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

bloomberg.com

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

#131

Post by [deleted] »

kieranmaine wrote: post #124
john_strinlai wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

[deleted]

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

#132

Post by dfxm12 »

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.

Please take a beat to think about how this would be implemented (it looks like it's not decided at this time) before reflexively saying "good" because the marketing sounds nice. This is how the US got swindled into accepting the PATRIOT act, et al.

There are problems with social media, yes. However, these problems exist for children and adults. A reasonable way to tackle this issue would be to make social media safer for everyone, not just to exclude kids. These problems are not solved with an age check, and if the age check requires handing over PII, that introduces additional problems. We have to wonder what the motivation here is, and if we aren't heading towards giving up freedom for perceived security.

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

#133

Post by cooper_ganglia »

marky1991 wrote: post #100
bschwarz wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adults should be protected from these predatory services as well.

This is mindless paternalism. Who gets to decide what is 'predatory' and why do those people have the right to make decisions in place of able-minded adults?

The mindless paternalism is the point! People like this want a Nanny State to enforce their own ideals, as they arbitrarily believe themselves to be morally superior.

That’s why these laws happen to begin with. It starts as “Think of the children”, and ends with the death of the anonymized internet.

Governments crave that, and scared, hapless citizens who refuse to learn how to raise a child want Daddy Gubament to do it for them, and so push these laws into existence.

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

#134

Post by cyanydeez »

achenet wrote: post #128
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.

The problem is, the borders upon which you want a child operating in social media are pretty fuzzy. Do you want them working with classmates? sure. Other peers in same school grade? of course; older peers? ...sure; older peers in other districts...maybe?

Then there's all the spoofing and the "age gate" software that inevitably needs to be done to do this.

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

#135

Post by foobiekr »

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.

The problem is that it really is the 14-21 group that where it has the most (and increasing) influence. They should have banned it for under 18.

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

#136

Post by foobiekr »

dfxm12 wrote: post #132
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.

Please take a beat to think about how this would be implemented (it looks like it's not decided at this time) before reflexively saying "good" because the marketing sounds nice. This is how the US got swindled into accepting the PATRIOT act, et al. There are problems with social media, yes. However, these problems exist for children and adults. A reasonable way to tackle this issue would be to make social media safer…

There are problems with cigarettes, yes. However, these problems exist for children _and_ adults. A reasonable way to tackle this issue would be to make cigarettes safer for everyone, not just to exclude kids. These problems are not solved with an age check ...

You may or may not be acting as an apologist for the sleaziest, worst industry on earth here, but you certainly sound like it, even if it is unintentional. As this is hacker news, P(makes money working for sleazy, terrible companies) is high so you'll have to accept this obvious interpretation.

Look, I actually kind of agree with you, but social media _already has all the PII_ to an extent unparalleled in history. Come on. "We have to wonder what the motivation here is"?

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

#137

Post by cooper_ganglia »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #96

Speedrunning the way for the loneliness generation. Everything remote yet you can't even meet people

This is pretty radical, but what if, perhaps, the children touched grass instead of doom scrolling?

Lonely children aren’t the fault of the government, they’re the fault of parents who let them scroll TikTok in their rooms all day, because actually parenting would be difficult or inconvenient.

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

#138

Post by john_strinlai »

kieranmaine wrote: post #124
john_strinlai wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

sure, that sounds right for how it is currently. my parenthesis above is probably wrong.

but the whole point of my example was showing that its absolutely possible to hold parents accountable for their childs actions. there are dozens of laws that do so already. so there is no excuse why a social media ban could not be written in the same fashion as those laws, rather than moving parental responsibility onto tech companies.

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

#139

Post by foobiekr »

ljm wrote: post #105
Quizzical4230 wrote: post #85

I really liked this post by System76: https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification

Reactionary changes are never going to go away but the entire thrust of technological progress is "you don't need to learn." Amusing Ourselves to Death and Superbloom both describe the same thing: methods of communiation become more efficient and education becomes more simplified, to the point of not being valued. The nadir of which is Trump shitposting policy decisions on Twitter because he has no literacy, no intel…

It wasn't "the early days." It was true until the 1970s when the evangelicals pivoted and started to get power.

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

#140

Post by pjc50 »

foobiekr wrote: post #135
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.

The problem is that it really is the 14-21 group that where it has the most (and increasing) influence. They should have banned it for under 18.

I'd prefer a ban for the over 65s, who are especially vulnerable.
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