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From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

reuters.com

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Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#81

Post by inigyou »

dgrcode wrote: post #46
pcrh wrote: post #27

Would someone be able to comment on this: Why is it not possible to require websites that wish to market to children to be certified as "child safe". Such sites would be audited by an independent entity that would grant them some form of encrypted key. These could be in age bands, e.g. We do this for many other things, from toys to public venues. Parents could then set their child's device to only allow access to sit…

This seems to be a situation where the stated problem (protect children) is different to the actual problem (surveillance). Your proposal doesn't solve the actual problem.

Protecting children is a real problem, the internet right now is doing massive damage to everyone (not only children but for some reason we don't protect adults). Opportunists are seeing the opportunity to paperclip mass surveillance onto actual child protection efforts.

We can fight this by supporting child protection mechanisms that don't act as mass surveillance, such as the one in California that merely reports whether root said the user is a child, and fighting ones that do, such as the one in New York that checks your ID.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#82

Post by inigyou »

_AzMoo wrote: post #40
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #12

A ban is a good idea, but not by eroding the privacy of every adult, for all of the reasons stated elsewhere. I think most people agree that social media is toxic, not just for children, but adults too. What I don't understand is why parents don't take responsibility for reducing the contact with such harmful products. Even growing up in the 70's, most children didn't smoke or drink alcohol, not because they didn't h…

> What I don't understand is why parents don't take responsibility for reducing the contact with such harmful products. It's critical mass. I didn't want my 13-year-old daughter on social media, because even 7 years ago we knew the harms. We were firm, and we kept her off it. The problem was that we were attempting to help her with her mental health, but when you're literally the only kid who didn't read the group ch…

Do you think there could be explicitly child-friendly social media? I don't know how you'd get past the network effect, but could it work? Maybe adults would have to set up groups, and connections could only be established with Bluetooth or something to ensure physical proximity (yes you could cheat but you'd need weird hardware or software to do so).

Adults setting up groups would be so that you could have a group for "year 11 maths class" but not for "people who hate susan"

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#83

Post by cam_l »

roenxi wrote: post #7

In Australia, back in 2021, we had a senior politician run out of politics because a relatively small-time YouTuber just wouldn't shut up about his connections to organised crime. And friendlyjordies house was eventually firebombed by the organised criminals too, so that was interesting. Now obviously one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch [0] but it always struck me as the sort of thing that would ruffle feathe…

To be fair, barilaro called himself 'pork barilaro'. I don't think anyone shed a tear for him being run out of politics.

I certainly don't think it has anything to do with this.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#84

Post by pibaker »

inigyou wrote: post #73
Aurornis wrote: post #59

The only way to force sites to exclude children is to have them ID everyone. This is why forcing each site to restrict access is a terrible idea. It’s a backdoor to destroying everyone’s privacy. What we really need is for each of these sites to advertise its category or age targets, similar to how TV shows have a rating. Then end user devices like phones and browsers should have the option of setting parental contro…

Sounds very similar to the California bill that passed a few months ago - the one HN absolutely hated. The person who does device initial setup says whether the account is a child or adult, and transmits this to websites so they can block the content appropriately. (The site transmitting a rating doesn't work because most sites that aren't porn sites have mixed content ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181208

GP's proposal does content filtering on the user's machine. Your age info never leaves your own device. The Californian proposal requires telling the service your age. I can see why HN absolutely hates the later given the HN crowd's general attitude towards data collection.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#85

Post by inigyou »

Cider9986 wrote: post #35

GrapheneOS has released their Android 17 update. Grapheneos has stated that they won't be adding any identity verification or scanning, ever. It's highly usable and has very similar UX to Pixels. I switched from iOS and have found the UI to be better although it's largely the same on stock Pixel. There's over 99% app compatibility and the only failing apps are additional restrictions added by a small subset (less tha…

My bank app works on GrapheneOS FWIW.

Not all do, but it's positioning itself as a legitimate secure OS and not some weird shady crap, so I heard some people had success petitioning their banks to allow it. Sometimes they have an OS whitelist to avoid shady or insecure devices (thanks government regulation!), but since GOS is not shady or insecure it just has to be added to the whitelist. Good luck reaching the right people, but if the alternative is closing your account... sometimes they listen. They might also have an account flag to bypass OS whitelist for you.

But mine just worked.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#86

Post by inigyou »

WithinReason wrote: post #32

Why not bind it to the phone itself? The phone (or a phone app) would verify you're an adult, and beyond that the website would know nothing but that 1 bit of information.

That's how the California law works

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#87

Post by zimpenfish »

Aromasin wrote: post #33
zimpenfish wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most jurisdictions regulate gambling to reduce societal harm. The UK tried to ban gambling advertising during football matches but... "There were over 5,000 visible gambling advertisements during a recent Premier League match despite a ban that was expected to result in a reduction, researchers found."[0] That's one (1) televised match (you'd expect 3-4 at least per weekend to be televised.) Not to mention that the…

The "whistle-to-whistle ban" was always poor legislation. By its own terms it only suppresses TV betting adverts in a defined window and lapses at 9pm, and it never touched the categories that actually make up most of the advertising we see; shirts, hoardings, and structural branding, etc. It was an utterly pointless measure that serves to achieve not a single one of it's initial goals.

> It was an utterly pointless measure that serves to achieve not a single one of it's initial goals.

Such is the way with UKGOV, sadly.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#88

Post by inigyou »

big85 wrote: post #56
WithinReason wrote: post #32

Why not bind it to the phone itself? The phone (or a phone app) would verify you're an adult, and beyond that the website would know nothing but that 1 bit of information.

There's still the issue of how to verify the user to give them that 1 bit. The current tools do not trust the user or the user's device, because the user could lie or modify the software on their device. But once my ID leaves the device, it becomes a privacy issue. You also have the problem that every pre-2026 device no longer functions with any site that requires the 1 bit.

In the California law the verification is just assuming the person who bought the device is an adult.

This creates a grey zone where a 16yo could buy their own device and set themselves as an adult but grey zones like this aren't really a bad thing.

There's also no penalty for lying. If an adult wants a child to have an adult account, they can.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#89

Post by pibaker »

Larrikin wrote: post #23
beardyw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most children didn't smoke or drink alcohol, not because they didn't have access to it, but because of the wrath of their parents. I think you have answered your own question. The children who need this ban most are the children of parents who don't pay attention/care what their children are doing. So the state has to do it for them.

The state should take the children from them instead of destroying the rights of adults

Have a look at what's going on in the foster care system and tell me with a serious face that taking children away from parents, outside the absolutely worst cases, is actually helping the children.

Re: From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access

#90

Post by inigyou »

somelamer567 wrote: post #41
noja wrote: post #11

_Social media company execs_ also want to curb their children's social media access.

I did think it was interesting to read that Steve Jobs banned his kids from having screen in their rooms on day 1. Zuckerberg apparently does the same. What do the billionaires know that we don't?

Not much. They just have a very comfortable level of wealth that insulates them from much of society's pressures. They probably don't even really understand that 10 year olds are using their platforms and the effect of that - they're half-insane paperclip maximizers.
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