¿Les cerramos el ‘insta’ y les damos un ‘piti’?
Las metáforas del mundo tangible no suelen funcionar para describir la complejidad digital: las ‘big tech’ son como tabacaleras, pero las redes no son como el tabaco
One of the most basic lessons from digital revolutions is that we cannot explain virtual phenomena using metaphors from the tangible world. Such analogies simply do not apply. When internet meant piracy, some likened downloading a Napster song to stealing a loaf of free bread, while others compared it to a baker producing infinite copies of a loaf.
Neither analogy rings true; the reality is much simpler. Yet, many leaders, in their sudden and strangely unanimous attack on minors online, have returned to these crude analogies to describe our deep immersion in digital platforms. At the height of hyperbole, Pedro Sánchez likened the harm minors suffer by accessing Instagram to a toy causing strangulation and even to the hardships endured by a 12-year-old girl who worked 12 hours a day on a loom over a century ago.
Reading those similes in the Financial Times felt like hearing your father tell dad jokes to the waiter... but everyone does that worldwide. Keir Starmer, in one of his latest attempts to curb his popularity as prime minister, compared social media to alcohol, proposing a British version of this sacred crusade to block minors. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen received a particularly strong jab in her local rant: "If I had young children today, I would prefer they smoked than stay alone in social media."
Written by urgent.news from El Pais's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
