Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 506 posts

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#121

Post by greenleafone7 »

idle_zealot wrote: post #73
bitwize wrote: post #65

> government: bans social media for under 16. > hackernews: "Good. It's about time government took action. The only cure for these abusive capitalist companies is government regulation." > government: passes law requiring age verification at the OS level > hackernews: "Oh no! How could this happen? We have to fight this you guys. For sure if it weren't for big tech lobbyists we wouldn't have to worry about draconian…

And your position is that the government doing anything is bad, then? Better to just resign yourself to abusive capitalists? The position that you're mocking is the belief that some laws are good and some bad. The fact that you seem to find that objectionable is baffling.

[flagged]

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#122

Post by john_strinlai »

contagiousflow wrote: post #118
john_strinlai wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is it not relevant? its an example of holding the parent responsible when the child breaks a law. if accessing social media below 16 becomes illegal, this is a literal perfect example of holding parents accountable for their kids illegal activity. you can't possibly get more relevant. there is no reason to shift parental responsibility onto tech companies. we have existing laws that can be used as templates for s…

Correct me if the US is different, but in the country I live in the onus is on the bar or liquor store if they sell alcohol to a child, not on the parent. Why would it be different for a social media ban?

in your country, who is responsible if a 12 year old keeps getting drunk at home and the parents do nothing to prevent it?

do they go after the liquor store and just ignore the parents letting their kids drink?

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#123

Post by dmje »

varjag wrote: post #114
an0malous wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can iterate quickly, sure, but that’s something governments famously don’t do well. It’ll take five years to assess the results and another five years to change them.

It is certainly better than the status quo. Don't underestimate the effect of simply making something illegal.

100% agree. The 2007 smoking ban in the UK totally transformed the landscape here, and yes people could still go home and smoke or whatever, but that ban has made a huge and significant change to health and thinking about smoking over the last 20 years. We need to do the same with social media and recognise that it's likely to be seen as toxic as smoking in a few years time - if not already.

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#124

Post by kieranmaine »

john_strinlai wrote: post #87
wrs wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using social media is not a crime. I think what we’re talking about here is child welfare or child protection laws (which all 50 states probably also have).

if disallowing social media use below the age of 16 becomes a law (like the article's proposed bill), and a kid breaks that law, this seems like a perfect example of holding the parents liable? but also yes, child welfare laws and such are also pretty fitting examples. i dont think the person asking for an example was really asking in good faith, anyhow.

My understanding in this case the social media company is liable for allowing a child to access social media. So is not a crime for a child to use social media.

> Children cannot be left with the responsibility for staying away from platforms they are not allowed to use. That responsibility rests with the companies providing these services. They must implement effective age verification and comply with the law from day one

From the original press release https://www.regjeringen.no/en/whats-new/norwegian-social-med...

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#125

Post by greenleafone7 »

idle_zealot wrote: post #101
bitwize wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually no. The position I'm mocking is that we can somehow implement enforceable age restrictions on digital platforms without a verification mechanism that extends to the client level, even to the hardware. I think we need to suck it up and accept that the free-wheeling 90s are over, and using computers, the internet, and technology in general will become a much more regulated activity in the very near future, whi…

This isn't a real dichotomy. There's not a lever positioned between safety and freedom that people can collectively choose to shift one way or another. The best way to enhance safety is to directly ban the harmful behavior, not install cameras everywhere to make sure that only the right people fall victim to it. A panopticon is both less free and less safe than the world we have now, and a world where Meta and Google…

Yes, but the government wants social media as long as it's their propaganda being pushed in there. That's why they love TVs. Now that no one uses TVs any longer exactly because we know it's just government mandated propaganda they have an issue.

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#126

Post by caconym_ »

fsflover wrote: post #108
10xDev wrote: post #94

Good, social media is cancer on society and will only get worse with LLMs, Deepfakes etc. All the astroturfing in favour of social media couldn't possibly change my mind on how harmful social media has been on society.

Does HN count, or is the actual problem the algorithmic feeds?

Platforms like HN are still vulnerable to astroturfing and bubble effects, but at least the operators aren't optimizing for engagement beyond [what I assume is] a fairly simple up/down ranking system based on user votes and time decay.

Moderation is another question. On HN again I don't really get the sense that there is a lot of censorship. On Reddit, on the other hand, the behavior of moderators and admins is legitimately frightening once you start paying attention.

Overall I would shut it all down forever if I could, but if I had a limited budget I would prioritize Meta's platforms and similar algorithmic infinite-scroll slop feeds. I think all they do is addict people to scrolling and epistemically poison them without giving any real value back.

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#127

Post by LocalH »

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #115
fsflover wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does HN count, or is the actual problem the algorithmic feeds?

I would categorize HN as a news aggregator with a comment section, not social media.

The various laws being proposed don't tend to agree with that

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#128

Post by achenet »

10xDev wrote: post #94

Good, social media is cancer on society and will only get worse with LLMs, Deepfakes etc. All the astroturfing in favour of social media couldn't possibly change my mind on how harmful social media has been on society.

In my opinion, the basic idea of social media isn't necessarily bad, it's the fact that it is ad supported, which incentivizes completely controlling the attention of users, which is the issue.

Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

#130

Post by jjulius »

fsflover wrote: post #108
10xDev wrote: post #94

Good, social media is cancer on society and will only get worse with LLMs, Deepfakes etc. All the astroturfing in favour of social media couldn't possibly change my mind on how harmful social media has been on society.

Does HN count, or is the actual problem the algorithmic feeds?

Yes.
Post reply on HN