Denmark Aims To Ban Social Media For Children Under 15, PM Says (politico.eu) 44
The Danish government wants to introduce a ban on several social media platforms for children under the age of 15, as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced Tuesday. From a report: "Mobile phones and social media are stealing our children's childhood," she said in her opening speech to the Danish parliament, the Folketing. "We have unleashed a monster," Frederiksen said, noting that almost all Danish seventh graders, where pupils are typically 13 or 14 years old, own a cellphone.
"I hope that you here in the chamber will help tighten the law so that we take better care of our children here in Denmark," she added. However, Frederiksen did not give further details on what such a ban would entail, nor does a bill on an age limit appear in the government's legislative program for the upcoming parliamentary year.
"I hope that you here in the chamber will help tighten the law so that we take better care of our children here in Denmark," she added. However, Frederiksen did not give further details on what such a ban would entail, nor does a bill on an age limit appear in the government's legislative program for the upcoming parliamentary year.
Punish Him (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you're penalizing the CONSUMER, this has zero chance of having any real effect.
"There ought to be a law" - Every Karen Ever
I was thinking the other day... (Score:3)
If a parent gives their child alcohol, the parent is punished. If a parent buys their child a gun and the child commits crimes, in many jurisdictions, including gun-loving red states, the parents are criminally liable. Why is social media any different? If the parent allows the child to have a social media account, and gives them a mobile device that gives unsupervised access to social media, how is that not the legal responsibility of the parent?
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I was speaking along these lines. Not the Social Media sites themselves.
But it doesn't matter, because "there ought to be a law" rules people these days.
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Really? Fucking really? With 47 ignoring the law, and appealing every ruling against him? With Blondie charging ahead with malicous prosecution? With thousands of people kidnapped with NO WARRANT (4th Amendment)?
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What's illegal about social media use? What's wrong with sending messages among friends? Do you not remember the times when teenagers would hog the phone line for hours gossiping over whatever? Do you really want everything a kid says and does to be the legal responsibility of the parent? So many kids would pull pranks to get their parents sent to jail for not letting them stay up or for making them eat meatloaf or whatever.
By the way, in most USA states it's legal for parents to give their own kids alc
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If a parent gives their child alcohol, the parent is punished.
If alcohol consumption happens at home, nobody is punished.
Good luck! (Score:2)
Even parents who *want* to keep their kids off social media, struggle to do so. Many parents actively *do* want their kids to have access.
It's going to be kind of like enforcing laws that require you to come to a full stop at a stop sign. Pretty much everybody fails to properly stop, despite the law.
Re:Good luck! (Score:4, Insightful)
Even parents who *want* to keep their kids off social media, struggle to do so.
Of course, because the parents who really oppose social media to that point are very few and they find it impossible to fight against the majority. If you reverse the default, which is no kid has access by default, now it's the few parents who are extreme supporters of social media who will have to find solutions.
Enforcing will be by age verification tied either to the mobile OS or the social media platform. The rebel minds will be able to bypass, they could be a significant fraction but not an overwhelming majority.
We don't need a 100% enforcement like when we ban murder. Even a 50% enforcement is good for society as it improve the mental health of those 50% of children.
Re:Good luck! (Score:4, Insightful)
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And yet the stop signs still keep traffic orderly.
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You have been fined for running that red light by a camera operated by "not a government" tech company on behalf of said government, with only money flowing to the city and very low oversight. Because it is AI.
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Now explain to me what your post has to do with my own.
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Stops Signs are red. Stop Lights are red. Cameras generate revenue. Unfortunately the hidden cost of red light cameras are that there are MORE problems and aren't "orderly".
I did a very shitty job in my post. And for that I'm sorry.
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So it has nothing to do with what I was saying outside of the random mental associations you made while reading it?
Sucks for nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of the younger nerds I know got out of their shell and learned to socialize and find friends using Facebook and the like. It's not all just Doom scrolling and thinly disguised Russian propaganda targeted at Americans. You can use it to find other hobbyists to hang out with. That's especially important in modern cities and suburbs where the transportation system tends to isolate people.
I'm not saying the parents should not monitor their kids social media use. There's a lot of pedophiles out there. On the other hand about 2/3 of them seem to be pastors so there is that..
