We need this in the US yesterday.
No, we don't. This is big tech shifting liability off themselves with the added bonus of full de-anonymization. Take a look at who is lobbying for this.
Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
31–40 of 506 posts
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#32It is funny to see all countries afraid of doing what should be done: fine and block the social media companies that don't fix their brainrot algorithms. Adults are not better at handling them than kids.
how do you plan the governments should decide what algorithms are brainrot, and what are not?
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously. I see at least one baby with a phone in hand every time I go out. This is 100% an education issue and they don't understand how harmful that can be to their child's brain. Governments are focusing on banning things because some reason but real solution is education and support imo. Similar issue with school shottings. Government wants to ban guns or put controls on schools but they don't invest enough on m…
Anecdotal evidence that made me smile a bit. Was at my daughter volleyball game a few years back. Sitting in the gym. In walks mom with a baby girl and a boy that looked around 10ish. They sit down. Mom gives the baby the ipad to futz around with. The son? Takes out his book and starts to quietly read. It was an interesting contrast to say the least. This is also something I've heard from my son about more kids are g…
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Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#34Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#35Knowing how kids are, they will just snicker and skirt their way around these bans anyway thinking they are some super bad ass. This is mostly symbolic.
People get around the laws of murder. It should still be illegal.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#36Should be banned for under 40s and over 70s really...
Also ban giving toddlers iPads with YouTube.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#37Is there any evidence for all this? This sums up my understanding of the current situation ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understand-the-im... ) That isn't anywhere near definitive. Further it seems to me, this will just allow the tech companies to assume there are no kids, and remove the protections currently available. Yes there is an issue of quantity, but it seems that we should be focussing on soci…
> Is there any evidence for all this?
There was a study shared on Hacker News a few months ago that looked hard to find correlations between different measures and social media use or gaming in kids. It didn’t find any evidence of negative correlations between social media or gaming with different negative effects.
The response here was largely skepticism and disbelief. This topic has jumped out of the realm of evidence and into the range of moral panic. Facts don’t matter any more. The conclusion is assumed.
It’s really sad to see how quickly Hacker News, of all places, is jumping head first into welcoming age restrictions and bans with barely a passing thought to what it means. We already saw with Discord that tech communities really don’t like what age restrictions look like in practice, but whenever you make the topic about “social media” everyone assumes it will only be Facebook or Instagram, never their Reddits or Discords that have to go through identity checks for age verification.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously. I see at least one baby with a phone in hand every time I go out. This is 100% an education issue and they don't understand how harmful that can be to their child's brain. Governments are focusing on banning things because some reason but real solution is education and support imo. Similar issue with school shottings. Government wants to ban guns or put controls on schools but they don't invest enough on m…
"This is 100% an education issue" It is not. Most parents I know have seen what it does to their kids, but have zero childcare. I have a white-collar remote job and can police my kids. If I was dual-parent working class, I don't think I'd be able to pull it off. I'm glad these laws are getting on the books, so at least the peer pressure of a classroom can get to a good majority of kids. The kid with the iPad at the r…
It is a parenting issue.
As a parent you can only get your children a smartphone when you decide they are old enough, and then iOS and Android have parental control down to app level.
Decent schools also ban phones now as well.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#39I claim this is not about "protecting children", but to mandate age sniffing on the OS level eventually. I also find this all questionable. A 18 years old is not penalised? So why is that a difference? I should say that I don't use "social" media (unless commenting on a forum is called "social" now), but I find the attempt to explain this ... very poor. I could not try to reason about this. I could not claim it is me…
It's often not allowed to sell nicotine or alcohol to those who aren't penalized either
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#40It is funny to see all countries afraid of doing what should be done: fine and block the social media companies that don't fix their brainrot algorithms. Adults are not better at handling them than kids.
Came here to say something similar. Adults are just as hooked to their addiction feeds as kids.
These are uber-personalized feeds optimized to keep you scrolling to the next item (story / video / post) so companies can show more ads.
"Social media" is a textbook example of a euphemism. We should be calling this what it is: "addiction feeds".