I think that schools should take on this role.

You could have a server for a school with mastodon, but not connected to the rest of the fedi, you could network with similar schools. Just like at the school dance the teachers are around so there are limits to how it's used.

Teens could post about their soccer games, advertise their clubs, make jokes, practice using the medium wisely.

When teens post to social media they care about their friends at school seeing the post most. 4/

@futurebird This is especially poignant with the just-started, boneheaded #SocialMediaBan here in #Australia. And there is nothing in the legislation that would stop it AFAIK, unless and until they were to try to add mastodon to the list of proscribed sites, and as it isn’t a site I don’t really see how that could even work. The rules are way too stupidly written to ban a federation protocol.

@DanielMReck

I would think hosting dances would have a lot more "liabilities"

@futurebird That's because you're sensible.

Dances do not typically create a perfect digital record of everything that happens at them, and social media platforms typically do. That's great for people investigating actual wrongdoing, but it also makes a gold mine of innocent content to be used by profit-seeking lawyers and disingenuous adults to intimidate, harass, and legally destroy whatever school tried to implement such a platform.

There's also those generally-ignored child privacy laws.

I've had people hear this idea scoff saying "teens will never use it" I don't think this is true. They ALL come to the dances, even though they are "so boring" -- and I think at some level they would feel better having a safer place to express themselves in photos, videos and writing for each other without every creep on the internet looking in on it.

Will some teens still find internet "after parties" Yes.

But right now we are basically saying you can go to the afterparty or NOTHING.

5/5

@futurebird yes! i've been thinking a lot about a related question:

now that more and more of our world is experienced through personal devices like smartphones and laptops, how do we gradually include children and youths in our adult world?

for instance: growing up there were newspapers on the table every day, and LP's on the shelf. pieces of a larger shared reality it was possible to learn from.

and then, of course, perhaps reject - but after at least exploring it for a bit.

I've had people hear this idea scoff saying "teens will never use it" I don't think this is true. They ALL come to the dances, even though they are "so boring" -- and I think at some level they would feel better having a safer place to express themselves in photos, videos and writing for each other without every creep on the internet looking in on it.

Will some teens still find internet "after parties" Yes.

But right now we are basically saying you can go to the afterparty or NOTHING.

5/5

I want to thank some of you for your comments on this post that have made me realize a few things:

1. When talking about "social media intranets for teens" I need to make it clear I'm NOT talking about anonymous networks. Just like with school email it's one account per person.
2. I should probably define the difference between internet and intranet as well.
3. I'm going to hear "can't do it legal reasons*" over and over and should be ready with the big guns for THAT one.

* It's something you pick up if you work in a big organization. Even the most innocent seeming ideas can be shot down for "legal reasons" --I think it can be very counterproductive to internalize this notion if you aren't a lawyer. Let the lawyers raise the "legal reasons" ... we don't live in some kind of paralyzed time when nothing can be done.

If "field trips" didn't exist I'm certian the first person to propose them would hear "can't go on a trip for legal reasons"

And, using the field trip example again, there *are* legal implications to taking students on a trip. That's why we have permission slips.

Legal reasons are surmountable if you are doing something reasonable.

Don't abandon your idea before you even try it because thinking about the "legal implications" is complex.

In the case of having a student intranet I think there are basically ZERO legal implications since everything the network would do already exists in a school.

@futurebird Some colleges (etc) actually *have* intranets already. There are plenty of circumstances where it makes sense—why do clubs and events restricted to the campus and the students even need to use externally-visible networks? The posters and flyers on campus bulletin boards are implicitly contained by physical space. Their digital equivalents don't need to be any different.

@futurebird There's an irony, of course, that social media and networking as we know it have their roots in the BBS—a technology literally named after campus bulletin boards!
There's a lesson here applicable to many other things: we went so all-in on the internet, we've basically forgotten how to do anything else. Internet connectivity is the default assumption for anything with a computer in it. This is, to be blunt, *very silly.*

I've had people hear this idea scoff saying "teens will never use it" I don't think this is true. They ALL come to the dances, even though they are "so boring" -- and I think at some level they would feel better having a safer place to express themselves in photos, videos and writing for each other without every creep on the internet looking in on it.

Will some teens still find internet "after parties" Yes.

But right now we are basically saying you can go to the afterparty or NOTHING.

5/5

@futurebird Wow, this thread screams "Was never bullied" (of course I don't if you actually weren't, but it doesn't sound like it)… We must have had radically different experiences (although I don't know which direction is worse) if you really think "every creep on the internet looking in on it" is the main threat and not that the people you're forced on threat of state violence to spend 6+ hours with every day for years will make your life living hell when the way you "express yourself" strays even a bit out of societal norms.

Also, if you're concerned with not excluding the socially awkward kid you'd have to disable the block feature, because otherwise they will just get blocked by most people except those "kindred spirits" you don't care about.

@zvavybir

Are you saying it's better not to have such a network?

You are very incorrect about my experience with bullying.