But I am saying that there's a difference between doom scrolling and actual social media. As in systems and websites designed to hook you up with groups of like-minded people who are accepting and willing to socialize with you when other people are not.
As usual though society at large doesn't particularly care for actual nerds. Like that goofy old nerd PSA you can still find on YouTube.
And of course nobody can have nuance. Which I hate to say it but I can sympathize with because human beings are terrible at nuance and iterative solutions.
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"Society" doesn't care about anyone in particular, only in perhaps ... maybe .. possibly .. in the most generic sense there is. But that is debatable because we'll just run the playbook of ________(Insert Sob Story Here).
Society isn't care about anyone, and anyone trying to pretend it does, or even should, is selling you something worthless. It is literally impossible for everyone to care about everyone else equally. That is why we have families, tribes, communities and the like. Lets tear those apart and s
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When I talk about society at large caring about people I'm not talking about individuals I'm talking about public policy and the systems we interact with.
Notice how you immediately think about individuals. That is learned behavior on your part. You have been trained not to think in terms of society as a system that produces outcomes but instead of a collection of individuals doing random things.
That is to prevent you from organ
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It's like the old joke why don't you start a business in your garage, answer I don't have a
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Facebook is old news. Teenagers don't use it much anymore. But there is a lot of bullying on newer social media platforms (and there was on Facebook back in the day). Social media isn't a safe haven.
How dare they... (Score:1)
...Dane meddle.
no socials under 15. (Score:2)
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Not that I recommend or support what I am about to say.....I just wonder about its viability. Also consider that this is a brief, not intended to be a full and complete description of a feature. I'm just trying to convey an idea.
Ignore "legacy devices" for purposes of this thought experiment.
Suppose the following is true:
1). A OS for a web-capable device is required by law to store the user's birthdate.
2). The ability to enter or change that birthdate is restricted to law enforcement or its proxies (some ho
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How to define "Social Media"? (Score:3)
Facebook is Social Media..
Instagram is Social Media.
TikTok is Social Media.
What about YouTube?
Reddit?
Slashdot?
Forums running on PhpBB?
Where do you draw the line?
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I have this same problem on the ESTA visa waiver form when visiting US and they ask about social media accounts.
Not that I plan to return until at least 3,5 years have passed.
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If you can't interact with others (posting content, comments, votes, etc...), it's not social media.
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The answer to this question is always, "somewhere. You draw the line somewhere"
It is the job of a lot of people (legislators, regulators, non-profits, academics, etc.) to come up with the line and they do it for all sorts of things all of the time.
People Under Death (Score:3)
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Taking bets (Score:2)
The only way this could be better (Score:2)
Is if they confirmed your age by a behavioral maturity test. AI could monitor posts, and if it figures out that someone with an emotional age of 15 or older wouldn't have posted such a thing, you're cut off.
Where is anonymous age verification? (Score:2)
So far, all the age verification tools in use create juicy databases of online-offline identity matching. Such databases are dangerous. They let criminals exploit and hurt people. They let totalitarian governments monitor and threaten anyone who dare expose their crimes.
All these politicians in support of such online age verification are either totalitarians themselves or useful idiots / puppets of those totalitarians.
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Bingo. No-one really thinks this is about "protecting the child-run!" do they?
It's about imposing digital ID on social media. That's it.
When I was 15 I went on IRC and USENET. (Score:2)
What's the difference? We also posted web articles and had lengthy, sometimes heated discussions about it. People were a lot nastier back in the days, angry RTFM nerds were abindant. On IRC people would crash your computer for fun. We had cybersex and warez and all the good things that are technically inappropriate for a 15 year old.
Now we have censorship all over the place. Nobody stopped you from posting porn on USENET, we had specific newsgroups just for that. Try posting porn on social media nowadays. N
Punitive tax on the advertisers (Score:2)
Social media will clean it's act up in a month.
Advertisers are making sales and money from publishing the worst of humanity.
To all right wing nut jobs about to yell "Free Speech", how much money did advertisers and the platforms make punting videos of your boy Charlie Kirk getting shot? You ok with that ? I don't suppose they gave any profits to his widow.
Good. This will force youngsters ... (Score:2)
... to move to old-school open solutions like IRC and such and result in them learning a thing or two about computers, networks and administration. And perhaps they'll learn about anonymity and it's importance just like we did in the 80ies.