Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media • Hacker News Board

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#51

Post by digiown » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

direwolf20 wrote: post #44

digiown wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already basically can't use most mainstream platforms anonymously. Try registering a Facebook without a phone number (you need to give a passport to get one in most of Europe).

Do children have no phone numbers or do they use their parent's?

You need a passport associated with it, you don't necessarily need to be an adult I think. Or the parent's is fine. Either way you will have to try quite hard to get a FB account not associated with a real life identity. And then they'd shadowban you.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#52

Post by direwolf20 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

GaryBluto wrote: post #38

Aeolun wrote: post #31

Is it really so controversial to ban it entirely? We ban heroin and other hard drugs. I think most people are better off, and have a more nuanced view of reality if the only news they get is local. Or the updates from people they know always in person.

Social media is not a hard drug.

What is the definition of a hard drug?

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#53

Post by peyton » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #17

mjevans wrote: post #6

I'm fine with this, as long as they DO NOT require any form of ID or 'age' verification. Instead this should be attacked from the profit side, by banning any form of advertising which might target children. If there's no profit to be made in servicing said demographic and a law requesting at least end user 'agreement' that they are an adult, this should be sufficient.

Any kind of zero knowledge verification should be ok. But with minors it often goes a long way to just make the law. It’s a good instruction to parents who should be able to control this. Laws on bike helmets for minors are followed nearly 100% not because they are enforced by authorities but because the law gives parents guidance.

Bike helmets are for safety but reading the article the ban is more for some kind of societal change. I don’t know if it’s really comparable.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#54

Post by riffraff » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #36

How do they even define “social media”? Do they just ban kids from participating in society using electronic communications? Or maintain a stoplist “here’s what we consider to be social media”? Or what? I mean, sure, prime examples of what is colloquially called “social media” is crapware. I do get the intent. But I wonder what sort of unintended, unplanned, odd and potentially even socially harmful consequences it w…

Australia enacted this through a stoplist, but also appears to require self-assessment by the services themselves.

https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/soci...

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#55

Post by tartoran » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:55 PM UTC

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #21

digiown wrote: post #11

I secretly wish it would use a verification scheme that's so invasive/annoying, that even adults would stop using it anyway.

"Social media" doesn't just mean Facebook right? It includes sites like Hacker News, yeah?

No, HN is more like a forum. It doesn’t have dark patterns and addictive engineering built in, even if it could itself be addictive. There ‘s been functionality built in to limit time spent on HN for a long time. Look at noprocrast setting for example. Even if HN could be seen as social media it’s not in the same category of destructive social media a la Facebook/Instagram/Tiktok

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#56

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #23

bluescrn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO the main point of these schemes is to make it hard for adults to use social media somewhat-anonyously. So the government can more easily identify those posting 'prohibited speech'. If there was a legitimate drive to protect kids from the worst of the Internet, there'd have been more of a crackdown on porn, gore, etc long before social media became such a big problem. And smartphones would have never been allowed…

What major revolutions or important political shifts have occurred from people anonymously shitposting on Reddit or Facebook ?

None. Almost by definition, the folks who satisfy themselves waxing online drive complacency away from real action. That doesn’t, however, mean they aren’t self-importantly organized to later support an organized movement.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#57

Post by Zigurd » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

GaryBluto wrote: post #38

Aeolun wrote: post #31

Is it really so controversial to ban it entirely? We ban heroin and other hard drugs. I think most people are better off, and have a more nuanced view of reality if the only news they get is local. Or the updates from people they know always in person.

Social media is not a hard drug.

"Hard drug" is a loaded term. Nicotine is more addictive than some "hard drugs." That big VC funded vape maker couldn't stay away from child friendly marketing.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#58

Post by bluescrn » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

digiown wrote: post #51

direwolf20 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do children have no phone numbers or do they use their parent's?

You need a passport associated with it, you don't necessarily need to be an adult I think. Or the parent's is fine. Either way you will have to try quite hard to get a FB account not associated with a real life identity. And then they'd shadowban you.

In the UK, pay-as-you-go SIMs are widely available. Not sure how much information you need to give to activate+use one these days, though.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#59

Post by hiprob » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:58 PM UTC

Are they going to conduct an uncontrolled human experiment by requiring age checks to use the Internet (read: surveillance capitalism and Orwellian lack of privacy)?

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#60

Post by Noaidi » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:59 PM UTC

Can we be it for adults now? Seriously, can we?

I mean, if it affects a children’s what makes we think it doesn’t affect adults? Alcohol affects children, and it affects adults. If social media affects children, it also affects adults.

The big live social media was it was meant to connect people but in truth, it was designed to control people.