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Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

yle.fi

481–490 of 593 posts

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#481
post #6

I'm fine with this, as long as they DO NOT require any form of ID or 'age' verification. Instead this should be attacked from the profit side, by banning any form of advertising which might target children. If there's no profit to be made in servicing said demographic and a law requesting at least end user 'agreement' that they are an adult, this should be sufficient.

You can tell these proposals are made in bad faith because we can do age verification in an anonymous way using zero-knowledge proofs but regulators demand linkable IDs instead. It's not about protecting the kids. It's about managing the public's information diet. The latter is not a legitimate function of any state.

In the Netherlands we already have zero-knowledge ID verification through DigID, I'd be amazed if the Nordics didn't have the same system available to its citizens.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#482
post #11

I secretly wish it would use a verification scheme that's so invasive/annoying, that even adults would stop using it anyway.

Do you not see the irony of posting this on a social media site (hacker news), given you're one of the users? I guess self-hatred is one of the motivating vectors of authoritarianism. Would you also secretly like it if daddy government was always watching you on camera and triggered your shock collar every time you reached for a candy bar?

Hackernews is not social media. Just no. Unless the term os literally meaningless in which case my Company's slack ks social media.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#483
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tie it cryptographically to their phone with keys in the phone's hardware security module. This doesn't stop sharing of ID but it makes it much more inconvenient.

And I access the website from my computer how? Why would you invite a technology that by definition makes websites accessible only via phones? These social media age verification laws are inevitably going to hit sites you use, too.

DigID in the Netherlands works exactly as described here, the keys live on your device and are linked to your physical ID by scanning your ID with your phone's NFC scanner (or manually entering the details if your device doesn't have NFC).

To login to say your healthcare provider's website, you enter a randomly-generated 4 letter keycode provided by DigID into the website (it's more of an OAuth flow, so you're actually entering it into the DigID website itself). You then get a QR code you scan, DigID shows you the details of who's trying to access your DigID, you then click login and you get redirected to the page.

It takes literally 20 seconds, at most, it's really not that inconvenient and the way DigID works, the website gets nothing but the bare minimum of info about you, such as your DigID ID, >18yo? And that's basically it.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#484
post #178

Open Internet dying in front of our very eyes. Let's not forget that social media are just one of the many scapegoats tried over the past decade in hopes of pushing this idea forwards. And while there's no denying that today's social media have gotten destructive, they're still only a scapegoat; no attempt is being made here to bring them back to their original, non-malicious shape. Is the social media hate really so…

In what universe are corpo-controlled walled-gardens considered "Open Internet"?

> no attempt is being made here to bring them back to their original, non-malicious shape.

Because it's impossible unless you ban for-profit social media. Naturally I'd support such a ban.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the disturbing reality is these countries are wanting to control social media to control the population politically The current alternative is that unaccountable private interests control this, so some regulation in this regard seems reasonable to me. However, swapping private control for public control is only barely better. The best solution that I can think of is ending algorithmic feeds, and having subs…

I think moving algorithmic feeds out of section 230 would do the trick. Once you’re curating the feed, you’re no longer a neutral platform.

This is the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. This would solve so much.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that children need restrictions, but that's the role of their parents, not the government.

Should it also be the Role of parents to prevent their children from being kidnapped by crime syndicates? Maybe we should also abolish schools because it should be the parent's role to educate their children. This individualistic line of thinking is downright insane. It's preposterous. We live in a fucking society, no one can do anything on their own. For God's sake parent's shouldn't be expected to fight alone again…

> No wonder the US is collapsing as we speak.

If you look at the longterm trend in government intrusion into our personal lives, you'll see it's largely increasing, so if anything, the cause of any "collapse" would be the opposite of what you're purporting.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#487
post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

That's why I started distinguishing these two concepts when I talk about them in English. The terrible thing that insists on obnoxiously getting in your way with its stupid algorithms when you're just trying to have conversations with your friends is "social media". Early Facebook and Twitter, and current open-source initiatives like the fediverse, are "social networks".

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#488
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't care if I sound old and salty when I say this: I miss phpBB I'll one-up this: I miss USENET. I never understood how anyone could like phpBB, compared to USENET news readers, it was a chaotic mess. But USENET, that was great for discussing things.

Usenet before the Eternal September? I remember using some forums, and there'd be pages and pages of idiots just replying "Wow, this is great, thanks OP!", or "Thanks from me too!". How the fuck do you think you're contributing rather than polluting? And nowadays they can even create Github accounts and do this...

I first got on the Internet in 1991. The older students told me to lurk on Usenet and not post anything for a month or 2 to avoid getting flamed. I did and then I loved it. Once all the @aol.com people started showing up it went downhill. By 2000 it was so full of spam and garbage that I stopped going. I connected to a Usenet server last year for the first time in over 20 years and it was just full of junk.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#489
I think trying to argue that the viral/algorithmic addictive short-video feeds are "social media" is a bit of a stretch.

If you banned any network that does algorithmic feeds, or that don't have good moderation, then I'd be fine with my teenagers using it. I think the problem is the mind-numbing video scrolling more than any other risk with social media.

And I don't think there's a danger to it per se, I think it's just too addictive and distracting.

Re: Finland looks to introduce Australia-style ban on social media

#490
post #98

Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…

Reddit has been a cesspit of recycled pablum, populist image macros and low effort reply comments for more than a decade. Enthusiast subreddits are astroturfed to hell and back by people with a Shopify storefront and a dream trying to growth hack their way to a hockey stick. The low barrier to entry to each community means that this vapid culture eventually diffuses itself across subreddits that might otherwise be go…

The problem with reddit is that subreddits vary wildly in feeling and quality.

On one hand you have absolute garbage but on the other you have very niche subreddits that does feel like the internet of old.

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