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

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

#161

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

api wrote: post #123

cheeseface wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Smaller subs can still be decent but I agree about popular and larger subs. They’re just brain rot and engagement bait now.

I don't know any more. Even the small subs I previously visited for good content have turned into their own little echo chambers, along with a lot of drive-by posts because small subs get recommended in other people's feeds now.

In some of the hobby subreddits where I had good discussions in the past it's now just one big echo chamber of people parroting the same information around, whether it's true or not. If you want to participate you either need to toe the line of the accepted brands/methods/techniques or keep your mouth shut. Most of us just get tired and give up

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

#162

Post by BrenBarn » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

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…

> So it's probably fine to just block the big platforms. Forums or messengers (without ads and public channels) are probably fine.

Even better might be to just destroy the big platforms by breaking them up.

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

#163

Post by Aurornis » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

whyenot wrote: post #160

cheeseface wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What I find particularly bad about Reddit is the platform is specifically designed to amplify group think and silence competing opinions. All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility. It can turn subreddits into little bubbles where like-minded people upvote each other and almost never have to see dissenting opinions. That may not be a big deal on a gardening subreddit, but it c…

> That may not be a big deal on a gardening subreddit,

I had to abandon my last few hobby subreddits because there were a few chronically online people who had to control the conversation in every single post with their opinions. If anyone didn't agree, their comments would mysteriously go to -3 or below within 30 minutes of posting.

It's all little fiefdoms for chronically online people now.

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

#164

Post by dragoncrab » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:33 PM UTC

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…

Myspace and early Facebook were already a downgrade to classic chatrooms. I met with so many interesting people on chat in the early 2000s and have met with many offline as well. Multiple times I've travelled 6+ hours to participate in chat meetups with 20-50 others from the same chatroom.

Those were different times: Over 4 years, I've never received a d*ckpic or was target of stalking, harassment, abuse or scam. People were genuinely interested in each other, chat was not about building a personal brand and anonymity didn't make commenters psychos.

I'm not sure if ignorance was bliss, or times changed so much, but as an adult, I feel online communication has became a battlefield where I need to protect my sanity every time I interact with it. Rage bait, fake news, ads, bot farms, lies in a never ending flood. I wouldn't let my children to even try to live the same, uncontrolled online life I had.

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

#165

Post by grekowalski » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:34 PM UTC

gman83 wrote: post #137

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 wouldn't be surprised if Meta turned WhatsApp into a TikTok clone just to get around the restrictions. They know that banning WhatsApp for teenagers in Europe is almost impossible. I look at my kids, all their sports clubs and other extracurricular activities are organized through WhatsApp. I already had to block Youtube on their devices. I was alright with them watching a couple of long-form youtube videos every d…

Check out the NewPipe app. It works only on Android — it’s YouTube for minimalists. No Shorts, no feed, no ads.

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

#166

Post by Ylpertnodi » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:34 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #142

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…

> Probably even Reddit - which does have an algorithm to show specific content - is not as bad. I'm surprised Reddit gets a pass or borderline pass in social media discussions. In my experience working with kids, Reddit was the worst of the social media platforms for mental health. By far. The kids who were into Reddit were always spouting off information they got from Reddit and had soul-crushing amounts of cynicism…

> ....the stereotypical social media dangers that get talked about, like boys following Andrew Tate and such

I wonder where tate got his ideas and influences from. And why he's free in the US.

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

#167

Post by JoshTriplett » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:34 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #158

JoshTriplett wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Without accepting the premise that it should be acceptable to have to provide any kind of proof...) > Zero knowledge protocols really have no functional revocation mechanism. None would be needed, you (sadly) only age in one direction, so valid proof would never become invalid proof.

>valid proof would never become invalid proof Somebody can give their proof of age to another person.

And? Presentation of someone else's valid credentials is not fixable by any privacy-preserving mechanism. You can set an expiration date in order to rotate them, and they can be fast-rotating.

In any case, it's a moot point: the correct amount of required identification is zero.

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

#168

Post by hamdingers » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

susam wrote: post #134

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…

> Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days Indeed. I no longer call them social media. They have all become attention media platforms. I recently expressed my thoughts about this on my blog at https://susam.net/attention-media-is-not-social-media.html >. These days I typically resolve the domain names of these attention media platforms to 127.0.0.1 in my /etc/hosts file, so that I do not inadver…

> I no longer call them social media.

Social media is the correct name for what they are now, they're channels that push curated content out to their users.

The thing they used to be is social networking.

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

#169

Post by jmathai » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC

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 wish the same would happen for games like Roblox. These games suffer from all the same problems social media does.

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

#170

Post by SilverElfin » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 8:38 PM UTC

whyenot wrote: post #160

cheeseface wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What I find particularly bad about Reddit is the platform is specifically designed to amplify group think and silence competing opinions. All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility. It can turn subreddits into little bubbles where like-minded people upvote each other and almost never have to see dissenting opinions. That may not be a big deal on a gardening subreddit, but it c…

> All it takes is five more downvotes than upvotes and a comment will lose visibility.

That is true here too. And Twitter is the least transparent, with people regularly reporting that posts critical of musk or trump have reduced reach compared to their other posts.