And Tylenol is a drug just the same as heroin. Do you think that HN has the same sort of impacts on people as instagram or facebook?

Do you think a law which restricts "social media" will be crafted delicately enough to affect Instagram and Facebook but not HN?

Of course not, instead kids will be logging into some russian/chinese 4chan-esque service which has no qualms about the opinion of US law.

This is the way things should be. Down with enforcable laws!

In principle, certainly. In practice, Congress can't be trusted to craft more or less any law these days. I'm not necessarily sure that the law will be able to help us here, but I also think it's not helpful to take the broadest possible definition of social media to try to shutdown discussion. (I'm not suggesting that you are doing that)

Australia's soon-to-take-effect ban affects nine platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, but not HN. These bans often operate on the amount of users a platform has, so HN is unlikely to make the cut. Nobody cares about this site.

I'd gladly give up HN if it means Instagram and Facebook are eradicated. Yes, yes, "those that would trade liberty for security...", but we were better off without any form of social media at all.

I often wonder if posts like this, along with the people who want to ban all cars, etc are just rage bait. Fortunately most of the population disagrees with your preferences. I give “general social media ban” around a 1% chance of success.

Yes, plenty of users here compulsively posting and compulsively checking for responses/upvotes/etc.

I'm aware. If I lost the forum on HN as a side effect, I'd probably be happier overall.

how would society even survive if under-15s couldn't access HN?

the horror!