Fu Norway. This is an example of lobbyists succesfully make regulations based on a fake reason to serve their own totally different interest. Dumpsters in Norway have no idea how they are being played. Noone cares about children. They only care about introducing id verification for everyone everywhere. Again. Fu Norway.
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
#92The one part I was curious about was who would be responsible for this? The app or the OS? The article says the app makers, which I think is correct. In the US, Meta in particular is pushing for OS-level age verification [1]. What a surprise. The company without an OS wants OS makers to do it and, more importantly, to be liable for it. Many purists believe such a move is bad for freedom of expression. I'm sympathetic…
There are two outcomes. Either the implementation is freedom and privacy respecting and very easy to bypass (effectively just a setting the OS passes on to a website) or it comes with strong technical and cryptographic guarantees which destroy privacy and freedom (identity verification, OS and hardware attestation). There is no middle ground.
The comparison to ID checks when buying cigarettes is missing the point. Human ID checks have few downsides and are relatively high cost to fool.
In the real world, you show your ID to a human and they look at the date of birth and photo. They don't copy or photograph it, they surely won't read let alone remember anything else from your ID, it would be very obvious, costly and dangerous for a criminal to install a hidden camera and secretly record everyone and their IDs. We also don't attach the ID physically to your body and assign an individual police offier to follow you around 24/7 so you don't try to tamper with it somehow.
On the Internet, a securely (safe from bypasses) implemented age verification system makes sure your device is owned and used only by you, that you can't lend it to somebody, that you can't modify or inspect it... It also enables some level of reidentification for catching and prosecuting you if enable access to a minor despite this.
These are two wildly different situations.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#93Oh look another one. Funny how they seem to do this at the same time.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#94Good, 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.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#95Normalized credential-harvesting will make it possible for govt to enforce digital exile.
The govt will be able to deny computer access for anyone it doesn’t like, for as long as they don’t like them.
There will then be many ‘underground’ internets, which will all be banned, where the underclass lives. It is also where real innovation will live.
It’s a brand new day and our dystopia has new frontiers available for the brave.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#96Speedrunning the way for the loneliness generation. Everything remote yet you can't even meet people
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#97It is funny to see all countries afraid of doing what should be done: fine and block the social media companies that don't fix their brainrot algorithms. Adults are not better at handling them than kids.
The UK considered blocking X over the generating of CSAM and the US responded by saying any such move would face retaliation. Literally today Trump has been attacking the UK for discussing a possible tax on digital services like Meta, and saying point blank he will implement massive tariffs if they do anything.
I feel like the response of the tech community in the US overlooks the fact other countries don't have many options, nor power to actually make these companies change their ways.
I don't want to see age verification either, but I have limited sympathy for these companies given they've spent the best part of two decades ignoring every attempt at getting them to change and do something themselves.
We've been seeing age verification stuff roll out for a couple of years now and still none of the major companies have done anything to clean their act up (and some, like X, have got way worse) so it's not like they're really helping make a case against these policies.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#98It is funny to see all countries afraid of doing what should be done: fine and block the social media companies that don't fix their brainrot algorithms. Adults are not better at handling them than kids.
For me it's funny to see the discussion is completely black-white, like everyone is hooked. I have 3 kids, 2 use their phones like half an hour at a time, the other is completely hooked, hours and hours. If I don't intervene he doesn't dress in the morning, and continues until he really can't keep his eyes open anymore somewhere around 3am. For him I use the parental control on my router. All his devices have time li…
I find the black and white thinking scary and I see as a result of social media. Nowadays you even have to argue for the possibility of nuance because everyone immediately jumps to "for or against" mode.
I strongly believe humanity needs to find ways to slow down, but the prevailing culture is for everything to go faster and faster, which doesn't leave room for nuance and non-emotional reasoning.
I have to say that I don't believe in most people's ability to teach their children critical thinking, compassion, nuance, etc. Most people barely manage to feed their kids and not mess them up too badly on the emotional side.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's very different from schools banning use of phone during school hours. And, no, your role as parent is not to blindly follow the herd if you think it is not good. That's certainly true for smartphones and, again, there is parental control if/when you get your children a smartphone. You can only bring a horse to water, as the saying goes... My cynical take is that social media are a convenient tool for governmen…
"your role as parent is not to blindly follow the herd if you think it is not good." This is just conservative individual responsibility pablum just re-imagined for IT. "It doesn't matter if all of societies forces + giant multi-national tech corporations are conspiring to trap your child, individual responsibility is all that matters" This argument doesn't work for smoking or drinking, and it shouldn't for social me…
I am describing basic parenting and you immediately and bizarrely jump to conservatism and corporate conspiracy... ok that's all for me.
Re: Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
We used to hold parents liable.
Adults should be protected from these predatory services as well.
This is mindless paternalism.
Who gets to decide what is 'predatory' and why do those people have the right to make decisions in place of able-minded adults?