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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

#321

Post by HerbManic »

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?

While old style mass media could move in lock step, the lacl of that mechanism seems to just produce a flood of counter narratives to counter narratives. It provides the illusion of being informed but actually being more confused.

As they say, I would rather be uninformed than misinformed.

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

#322

Post by Matl »

embedding-shape wrote: post #289
Matl wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair, maybe. That'd be the better case I suppose. However that be more like banking apps not liking rooted phones. The California law is more like your OS not allowing you to access resources unless you prove your age, not the external resource doing so.

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

#323

Post by HerbManic »

avaer wrote: post #168
dfxm12 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is no fixing social media. These companies need to do what's best for shareholders, which means do the most addicting and damaging thing. Besides that, we have almost 20 years of evidence of attempting to fix it. Where it's gotten us is that social media is a tool for the president to broadcast threats of genocide to millions of people. Banning or restricting that kind of platform is not the same as the PATRIOT…

Yep. While. Below the age of 16 can be potent, some of the most impacted people I have ever meet were well over that age when social media came along. This is not an age thing, it is the very core of those businesses.

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

#324

Post by Sankozi »

bmacho wrote: post #315
Sankozi wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Harmful effects are known, that is why those laws are created. - How is a parent going to take phones of their kid's friends? That is the main problem - your kid is going to be pressured to have a social media account. They even can have one on some old phone from their friend.

> That is the main problem - your kid is going to be pressured to have a social media account. Indeed, that would be the goal, kids should be able talk to other kids their age. The problem is, I believe, in the excessive phone and screen usage, but parents are easily able to control that (as opposed to smoking or drinking for example).

Excessive phone usage is only a minor part of the problem. Toxicity of social media is the main one.

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

#325

Post by hfsh »

slopinthebag wrote: post #207
b40d-48b2-979e wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what else has prohibition? Alcohol and drugs for minors.

Does it work? Minors never drink or do drugs?

Do minors drink less than they would if we allowed (or even encouraged) them to drink or use drugs?

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

#326

Post by pzo »

andrewla wrote: post #317
pzo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why 'silly' conspiracy? Many cases of documented conspiracy in the past anyway. 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 th…

For the first part -- silly because there's literally no evidence presented of a conspiracy. No connection between the individual agents and actors. No motivation given for the underlying commonalities. And most importantly, for this "scale" of conspiracy, there's no suggestion that other avenues towards the same nefarious ends are in progress. It's just a bunch of countries and organizations proposing similar laws b…

the solution is parents doing their parenting - government should if necessary only help educate them about existing tools + enforce no phones in basic school. I don't think any solution will prevent children from using an online service if very determined - they will commit identity fraud.

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

#327

Post by cooper_ganglia »

latexr wrote: post #201
cooper_ganglia wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don’t agree with any laws like that, they’re all silly. Nobody under 16 should be on social media for their own good, but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body.

> but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body. The counter argument is that even if you want to do that as a parent, it’s hard when all your kid’s friends use the thing you’re prohibiting. It makes their life harder, and yours too in the process. It’s worth noting the first initiatives to gate kids from social media did come from parents, who organised locally and co…

As a parent, you have direct control over who your kid’s friends are.

We used to say, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?”.

Now we say, “Well, the kids are going to jump off a cliff anyway, I can’t stop them, so the government should make a law about it!”

I don’t think that’s the way to handle things. Parents who are bad at parenting will raise kids that fraternize with kids who jump off of cliffs. Maybe theirs will too, one day. Unfortunate, but the kids at the top of the cliff, who were actually raised, will excel.

Social Darwinism > Government Regulation

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

#328

Post by teamonkey »

braiamp wrote: post #267
pembrook wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're upset at collecting personal individual data, you're really going to love what these social media bans require in practice. I don't disagree we need to look at algorithmic recommendations as a major issue, but these social media bans are not that. The fact they are all being brought about globally at the same time suggests some ulterior motives. Fundamentally, the idea you're going to hide your kid from soc…

> If you're upset at collecting personal individual data, you're really going to love what these social media bans require in practice Which is why is also not a solution. Both are bad solutions because we drag our feet into creating safe products for everyone.

I don’t think it’s dragging feet so much as sprinting towards maximising profit above all else

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

#329

Post by slopinthebag »

hfsh wrote: post #325
slopinthebag wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it work? Minors never drink or do drugs?

Do minors drink less than they would if we allowed (or even encouraged ) them to drink or use drugs?

Not sure, but they would do it more safely, thats the argument for safe supply :)

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

#330

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

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.

> Who do you think is behind this?

Anyone who is interested in connecting an identity with every computer on the internet, like a tamper proof license plate for computers. Just ask local law enforcement.

There has been a growing awareness for the possibilities of foreign states to manipulate social media and other platforms with fake personas. So any kind of counter intelligence would be interested as well.

There have been numerous incidents of politicians trying to go after critical posts using defamation laws. Often enough the investigations find a dead end when the account can't be connected with an ID.

Religious advocacy groups have been more and more aggressive in trying to censor the internet, e.g. this Australian one that boasted having pushed Mastercard and Visa to enforce age verification https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/mastercard-vis...

So the list of suspects is actually long.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a very broad lobbying campaign that very easily finds local interest groups to help them meet the right law makers.

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