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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

#281

Post by gslepak »

slg wrote: post #268
gslepak wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People use the word "conspiracy theory" as a shield against their own ignorance. "If I don't know about it, if it sounds 'spooky' to me, it must be because it's a conspiracy theory, and therefore it is wrong," is essentially what runs through their minds. The reality is that top-down legislation is the norm rather than the exception, and there is plenty of evidence. It's not written by Joe on the street. It's not org…

Who do you think is behind this? That is the question no one is answering here and why people are calling it a conspiracy theory. And the car manufacturers all decided to install spyware because it made them money. That's just capitalism.

> And the car manufacturers all decided to install spyware because it made them money. That just capitalism.

Yes, you are right, it must be "capitalism" at fault. The sort of capitalism where nobody asks for the product, nobody wants the product, and yet somehow the product is the only choice you have.

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

#282

Post by runarberg »

whack wrote: post #257
kdheiwns wrote: post #229

We can't even get countries to agree on a unified drinking age, but somehow the whole world is simultaneously coming to the conclusion that you need to be 16 to use social media, and websites and operating systems all need North Korean ID verification to prove you're over 16. There is a zero percent chance this is organic

> There is a zero percent chance this is organic Who exactly has a vested interest in starting a worldwide conspiracy to ban social media for kids? FWIW as an adult in my 30s, social media has caused me far greater harm than even binge drinking. I can't even imagine growing up as a teenager under the social media microscope

Like you observed the damage of social media is not unique to children. So a more sensible legislation would serve to help everybody from the harm of social media, not just children.

Second, age verification systems have a lot to benefit from a government contract.

Third, social media and ad companies would for sure prefer a blanket ban on children rather then a more careful legislation which e.g. ban targeted advertising, or further regulates social media from harmful patterns.

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

#283

Post by Matl »

ben_w wrote: post #277
Matl wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is but the point is once you are OK with some invasive age verification laws, because they may simplify parenting, you get others imposed on you that might not be OK with you. Therefore I am in favor of none.

That applies to all laws, not just all "invasive age verification laws". You may be a libertarian, I basically was when I was a teen, but since then I've seen how people act and how this makes everyone miserable.

> You may be a libertarian,

I am not. I don't label myself, but if I were forced to slap a label on myself it would be something like an anarcho communist. It's not that I don't believe in regulations helping, is that I feel like this is plastering over a deeper issue, which is parents having children, but not having enough economic security to have the time and resources to devout to their parenting properly and so turning to the state for oppressive restrictions in favor of good parenting.

It's the reasons teens spend time on these apps that should be looked at by the state, not how to block them from doing so in other words.

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

#284

Post by giva »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #266
nathan_compton wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people in government famously don't know anyone else in government anywhere else and never communicate with one another or read the same research or look at what other countries are doing.

Is there a precedent where this happened organically and the same similarities were in place in that many legislations around the world inside of half a year?

Freon bans?

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

#285

Post by bluegatty »

logicchains wrote: post #242
bluegatty wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition works very well - it just has externalized costs. Excessive drinking was curtailed by 70% during the alcohol prohibition era, and acute drinking was a problem (it was more concentrated). There is zero doubt how much healthier at least some people would have been. The price paid was limiting freedom for many, and some increase in crime. Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social dis…

>Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social disaster, it's not even an argument - obviously - the 'prohibition' works - and in that case, there's nary any negative externality. The negative externality is the huge amount of young adults damaging their bodies with excessive alcohol consumption in college because they never learned to drink healthily. The US with its late legal age for alcohol h…

Not really though. Drinking age is 18 in Sweden and they have hugely worse rate of hazardous drinking than US, same for Finland, and a bit UK where there are slightly fewer restrictions.

The legal age for alcohol is 18 in France.

This idea of 'US binging' doesn't really hold that much water, though one could very well argue that 21 is just 'too old' - the fact is, these are as much cultural issues as anything else.

Same with Japan, they are 'polite drunk', it's not even quite the same thing.

Take the argument and apply it to smoking or cocaine, fentanyl and you see that it doesn't really work out.

It really depends.

US could have lower drinking age, possibly 'permitted with parents at 16' - but - a much more responsible culture overall as well. It's hard.

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

#286

Post by everdrive »

kdheiwns wrote: post #229

We can't even get countries to agree on a unified drinking age, but somehow the whole world is simultaneously coming to the conclusion that you need to be 16 to use social media, and websites and operating systems all need North Korean ID verification to prove you're over 16. There is a zero percent chance this is organic

You're "just asking questions" -- if it's not organic, then what do you suspect it is?

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

#287

Post by mtoner23 »

logicchains wrote: post #253
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.

Without social media the majority of the populace would be completely misinformed on everything and the current Iran war would have 60%+ support like the Iraq war did, how is that possibly a better world?

Maybe maybe not. Counter factuals are easy to dream up but impossible to verify

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

#288

Post by bananamogul »

logicchains wrote: post #242
bluegatty wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prohibition works very well - it just has externalized costs. Excessive drinking was curtailed by 70% during the alcohol prohibition era, and acute drinking was a problem (it was more concentrated). There is zero doubt how much healthier at least some people would have been. The price paid was limiting freedom for many, and some increase in crime. Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social dis…

>Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social disaster, it's not even an argument - obviously - the 'prohibition' works - and in that case, there's nary any negative externality. The negative externality is the huge amount of young adults damaging their bodies with excessive alcohol consumption in college because they never learned to drink healthily. The US with its late legal age for alcohol h…

"Learned to drink healthily".

Given that alcohol is carcinogenic, there is no such thing as "drinking healthily".

That point aside, alcoholism rates in the Eastern EU are much higher than the US. And Russia/Belarus leads the world. I don't think younger drinking age correlates very well with reduced rates of alcoholism.

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

#289

Post by embedding-shape »

Matl wrote: post #259
embedding-shape wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? How did we go from "Users of social media need to be at least 16" to "Users of OSes need to prove they are adults"?

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Undecided-Age-Laws I have nothing against Instagram asking me if I am over 16, but these laws end up with my OS not allowing requests to instagram unless I prove to it that I am over 16 with a photo ID is where we're going.

Sounds like the situation might end up with Instagram not accepting requests unless you're using an OS that follows those sorts of laws, which is kind of an inversion of what you said, and I think I'm fine with that outcome if so be it. Websites should be allowed to decide who's visiting them, unless they're government, utility or other basic needs portals.

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

#290

Post by DespairYeMighty »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #239
antics9 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t had children growing up during the last two decades have you?

If it was organic the wording and the definitions in these legislations would be wildly different, the timing would be all over the place, the age limits and the methods to provide ID as well. But they are not. edited for tone

>If it was organic the wording and the definitions in these legislations would be wildly different

organic, one at a time, "hey, i wonder if other places considered this, how did they word it?" that's not collusion.

don't imagine you know better than aware, organic people who read the newspaper and actually have more life experience and tempered emotion than you do.

humans are "young" for about 20 years, parents are parents to young children for about 20 years, and smartphones have been around for about 20 years. the time seems ripe for those with life experience to draw some conclusions.

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