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Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

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Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#391

Post by DocTomoe »

Loughla wrote: post #240
card_zero wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books, for instance. Some people will read for five hours without pausing, and they can use three or four books every week.

What is your point? I'm afraid I missed the point of your statement.

There was a - very similar - moral panic in the 1700s about young people 'reading excessively', which was blamed for escapism, unhappiness[1] and even increases in suicide rates (see: Werther Effect). The language used was 'reading addiction' - much like todays 'smartphone addiction' or, more modern, AI-related 'illnesses'.

Today, the panic is that kids read too little, or the wrong stuff.

What is and isn't societally desirable changes. The tactic to ban the currently undesirable behaviour persists. Moral panics tell us more about generational dynamics and power structures than the medium itself..

[1] https://www.historytoday.com/archive/medias-first-moral-pani...

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#393

Post by AppleBananaPie »

DocTomoe wrote: post #391
Loughla wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your point? I'm afraid I missed the point of your statement.

There was a - very similar - moral panic in the 1700s about young people 'reading excessively', which was blamed for escapism, unhappiness[1] and even increases in suicide rates (see: Werther Effect). The language used was 'reading addiction' - much like todays 'smartphone addiction' or, more modern, AI-related 'illnesses'. Today, the panic is that kids read too little, or the wrong stuff. What is and isn't societall…

What about the health and wellbeing of individuals?

Were there well studied negative health impacts from reading excessively during this very similar scenario?

I'm not a historian so I'm curious to see the parallels because right now it looks like we're talking about two completely different things.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#394

Post by ghtbircshotbe »

DocTomoe wrote: post #388
ghtbircshotbe wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how double blind studies work.

You misunderstood my point. I didn't claim the participants wouldn't know whether they own a phone - obviously they would. I said they wouldn’t know they’re in a study whose purpose is to correlate smartphone use with academic performance. That's perfectly compatible with a double-blind setup: * the *students* just think they’re taking standardized tests, not that the effects of their smartphone habits are being moni…

Ok. My understanding of double blind studies is that they involve a placebo. I don't really want to argue about social science experiments.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#396

Post by logifail »

colechristensen wrote: post #286
logifail wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> prohibition breeds desire Sure, but we (as societies) have always had to deal with this. Wherever you are in the world there are things that simply aren't allowed under a certain age, whether that's 15, 16, 18, 21 or whatever. My (just turned) 16 year old told me last that he didn't think it looked to be that hard to drive a car. Me: "Umm. You'll find out. When you get to it."

>My (just turned) 16 year old told me last that he didn't think it looked to be that hard to drive a car. I was driving when I was 5 on the farm, it's not that hard and if you have the attitude that things aren't hard that tends to be true. Don't set your kid up for failure.

> I was driving when I was 5 on the farm, it's not that hard [..]

I would hazard a guess you didn't meet that many other drivers on the farm (!)

> Don't set your kid up for failure

I'm doing my damndest not to ... but you have no idea ;)

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#397

Post by ang_cire »

tzs wrote: post #321
ang_cire wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think that the digital ID provider is keeping logs of which sites requested to verify which users? Even government websites are not exactly known for their high security.

The digital ID provider is only involved in issuing the ID to you. When you use that ID to verify age to a site the only communication is between your phone and the site. The ID provider has no idea when you use the ID, how often you use the ID, or where you use the ID. Briefly, when the ID provider issues the ID it gets cryptographically bound to your phone. When you use the ID to prove something to a site (age, cit…

Ah, so your phone is the trust point. That's better than it could have been, but it still leaves other issues, like sites with multiple domains or data brokers cross-identifying you based on phone and user information, e.g. 'this phone verified someone on porn site A. This same phone over on social media site B also verified, and on the social media site they have all their real-world info, so now we know their interests', etc.

And before anyone asserts that the phone can be anonymous, that doesn't work, otherwise you can just have an app that claims to have a verified ID attached.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#398

Post by bradlys »

phire wrote: post #309
glaucon wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning personalised ads I'm in favour of anything that tries to address the appaling effects of social media, but as long as there is advertising that will, surely, be some sort of personalisation. In the past you bought a magazine about, say, gardening, and all the ads were about gardening. The advertisers were betting that most people reading a gardening magazine were interested in gardening products, the ads we…

If the goal is simply to make social media unprofitable, you can just be really brutal and require that all users from a language region visiting a website (or using an App) must be delivered the exact same set of ads. The fact that most advertisers would flock to promoting on smaller special websites/apps (equivalent to your gardening magazine), is exactly the side-effect we want. The shift in spending will hopefull…

What’s the benefit of a smaller independent platform? They can be just as problematic…

I’m not sure if you’re just fantasizing about the “good old days” of phpbb or something.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#399

Post by f33d5173 »

bradlys wrote: post #398
phire wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the goal is simply to make social media unprofitable, you can just be really brutal and require that all users from a language region visiting a website (or using an App) must be delivered the exact same set of ads. The fact that most advertisers would flock to promoting on smaller special websites/apps (equivalent to your gardening magazine), is exactly the side-effect we want. The shift in spending will hopefull…

What’s the benefit of a smaller independent platform? They can be just as problematic… I’m not sure if you’re just fantasizing about the “good old days” of phpbb or something.

Smaller platforms are worse at optimizing for engagement. It's one of those weird situations where it's a good idea precisely because it's economically inefficient.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#400

Post by walletdrainer »

encrypted_bird wrote: post #325
defrost wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue isn't that billionaires aren't human, the problem very much is that billionaires are regular petty spiteful human beings with poor judgement, impulse control, odd beliefs and an the utter lack of checks and balances that can be disregarded when a human has a billion and more. NotAllBillionaires, sure .. but it only takes a few to screw over millions of other humans on a whim.

I agree with you. Frankly, imho, billionaires shouldn't even exist . No one person can get that much wealth, that much power, that much influence, without losing their humanity, their decency. It's just not possible because the only way to accrue that much wealth is to do horrifically indecent things. So, do I recognize what you're saying? Certainly. But I won't be shedding a tear of sympathy for them. I lose all sym…

Is building a successful business automatically horribly indecent?

What about winning the powerball?

If you had to choose the least horrible billionaire you can think of, what horrifically indecent things have they done to acquire that wealth?

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