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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

#171

Post by quotemstr »

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.

You can tell these proposals are made in bad faith because we can do age verification in an anonymous way using zero-knowledge proofs but regulators demand linkable IDs instead.

It's not about protecting the kids. It's about managing the public's information diet. The latter is not a legitimate function of any state.

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

#172

Post by XorNot »

slavik81 wrote: post #75
Noaidi wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. The problem is no one wants to address that maybe some of these business models just need to go extinct.

Like maybe ad supported infinite feeds can't be done in a socially responsible way and just need to be banned. If that takes down or substantially limits certain web service sizes...so be it.

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

#173

Post by Aurornis »

dyauspitr wrote: post #24
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.

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.

> like a central arbiter of identity from the government or something

This comes up in every ID thread on Hacker News, usually with suggestion that we do it via zero-knowledge cryptographic primitives

However, all of those proposals miss the point. These ID verification laws aren't simply designed to confirm that someone has access to an >= 18yo ID. They are identity verification to try to confirm that the person presenting the ID is the same person who is using the site.

This concept is obvious with in-person ID checks: You can't go to the liquor store and show them any random ID, they have to check that it's your ID.

For some reason when we talk about internet ID verification that part is forgotten and we get these proposals to use cryptographic primitives to anonymously check something without linking the person to the ID. It doesn't work, and doesn't satisfy the way these laws are usually written.

I'm also surprised that people of this website even think it might work in the first place. Did everyone forget what it's like to be a kid trying to out-maneuver rules to access something? How long do you think it would take before the first enterprising kid figures out that if they can get access to their mom or older brother's ID, they can charge their friends $5 to use it for this totally anonymous one-time cryptographic ID check for their social media accounts?

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

#174

Post by constantcrying »

quotemstr wrote: post #149
constantcrying wrote: post #133

This is of course a trend in many western countries. With some, like the UK and Australia, leading the way. At this point I do not think it is reasonable to deny the harm that certain modes of social interactions over the internet have caused. At the same time these bans should not be considered reasonable options. They exist to cover for the decade of inaction of politicians in addressing youth dissatisfaction and d…

> At this point I do not think it is reasonable to deny the harm that certain modes of social interactions over the internet have caused Yes, it is reasonable to doubt the purported harms are real, because 1) I've yet to see evidence that the medium is the problem, 2) people keep telling me that they don't need evidence because the harms are obvious, and 3) I have an strong prior, as an American, that anyone preventi…

For the reasons outlined in my post I believe that it is hard to show specific causal claims which relate overuse of mobile devices and especially social media to specific problems. Although I think for some specific cases this could still be reasonably inferred.

Just to be clear, the evidence seems overwhelming. This is not some novel research field, but this questions has been researched for long enough to have been pretty conclusively answered.

>1) I've yet to see evidence that the medium is the problem,

This is not relevant to the claim. The claim is that the specific usage pattern of young adults is harmful to their development.

>I'm not convinced that these social media bans are solving a real problem.

I largely agree.

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

#175

Post by therealdrag0 »

hamdingers wrote: post #168
susam wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What is social about it tho?

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

#176

Post by notthemessiah »

People in this thread are celebrating this, though it inevitably means ID-checking and mass surveillance. Australia's ban also exempted Roblox, a platform that exploits children and is a haven for child predators. Also, it's no coincidence that all these social media bans are arriving the same time youth are using social media to spread awareness of Israel's genocide of Palestine.

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

#177

Post by Aurornis »

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.

That's not how ID checking works, though.

A key part of ID verification laws is that you're confirming the ID presented also belongs to the user.

They can't just check for "This person currently has an adult ID in their possession" and nothing more, otherwise one kid at school would borrow their older brothers' ID and then use it to register all of their friends' accounts one day.

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

#178

Post by m132 »

Open Internet dying in front of our very eyes.

Let's not forget that social media are just one of the many scapegoats tried over the past decade in hopes of pushing this idea forwards. And while there's no denying that today's social media have gotten destructive, they're still only a scapegoat; no attempt is being made here to bring them back to their original, non-malicious shape.

Is the social media hate really so powerful that, channeled carefully, it can overshadow free speech?

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

#179

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

Aurornis wrote: post #163
whyenot wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What are your thoughts on lemmy, maybe the hobby can be extremely niche but you can even be the moderator yourself on a lemmy instance and I think that a federated reddit alternative would be nice too!

If I may ask, what are the hobbies that you are talking about?

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

#180

Post by edoceo »

hackyhacky wrote: post #150
XorNot wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment.

> Hacker News has plenty of its own echo chamber, no different to any other social environment. Sure, but fwiw the HN echo chamber is organic. People choose to interact with people who have similar opinions, as they have since forever. In contrast, the echo chamber on HN, Tiktok, FB, etc is architected specifically to drive engagement. You are shown more of the content that you react to, so that you won't leave.

Typo on second mention of HN?
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