291–300 of 506 posts
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You haven’t had children growing up during the last two decades have you?
Why am I being forced to prove to my OS that I am an adult just because of your inadequate parenting skills?
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
Why go to the silly conspiracy theory place? Up until then I was in violent agreement, but things don't need to be a conspiracy to be bad. The rules are well-intentioned but poorly thought through, which is devastatingly common for government action in digital spaces; witness the fucking cookie popups (no illuminati involved in that one, just stupidity).
People and lawmakers are just not thinking through the privacy implications for the people who are exempt from these limitations, and the persistent nature of digital paper trails.
This sudden coordinated worldwide effort to ban social media for kids (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop being so naive and stop supporting this.
Why the silly conspiracy theory? Can't something just be stupid and bad but well-intentioned? You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online? If anything, jurisdictions have shown that they are very interested in preventing the tracking of people's activity online, they just don't know how to do it!
The more these laws are enforced, the more we hand over this information to any unscrupulous website operator, app developer, or advertiser. Are we about to hand Elon Musk [0] your kids' PII? How about Zuck, who (friendly reminder) sold your 2nd-factor phone number to advertisers [1]? How about all of the leaks from these ID services [2]? Or how about these services doing far more than Age Verification [3][4]?
Given the terrible track record of data breaches in tech, this means all this information leaks into even worse hands with little recourse for people and no punishment for companies.
From a security and privacy perspective it's in kids' own self-interest and self-protection for them to undermine all of these laws.
0: "I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02706...
1: https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-admits-phone-numbers-m...
2: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/hack-age-verification-...
3: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verificatio...
4: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verificat...
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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.
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 Why go to the silly conspiracy theory place? Up until then I was in violent agreement, but things don't need to be a conspiracy to be bad. The rules are well-intentioned but poorly thought through, which is devastatingly common for government action in digital spaces; witness the fucking cookie popups (no illuminati involved in that one, just stupidity). People and law…
Being on this social media (YC) people aware it's all about implementation and we should at least demanding better solutions. If you want to regulate/limit access of kids to social media just make that you have to be 16 years old to buy simcard - in many places in EU you already have to show ID to seller.
Allow parent to buy simcard to their under 16 year old children if thats what they want to and allow parents to decide at their home wifi if kid should have access to social media or not.
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It is certainly better than the status quo. Don't underestimate the effect of simply making something illegal.
Yes, the effect of prohibition was enormous. Same with America's War on Drugs, that had a massive impact. Probably not the impact you're implying though.
Educating kids about the potential harm, and also making parents take some more responsibility seem like a more positive approach to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You haven’t had children growing up during the last two decades have you?
In my current EU country, there's mandatory military conscription from the age of 17. And you're telling me you're only fit for social media access one year before being fit to drive tanks and shoot guns at people? Look, I hate (Zuckerberg's) social media just as much as the next person and I would be happy if it were nuked from this planet, but firstly, a lot of this sudden age verification shit to "protect the chil…
Well, that's kinda already the norm isn't it? In the US I'm allowed to go risk my life in the military but not allowed to order a beer with my pizza. It already makes no sense.