes like this: “Oh, I mean we should take appropriate measures to protect children. Surely everyone will understand that I don’t mean to go *that* far. Surely they will know there are exceptions and appropriate lines. I don’t need to clarify because surely everyone will understand.”
And that is how we end up with critical race theory banned in public schools.
It is not so much that “adults should be mindful of kids in online spaces” is controversial, it is that the only way to stop this particular right wing tactic is to immediately shut down ANY use of “think of the children” without explicit clarification.
TL:DR Using any variation of “think of the children” without explicit clarification supports right wing political goals. This is true no matter what a person’s real intentions might have been when using “think of the children”.
This video is a perfect example of what I am talking about. It outlines how “Think about the children” style rhetoric is being used to discriminate against trans people, especially trans teenagers. Many, many people are supporting these bills almost entirely on the strength of the idea that they are meant to protect children because innocuous statements like “we need to protect children” or “we need to be mindful of kids” are like off switches for critical thinking. If you ignorantly parrot them then you are contributing to this bigotry - in the same way you are still contributing to racism if you say something racist out of non malicious ignorance - and people will rightly call you out on it.
This is a real problem and y’all need to get basic political awareness. This is politics 101 stuff, if you don’t know these basics you probably are not ready contribute to political discourse.
