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France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

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Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#131

Post by heavyset_go »

Epskampie wrote: post #127
heavyset_go wrote: post #111

Some related information, I see a lot of talk about how people feel social media or phones affect young people, but little data or input from researchers who are not politicians or selling books. From Nature[1]: > Time spent on social media among the least influential factors in adolescent mental health From the Atlantic[2] with citations in the article: > The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens, > It may only…

Even Meta's OWN research indicated social media is actively harmful to teens. That means, the people with the most to lose couldn't even escape this conclusion. Sure, you may be able to find 1 or 2 counterexamples, big tabacco also had a lot of "doctors" who found smoking not that bad. https://www.reuters.com/business/instagram-shows-more-eating...

Let's see the data, please. This is from your own link:

> The researchers stressed that their findings did not prove that Instagram was making users feel worse about their bodies. “It is not possible to establish the causal direction of these findings,” they wrote, noting the possibility that teens who felt bad about themselves could be actively seeking out that material.

Should we ban libraries because someone who is depressed might seek out a Sylvia Plath book?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/instagram-shows-more-eating...

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#132

Post by vasco »

ale42 wrote: post #100
vasco wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because under the guise of protecting children you now require the ID of everyone. And the service list will expand. Can't wait to have to swipe my ID to even start Chrome.

Switzerland created a digital ID platform (see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45407657 ), that has been open sourced, and that would allow people to prove for example their age without revealing any other personal details. It's maybe not the perfect solution, but I find this highly preferable to sharing my ID with some social media platform.

I can create an open source project that's very safe too. But where is my assurance thats what runs in the backend? All I know is what I'm sending. I have no guarantee of anything else?

It's the exact same problem with adding software the voting process.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#133

Post by ekianjo »

bambax wrote: post #8
ekianjo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senate just stamps whatever comes on their desk in France

Not exactly. They don't have the final say, so if they disagree with something, they can (and will) be overruled. But they don't "stamp" things and aren't otherwise made to approve what they don't like.

Have they been opposed to anything remotely meaningful in recent history?

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#135

Post by Mordisquitos »

quotemstr wrote: post #59
Mordisquitos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who benefited from having access to a computer and the internet early on had no access to social media. Also, nobody is banning under 15s from having access to a computer and the internet.

This site is social media. Should under 15s be prevented discussing developers in the tech industry? No? On what grounds? HN uses opaque feed ranking algorithms. It's run by a for-profit US tech company. It uses dark patterns (e.g. shadowbans and unwired "flag" links) that prompt users to engage under false pretenses. It even has advertisements. The horror! Yet nobody serious says HN is harmful to the fledging minor…

Let us assume that:

    1. On average, it is a net negative for under 15s to participate in Instagram, TikTok, Xitter, YouTube, Snapchat, etc  
    2. On average, it is a net positive for under 15s to participate in HN, old-school forums, and the like.
    3. It is not possible to legally differentiate services referred to in points 1 & 2, so a ban must be all-or-nothing.
Under those assumptions, the question becomes whether the overall net positive of allowing under-15s to participate in HN and old-school forums outweighs the overall net negative of allowing under-15s to participate in Instagram, TikTok, etc.

Given the relative number of under-15s participating in each category of services, do you think that is the case?

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#136

Post by ruicraveiro »

timpera wrote: post #126
mlrtime wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>European law takes precedence over national law Which European law supersedes this law? My unfamiliar guess is that if there is no specific contradiction then French law stands, otherwise how can any country pass any laws in the EU?

The Conseil d'Etat seems to think that there is a contradiction between the original draft and the DSA: https://www.conseil-etat.fr/avis-consultatifs/derniers-avis-... (starting at number 12) > "By imposing a ban on access to social media on online platforms, the wording of the proposed law could be seen as raising difficulties with regard to the Digital Services Act."

Specifically, which?

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#137

Post by fyredge »

mary-ext wrote: post #14

I've noticed that there's a decent amount of people who had benefitted having access to computer and internet really early on that seemed to be pro on banning teen access to social media, is there a reason why? the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day if algorithmic amplification is the reason then I'm not sure why social media as a whole has to be banne…

The social media of today is very very much different from internet forums of old.

The old forums were populated by people with specific interests who sought out community. This is opposed to modern social media where everyone is on a single (or several) platforms where the community is recommended to you. This bypasses the first mental defense of actively sifting through content.

The second difference is the commodification of attention. Old forums have no intention of keeping you on them. You are free to join and leave as you please, so are others there. In contrast, modern social media have become a place where people need to be to network online (see Facebook and LinkedIn). In addition, the incentive of advertisements encourage social media to keep your attention as a source of revenue than to serve your interests as a user.

So if governments want to regulate social media, I'm all up for it. They regulated gambling and drugs for addiction, why not social media.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#138

Post by Nursie »

terespuwash wrote: post #116
Nursie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol. Errr... there are quite a few places where children aren't allowed to enter a bar, or can only go to them with parents if the establishment also serves food. > Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone It's not 100% clear to me this is true, it may be that the way…

There are many things that can be changed to make the platforms more suitable to younger users. Just banning it instead of searching for a good balance won’t help the next generation to understand the world and take a part in it. There are so many ways the platforms can be changed but France decided they've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.

Are there many things that could be changed without a) changing the fundamental nature of what social media is or b) keeping the harms that are being identified?

> Just banning it instead of searching for a good balance won’t help the next generation to understand the world and take a part in it.

I would dispute that you need to be anywhere near social media to take part in the world, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's the opposite. Social media is playing into isolation and anxiety for young people. Putting some distance between them and the social media companies is likely to be healthy.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#139

Post by Nursie »

heavyset_go wrote: post #117
Nursie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1pmvcml/my_14yo_is_l... I think it depends on your definition of withdrawal, but it seems that some teens did experience something analagous to it here in Australia. I think this counts in favour of the ban, myself.

Being discriminated against by the government sucks, and so does getting locked out of the main way the world communicates in the 21st century. I don't blame a 14 year old for not handling a violation of their rights in a mature manner.

Or, just hear me out, or it might be actual withdrawal symptoms as the source of dopamine spikes is withdrawn, which is what it seems to look like.

Re: France passes bill to ban social media use by under-15s

#140

Post by gonlad_x »

haght wrote: post #134

I wouldn't be so much against it, if it was anonymous If they make a system utilising the Zero-knowledge proof concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

Actually, the EU has a project centered around zk proofs exactly for this: https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-secu..., https://eudi.dev/2.7.3/discussion-topics/g-zero-knowledge-pr...
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