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Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

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

#71

Post by joe_mamba »

bobthepanda wrote: post #22
joe_mamba wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who decides whether an ad is targeting children or not? Much simpler than that, you just ban all targeted ads full stop end of story. The ad-funded internet existed in the 90s before ad targeting was a thing. You went on a car forum, you'd get ads about car parts. You went on a PC forum, you'd get ads about PC parts. Pretty simple stuff that didn't need to know your age, gender, political affiliation, ovulation stat…

Ads and media are generally exploitative and manipulative, even if not targeted specifically at anybody. 3 years after the nation of Fiji received its first television broadcasts in 1995, dieting and disordered eating went from unheard of to double digit percentages among teenage girls. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/20/world/study-finds-tv-alte... > Before 1995, Dr. Becker said, there was little talk of dieting in…

It's not as binary as in all forms of advertising are equally evil. As much as manipulative as traditional media advertising was/is, targeted advertising is easily orders of magnitude worse, and a good place for regulation to start if we wish to improve anything.

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

#72

Post by SirMaster »

tartoran wrote: post #55
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

What about Reddit? What about 4chan?

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

#73

Post by mrweasel »

digiown wrote: post #25
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd draw a line using some of these aspects: - Algorithmic recommendation / "engagement" engineering - Profit/business model - Images/Videos - Real-life identity

The two first I'd get behind, the latter two I just don't think matter too much.

Algorithmic, for profit, social media is by far the worst technology ever foisted upon humanity. Even most of the issues with AI/LLMs become moot if we where to remove platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X and to some extend YouTube. Removing the ability to spread misinformation and fueling anger and device thought would improve society massively. Social media allows Russian and Chinese governments to effect election, they allow Trump to have an actual voice and they allow un-vetted information to reach people who are not equipped to deal with it.

It's time to accept that social media was an experiment, it could have worked in an uncommercial settings, but overall it failed. Humanity is not equipped, mentally, to handle algorithmic recommendation and the commercialization of our attention.

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

#74

Post by xixixao »

bluescrn wrote: post #18
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.

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…

Your argument hinges on the assumption that porn and gore etc. have worse impact on kids. I don’t think there’s a concensus on that. One might argue that porn and gore could have been found in print before the internet, but that social media have a more novel impact.

I personally like the theory that most kids problems are actually attributable to family issues. That kids in solid family environment/upbringing will not be “destroyed” by computer games, porn, gore (2 girls 1 cup anyone?), or social media. But that’s also just a theory.

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

#75

Post by slavik81 »

Noaidi wrote: post #63
pfdietz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But think of the children" has always been the go-to excuse for tossing freedom out the window.

So in this case, do we just stop thinking about the children in totality?

If manipulative algorithm are the problem, then perhaps we should consider regulations that would protect everyone.

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

#76

Post by jimbob45 »

OsamaJaber wrote: post #65

The real question is enforcement They tried this, and kids just moved to platforms nobody knew existed

Eventually group SMS would still function well for this, no? Shared email lists barring that. This seems like a race to the bottom.

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

#77

Post by joe_mamba »

beAbU wrote: post #41
Tade0 wrote: post #16

I'm eternally grateful that the social media network that I was part of throughout my teenage years abruptly disappeared from the internet, never to come back again. Some say it was a technical failure during migration when the company was trying to pivot to file hosting, but it's impossible to verify. Perhaps these bans are a blessing in disguise and future generations will be happy to not have their most awkward st…

Are you referring to MySpace? My highschool band had tracks and videos of live performances in the school hall on there that is forever lost and I'm still bitter about it.

How is MySpace even comparable to today's social media? AFAIK MySpace wasn't agoritmycally driven to keep you addicted like TikTok or Instagram do. MySpace was just you and your friends from school competing on whose page is the tackiest.

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

#78

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

tartoran wrote: post #55
bitshiftfaced wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

Yeah, agreed. While there are gray areas in the definition, and I can certainly waste an absolute shitload of time on HN and Reddit, both of those sites allow anonymity, and neither provide user-specific personalization (with Reddit you can obviously choose to subscribe to certain subreddits, but that's not done for you, and AFAIK everyone gets the same view and order of stories and comments). What you see in the future is not just inferred from what you clicked on in the past, and that for me is the cardinal sin of most social networks.

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

#79

Post by phtrivier »

riffraff wrote: post #40
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…

90% of the people that spout racism, conspiracy theories, threaten people, etc.. on social networks use their real name and login with their phone number, there's no need to ask the social networks to get ID cards, if you are the government.

I really doubt bots are using legitimate IDs.

The target for those age verification schemes (beyond actually preventing the kids' brains from being rotten by American ad supported skinner boxes) is probably to make schemes like IRA [1] just slightly more complicated. (I said "more complicated", I did not say "impossible" - I very much know that bot factories will find their ways around any kind of verification ; part of being on the defensive side of a conflict is about not giving up.)

[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/19/airbus_sovereign_clou...

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

#80

Post by unclad5968 »

k__ wrote: post #13
mytailorisrich wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without age verification this is obviously an unenforceable ban... I think Finland already has schemes for age verification.

Yeah. Zero knowledge proof and you're good to go.

How would a zero knowledge proof of my age work?
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