Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15 • Hacker News Board

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#81

Post by mrweasel » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #11

Telaneo wrote: post #5

It'll be interesting to see what they can cook up at home. Chat Control was pushed in large part by Denmark, and Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard is on record saying some pretty disturbing things regarding the right to privacy online.[1] Now for this, they don't need the entire EU to go along, and any laws already on the books might prove ineffective to protect against means that end up achieving similar goals t…

> Denmark's constitution does have a privacy paragraph, but it explicitly mentions telephone and telegraph That's very much not how danish law works. The specific paragraph says "hvor ingen lov hjemler en særegen undtaglse, alene ske efter en retskendelse." translated as "where no other law grants a special exemption, only happen with a warrant". That is, you can open peoples private mail and enter their private resi…

People continue to believe that the "Grundlov" works like the US constitution, and it's really nothing like that. If anything it's more of a transfer of legislation from the king to parliament. Most laws just leaves the details to be determined by parliament.

Censorship really is one of the few laws that are pretty unambiguous, that's really just "No, never again". Not that this stops politicians, but that's a separate debate.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#82

Post by edwin2 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #9

casesarplus1 wrote: post #3

How will they achieve that without introducing a requirement to identify yourself on every online platform, which some would say is probably the whole reason for introducing something promoted as being "for the children"™.

With digital ID. They are releasing it in a couple of months. https://digst.dk/it-loesninger/den-digitale-identitetstegneb...

this scenario can be addressed without digital ID

the social media platforms already measure more than enough signals to understand a users likely age. they could be required by law to do something about it

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#83

Post by arcfour » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

thatguy0900 wrote: post #80

arcfour wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, you should be able to parent your child, rather than having the government arbitrarily and capriciously do so on your behalf, and for everyone else's kids, too. As someone who got my first BlackBerry at 11, which really spurred a lot of my later interests which are now part of my career or led to it indirectly, I am opposed to paternalistic authoritarian governments making choices for everyone. (Funny an…

Comparing the internet we grew up with and the modern internet where a army of psychologists have been unleashed with the express intent to massively increase addiction to everything they touch is very foolish

Demanding a law because you are unable to tell your kids "no" makes you the bigger fool.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#84

Post by willio58 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:00 PM UTC

trey-jones wrote: post #53

As a parent who gave my oldest child a (very used) smartphone just before she turned 14, I would be in favor of making smartphones illegal under age 15 (or some other number, higher or lower I don't care). I'm pretty sure they're worse than cigarettes for the future of humanity.

Agreed. Teachers are seeing the massive benefits from banning phones entirely during school hours. I think once we get data from bans for certain things like social media for kids, we'll all want to get on the wave.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#85

Post by mothballed » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

arcfour wrote: post #83

thatguy0900 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the internet we grew up with and the modern internet where a army of psychologists have been unleashed with the express intent to massively increase addiction to everything they touch is very foolish

Demanding a law because you are unable to tell your kids "no" makes you the bigger fool.

The same people demanding the anti-smart phone laws will rat your ass out the second your kid is spotted walking alone, playing independently, etc. They want to put you in a catch-22 situation.

The real problem here is way less people are parents or people that have no idea what parenting is like, so they don't understand the practicalities of raising children so they come up with the dumbest laws possible and then lord it over you with the full weigh of the state so they can pretend to be parents but with none of the responsibility and all of the smug moral superiority.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#86

Post by foobarian » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

arcfour wrote: post #69

mrtesthah wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the kid feeling left out at school when they're the only one without a smartphone and can't participate in their friends' activities.

...and this needs to be solved with a law? Kids feeling left out over something well and truly inconsequentual?

Who needs laws! Let's also let them all smoke cigarettes too then while we're at it.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#87

Post by thatguy0900 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

arcfour wrote: post #83

thatguy0900 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing the internet we grew up with and the modern internet where a army of psychologists have been unleashed with the express intent to massively increase addiction to everything they touch is very foolish

Demanding a law because you are unable to tell your kids "no" makes you the bigger fool.

This is not about telling kids no. This is about companies (and foreign hostile governments!) worth billions of dollars openly studying how best to prey on children's minds. There are things that are just poisonous to society as a concept.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#88

Post by beloch » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

arcfour wrote: post #59

trey-jones wrote: post #53

As a parent who gave my oldest child a (very used) smartphone just before she turned 14, I would be in favor of making smartphones illegal under age 15 (or some other number, higher or lower I don't care). I'm pretty sure they're worse than cigarettes for the future of humanity.

As a parent, you should be able to parent your child, rather than having the government arbitrarily and capriciously do so on your behalf, and for everyone else's kids, too. As someone who got my first BlackBerry at 11, which really spurred a lot of my later interests which are now part of my career or led to it indirectly, I am opposed to paternalistic authoritarian governments making choices for everyone. (Funny an…

First, if some parents let their kids use social media and some don't, all kids will eventually use it. You can't cut kids off from social spaces their peers are using and expect them to obey.

Second, this move by Denmark reflects a failure to regulate what social media companies have been doing to all their users.

e.g. What has Meta done to address their failures in Myanmar?[1] As little as was legally possible, and that was as close to nothing as makes no difference. More recently, Meta's own projections indicate 10% of their ad revenue comes from fraud[2]. The real proportion is almost certainly higher, but Meta refuses to take action.

Any attempts to tax or regulate American social media companies has invited swift and merciless response from the U.S. government. To make matters worse, U.S. law makes it impossible for American companies to respect the privacy of consumers in non-U.S. markets[3].

Put it all together, and American social media is something that children need to be protected from, but the only way to protect them is to cut them off from it entirely. This is the direct result of companies like Meta refusing to respond to concerns in any way other than lobbying the U.S. government to bully other nations into accepting their products as is.

Good on Denmark. I hope my own country follows suit.

------------

[1]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

[2]https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortu...

[3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2025/07/22/micro...

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#89

Post by davzie » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

arcfour wrote: post #77

dmje wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeh, no. Parents are doing what they can, but it inevitably comes down to “but my friend x has it so why can’t I have it” - so all and any help from government / schools is a good thing. This is so, so, so obviously a nasty, dangerous technology - young brains should absolutely not be exposed to it. In all honesty, neither should older ones, but that’s not what we’re considering here.

"Because I'm your parent, and I said no." Do you buy your kids a toy every time you go to the store? Do you feed them candy for dinner?

Neither of those examples result in social ostracism from peers.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#90

Post by mikkupikku » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 7:04 PM UTC

SunshineTheCat wrote: post #76

trey-jones wrote: post #53

As a parent who gave my oldest child a (very used) smartphone just before she turned 14, I would be in favor of making smartphones illegal under age 15 (or some other number, higher or lower I don't care). I'm pretty sure they're worse than cigarettes for the future of humanity.

Crazy to think how less government would need to act like a mom if there were one or two parents out there who were familiar with the word "no."

Let's do away with the laws requiring shops to check ID before selling cigarettes. After all, a parent can simply tell their child not to smoke cigarettes and that's clearly good enough, right? All in the name of less government, which is clearly the most important priority here.