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Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

yle.fi

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

#111

Post by alkonaut »

salawat wrote: post #70
dyauspitr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, we should have age verification but maybe it can be done in a mostly anonymous way like a central arbiter of identity from the government or something.

That's exactly the opposite of anonymous. You cannot have anonymity & age verification that actually guarantees anything. It's a contradiction. Either the chain exists, or it doesn't.

Are you saying it would be impossible to have a service where the site (social media, say) would issue some sort of random token and ask me to sign it using a centralized ID service. Then I log in to the centralized id service and use it to sign the random token and bring it back to the service.

The centralized service see who I am, but not what I'm proving my age for. The social media or other site see that I have signed their token so would have the appropriate age, but not who I am.

What's impossible about this?

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

#112

Post by idle_zealot »

echelon wrote: post #101
bilsbie wrote: post #95

Noble goal but it ends up being a defacto internet license. All ages need to show id to use sites and services.

110%. No website of any kind should require IDV unless banking. It is a tool that will be used for censorship, removal of access to information, destruction of freedom of speech, erosion of privacy, and attacks on political opponents. We need anonymity, ephemerality, and public square free speech. Governments should instead regulate what these companies can do. How they advertise. Engagement algorithms. Stop internal…

This is the obvious solution, but implementing it would be a herculean effort. Not because it's technically difficult, of course.

Consider the incentives of all involved powerful groups.

You have social media giants who want to addict and advertise to users. The hate your solution, obviously. With the ID checks they lose out on their younger users, but they also get cover for even more aggressive behavior as nobody can credibly yell "think of the children!" at them.

Then you have government officials who are nervous about their lack of effective control over modern media. Your solution offers them nothing and loses them points with those powerful business leaders. It opens them up to attack from the right for being "too hard on business and stifling innovation." The ID checks, on the other hand, give them a mechanism and lever to crack down on any sentiment in the public that runs counter to their or their friends' interests. It even polls pretty well with an increasingly large number of paranoid and distrusting voters.

There's no contest at all between the routes before us. Only a huge political upheaval could divert the world from this path. The indicator to look for in a representative is a willingness to champion policy that hurts entrenched political and economic power while providing straightforward utility to average citizens.

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

#114

Post by rendall »

The impression that one might get from this article is that the ban is essentially a done deal, but it’s not. What exists right now is political signaling by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, plus preliminary fact-finding and position papers by ministries and agencies, but no enacted legislation. There’s still a big gap between "government floats an idea with broad public support" and "a legally enforceable, technically workable ban".

The Finnish language article about it is much thinner.

https://yle.fi/a/74-20204177

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

#116

Post by mjr00 »

hiprob wrote: post #83
tartoran wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Legally, it doesn't matter. You can talk to people? Social media it is.

> Legally, it doesn't matter. You can talk to people? Social media it is.

No this isn't true at all, it absolutely does matter legally. Look at Australia's underage social media ban. Twitter was forced to ban children, but Bluesky was not despite being the platforms being effectively the same. Roblox and Discord, no bans despite being an extremely common place for young people to socialize.

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

#117

Post by john01dav »

andix wrote: post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

Reddit is plenty addictive in my experience, and I've heard the same from other people ranging from high school teachers to tradespeople.

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

#118

Post by cheeseface »

andix wrote: post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

Agree on how the platform’s have changed.

However, I don’t think Reddit is an exception. Popular is often filled with content that is driven by the feelings of fear and hate. Not something I’d like to continually expose kids or teens to.

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

#119

Post by tedmiston »

andix wrote: post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

reddit having tons of niche subreddits and the ability to sort them by best all time is one of my favorite ways to filter for higher-quality content. (i don't use the main feed much.)

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

#120

Post by _DeadFred_ »

andix wrote: post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

I remember when they saw what a certain game app was doing and were disgusted by it. Wild to me that those same people l̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶ almost instantly chose to not only adopt the behavior but make it core functionality. It's way worse when you see the evil and STILL chose it.
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