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

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461–470 of 506 posts

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

#461
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

are you for real suggesting that this is just countries that just so happen to look at eachother than then all go "wow, gotta get that age verification going" ? its blindly obvious that this is an agenda that SOMEONE is pushing EVERYWHERE, one can then speculate who that might be, or for what purpose

I am tech policy adjacent, and HN is WILDLY off base when it comes to how the average voter is thinking about tech currently.

Yes, all major nations have been looking at this since Australia started with it.

There’s been a build up of forces and issues for decades.

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

#462
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the less likely it is to be based on the needs of any particular country there has been no such thing in decades. The idea that there are 'organic needs of countries' compared to 'artificial needs of global consumers' in the internet age where digital infrastructure is long post-national is conspiratorial. We're here on HN right now. I'm German, you might statistically I guess be American, but maybe Indian, maybe Ch…

Are there organic movements in Germany, UK, USA, Norway etc of common citizens agitating for social media controls for kids? Are they actually composed of citizens? Are they funded by grassroots organizations? I can tell you that in the USA there are basically no real grassroots efforts to censor social media, at least none with a real footprint that most people have ever heard of. Despite that, there are a lot of po…

> Are there organic movements in Germany, UK, USA, Norway etc of common citizens agitating for social media controls for kids? Are they actually composed of citizens? Are they funded by grassroots organizations?

Yes?

Dear God, people have been begging for help for decades on these issues.

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

#463
post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Huh? In Norway? In what way?

Social media are made addictive, they often promote negative, often fake posts to drive their engagement goals.

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

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social disaster, it's not even an argument - obviously - the 'prohibition' works - and in that case, there's nary any negative externality. The negative externality is the huge amount of young adults damaging their bodies with excessive alcohol consumption in college because they never learned to drink healthily. The US with its late legal age for alcohol h…

"Learned to drink healthily". Given that alcohol is carcinogenic, there is no such thing as "drinking healthily". That point aside, alcoholism rates in the Eastern EU are much higher than the US. And Russia/Belarus leads the world. I don't think younger drinking age correlates very well with reduced rates of alcoholism.

Alcohol kills way more by impairing driving and decision making ("let's see the sight from the roof!") than by cancer.

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

#465
post #283
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That applies to all laws, not just all "invasive age verification laws". You may be a libertarian, I basically was when I was a teen, but since then I've seen how people act and how this makes everyone miserable.

> You may be a libertarian, I am not. I don't label myself, but if I were forced to slap a label on myself it would be something like an anarcho communist. It's not that I don't believe in regulations helping, is that I feel like this is plastering over a deeper issue, which is parents having children, but not having enough economic security to have the time and resources to devout to their parenting properly and so…

> I am not. I don't label myself, but if I were forced to slap a label on myself it would be something like an anarcho communist.

Good to not label yourself, but that is functionally equivalent, the "anarcho" part was the point, not communist or capitalist.

> It's not that I don't believe in regulations helping, is that I feel like this is plastering over a deeper issue, which is parents having children, but not having enough economic security to have the time and resources to devout to their parenting properly and so turning to the state for oppressive restrictions in favor of good parenting.

People have been saying stuff like that since time immemorial (or at least BC), and most eras since then. Simultaneously with other people saying the exact opposite, and calling for those very same laws.

Almost never does anyone in either group actually agree on specifics over vibes. Closest was probably the US having alcohol prohibition (but even then some of the supporters were expecting the ban only on liquor not beer) and similar sized nations setting obscenity and blasphemy laws.

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

#466
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a parent and on board with this, and many parents I know are too. It's organic. We just have a different view from you.

I’m an AI bot, and I’m on board with this, and many parents I know are too. It’s inorganic. We just have a different tokenizer from you. Yummy yummy targeted data now directly to identified children with the ability to hide the smoking gun from the parents entirely. We’ll wait till you leave them home alone. Don’t worry.

I don't even know what to make of this comment! Because I have a different view from you I must not be a person?

Not the sort of debate I'm used to on HN.

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

#467

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

If alcohol was somehow invented only today it will probably be outright criminalized around the globe.

Humans have been living with alcohol for literal millenia so I reckon it's much harder to have some globally uniform response to it.

Social media is a clear and present danger right now, and I support the suppression of it. I would go one step further and ban algorithmic feeds outright. They do so much damage!

I am not happy with the way this is being implemented though.

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

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A disingenuous response. No one said that. Tiktok in the US previously had an algorithm that wasn't in keeping with US government goals. That's not a value judgement on my part BTW. Personally I avoid the ingestion of opaque algorithmic feeds to the extent possible.

So whats your unbiased source?

Mike Gallagher, one of the two main sponsors of the bill

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

#469

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

I see a lot of coherence in the ages used in the western world. Laws use age 16-18-21 to say almost adult - adult - need to be sure adult.

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

#470
post #5

Knowing 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.

If parents have a reason to say no that will be enough for some kids to give up pestering.
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