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

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

#331
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been drinking alcohol since time immemorial. Our laws need to overcome those longstanding cultural standards that vary greatly across the globe and therefore laws will be different too. It varies by country, but I would guess most political leaders didn't grow up in the era of social media, so there isn't some ingrained belief that kids actually need this stuff. And with growing globalization, it makes pe…

We didn't need social media before it existed. If no one's on it, that sounds like the ideal situation for young kids.

I remember a time around 2010 where I benefitted from social media, Facebook in particular. It wasn't addictive, I used it for 15 minutes at the end of the day to catch up with what foreign family was doing, we would organize real-life parties through Facebook, share photos of those events, tag each other. If you traveled internationally it was easy to keep in touch with people you met along the way.

I'm afraid we will never get to that point anymore but I do think there was a point in society where social media was a positive addition.

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

#332
When they ban social media, what do they actually ban? Like is whatsapp social media? I say no, but news outlets say otherwise.

There is no social media official definition from my understanding.

The bad ones are the ones with the uncontrolled (by the user) algorithmic feed

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about kids. Its serious problem, every parent knows this. It has some scary negative externalities. Related issue, but not the same issue.

It can be both (and in my opinion is). There are groups that would love to be in full control of visible information and parents rightly concerned about social media use by kids.

There aren't really any groups that want full control that have any power really - it's more like systemic pressure.

A police investigator trying to do his job is 100% sure he can solve crimes this way, to him, there is zero doubt about the benefit of being able to get info from social media, it's a moral concern.

The anti-terrorist squad - same. They see all sorts of threats, daily they are truly concerned, they're all waiting for horrible things to happen and in each case they 'knew they could have prevented it'.

Then you get corporate interests, who just want to 'sell gear to make money'

Maybe it even works really well ... because of 'checks and balances'.

But then, the 'checks and balances' start to fail, either from corruption, bad legislation, legal rulings etc.

Those forces all collide into the 'slippery slope'

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

#334

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…

In most EU countries, children of farmers can drive 10 ton death machines with pointy spikes on the front from the age of 14 to 16. In some countries you can even do that on public roads!

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

#335
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, tobacco and alcohol companies absolutely are regulated. Second, traditionally the age gate for cigarettes and booze is for the seller to look at your ID just to verify your age, then forget you. The process was not to establish your identity and follow you around forever, tracking and selling your behavioral data , which is a way these Internet based age gates have been implemented, and the logical conclusion…

Nowadays grocery stores do scan the ID, so maybe there is some tracking

You can refuse the scan. It's just a surveillance grab, like the TSA photo. Unfortunately most people just go along with it.

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

#336
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.

Cancer except when it’s in the form that I approve such as HN? Where it has all the problems of social media — astroturfing, self promoting, bots, etc.

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

#337
post #274

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

The world is much more globalized now. Countries are watching each other, political movements can be global. That wasn't the case when drinking laws were enacted. Also, the object - social networks - is global. Yes, all kinds of societies have had alcohol, but alcoholic beverages don't suddenly become 20% more potent or harmful everywhere at once. With centralized platforms, that can happen.

Yes I think this is it. News headlines and Tweets and other social media posts mean that trends are much more global than they used to be. "Controlling kids' access to social media" is just trending right now, and that means it's getting attention all over the globe at the same time.

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

#338
post #325

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?

Dutch teenagers are less likely to smoke, drink or have sex compared to teenagers in other countries. Despite the nations relaxed stance on drugs and sex work. So making something legal could make it lame for teenagers.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays grocery stores do scan the ID, so maybe there is some tracking

You can refuse the scan. It's just a surveillance grab, like the TSA photo. Unfortunately most people just go along with it.

Are they obligated to still sell the liquor if you refuse the scan? The cashier specifically told me last time they're required to scan it if I want to buy that.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, the challenge still remains to classify social media if the objective is to arrest or reverse the negative effects, while possibly not depriving children of positives of things like forums like HN which are clearly also social media, even though it’s clearly not what people are primarily thinking of regarding this issue. I suspect there is not a clear or even uniform definition of what is and is not social m…

I don’t think the answer is banning phones (except in school, context dependent), it’s letting lazy, bad parents have natural outcomes for their children and allowing the rest to work itself out through the social free market. It sounds cruel, but if someone is set on allowing their children to be raised by strangers on the internet and the government, they need to be ready to accept any outcomes that come along with…

Although I agree with you directionally, reality simply is that at least speaking for the west in general terms, this approach does not strike me as feasible because it will always contact the pathological altruism of our current civilizational state that will be compelled to "help" and "protect". But there is also the issue of simply writing off the children of such parents is rather callous and simply not compatible with civilization. We are not individuals in a modern society/civilization; your notion of parents "accepting any outcomes" turns out to always result in society/civilization dealing with the effects like crime, loneliness, degeneracy, etc. As an aside; it is in fact the deepest of problems of the whole "libertarian" premise that we are all just individuals, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Do we want to be a civilization or do we want to be a conglomeration of wild animals where we just accept the "natural outcomes" of the consequences of things that was imposed on them in the first place?

Frankly, (and no, I don't mean this as a flame bait, mods) I see it similar to when alcohol was introduced to the tribes of America, when they were genetically predisposed to both increased intoxication and addiction to alcohol; we introduced smartphones not only to a population that was simply not at all prepared for it psychologically (arguably, genetically too), but it was also introduced largely to the young through the adults, who were even more psychologically vulnerable to every single form of predation and things you would want to protect children from one could imagine.

I know people who suffer from both the effects of smartphones and "social media" (some both, some each) in several ways too broad in scope to detail here now (but it is very bad in many ways), even though the irony in one case in particular that comes to mind, is that it is due to secondary effects from their parents' behaviors, actions, and inactions related to social media and smartphones. To your point, the saddest part is that it is not the "bad parents have natural outcomes..." it is the "children" who are suffering and having to recover from even things like grooming and psychological conditioning, and having to "reparent" themselves following a young life of neglect and what can easily be described as abuse from it.

The challenge presents itself there that barring adults from "social media" and smartphones due to negligence, neglect, and various forms of abuse is a far more tricky issue and topic; especially when a double-digit trillion dollar industry is behind it that makes up what can be argued is the only remaining, functioning industry in America.

I will have to stop here. It has given me an idea for a book. Thank you for spurring that.

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