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

> The funniest part of all of it is the "social media" that millennials think they're saving their children from doesn't even exist anymore. All the dominant platforms of today are not based on the social graph. Nobody is getting bullied on their timeline or seeing all the parties they weren't invited to anymore.

I think in recent years the infinite scroll of auto-generated content that bamboozles your brain is considered way worse than seeing the parties you weren't invited to. I think you're the one that's being "millenial" and thinking this is related to cyberbulling or whatever.

> And if its just any website with "social" functions, this one should be included!

This is actually a reasonable take and is being discussed elsewhere -- the "social" tag doesn't really apply any more. "Algorithmic brain-engaging drip feed" would be more apt.

You can ban things for minors just fine. It’s already a thing.

When are we ever going to get beyond raising awareness/educating bad/arguably-bad things? All of these manufactured wants, needs—totally synthetic. The business model is to prey on people. But the answer is yet more things to lecture about?

By going beyond that I mean real alternatives. Like Christian abstinence organizations might not just have a say-no-to-alcohol stance, sit at home and be bored. No, they sometimes even have social gatherings and activities. They do the same thing for students. The stance towards alcohol-abstinent students is not simply, well you can choose not to drink but heh, most of your peers drink and most of the late-night activities revolve around that. They offer alternatives: alcohol-free activities.

What would I give to be able to opt out of the things that I find bad for myself? Like really, ban myself from say buying cigarettes with my credit card. But is that ever on the table? No. Just the discourse pit of freedom and unfreedom. Where freedom happens to coincide with Big Tech’s bottom line.

And education.

You can't educate around something that's predatory in nature.

IMHO the solution should involve defining what's natural social media and what is predatory social media. The natural one can be a system that connects real people with each other and operates discovery algorithms that have %100 open source and run on open data. When its real people interacting you can educate around it, you can have it with anonymous accounts too but you can develop protections against bad actors by actually looking into the thing to see what's happening. In real world that's how people interact and although damage from things like lying or gossip still exist we also have ways to navigate around it by teaching manners, ethics, etiquette, politeness, fairness etc.

Then there's the unnatural social media, that is most of the social media today. It is not a natural human interactions, it is managed human interactions for profit or influence. Information is hidden from the participants but it is not hidden from the host of the gathering and the host develops tools to create conflicts or control for its own benefit.

>Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it.

Common but bad argument. You've misunderstood what the age verification control is for. It's to hold online services accountable for illegally providing services to minors. A parent being negligent doesn't mean Facebook should not be held responsible for breaking the law.

It is my impression that when drinking age restrictions are introduced, drinking among the (now) underage population goes down. Not disappear, but goes down.

My personal experience is also that 17 year olds in countries where the legal drinking age is 16 drink more than 17 year olds where the drinking age is 18, but I don't have numbers on it.