European Lawmakers Seek EU-Wide Minimum Age To Access AI Chatbots, Social Media (reuters.com) 26
The European Parliament has passed a non-binding resolution urging an EU-wide minimum age of 16 to access social media, video-sharing platforms, and AI chatbots, with parental consent allowed for ages 13-16 and a hard ban for anyone under 13. "It also proposes additional measures, including a ban on addictive design features that keep children hooked to screens and manipulative advertising and gambling-like elements," reports Reuters. Furthermore, the draft "calls for the outright blocking of websites that don't follow EU rules and to address AI tools that can create fake or inappropriate content."
The resolution "carries no legal weight" but reflects the growing concern on the issue of AI companions and algorithm-driven platforms even. "Any binding legislation would require formal proposals from the European Commission, followed by negotiations between EU member states and Parliament in a process that typically takes years to complete," notes the report.
The resolution "carries no legal weight" but reflects the growing concern on the issue of AI companions and algorithm-driven platforms even. "Any binding legislation would require formal proposals from the European Commission, followed by negotiations between EU member states and Parliament in a process that typically takes years to complete," notes the report.
Try as they might... (Score:2)
Re: Try as they might... (Score:2)
Half-measures (Score:2)
The minimum age should be set at 350 years.
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They need a Great Firewall (Score:2)
the draft "calls for the outright blocking of websites that don't follow EU rules
Not sure why they are banning Chinese network equipment. Sounds like the perfect fit.
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Certainly beats letting foreign companies come in and have their way with your nation's children.
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It's not so much the foreign aspect that bothers me, I just pointed that out to try explaining it in a way an idiot can understand.
I do have hope that Europe can prevent domestic companies from taking advantage of people, in addition to the foreign companies.
Compare that to the US approach with TikTok: Foreigners taking advantage of the public is absolutely unacceptable, but if it's homegrown criminals giving Bunko his cut, that's just fine.
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Honestly, I would be happy to have some tech banned in my country, especially if it has proven to be a large net negative. I'm looking at Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Generative AI, etc...
I don't live in the UK, but if you want to ban everyone who lives in the UK from accessing your startup... you do you. Generally speaking, reducing one's potential customer base is not considered sound business strategy.
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I don't live in the UK, but if you want to ban everyone who lives in the UK from accessing your startup... you do you. Generally speaking, reducing one's potential customer base is not considered sound business strategy.
This is the EU wanting to do this, not the UK. The UK isn't in the EU, it hasn't been in the EU for half a decade. Fucking retard.
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I know the UK is not part of the EU, but I was replying to someone who mentioned the UK.
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They should consider the idea that the next big thing won't be allowed in their country because of their own dumb rules.
The UK likes to believe it's this big sovereign power and it even has a museum full of stolen goods to try to prove that but the fact remains that the UK does not have sovereign authority on the rest of the world and its power is diminishing every day because of stupid choices like this.
You must be American with this display of ignorance. This is the EU wanting to do this you fucking dumbass. The UK isn't in the EU, it's not been in the EU for FIVE FUCKING YEARS.
Devices, not sites. (Score:2)
The onus should be on the parents and their agents to control and restrict any internet-connected devices that children have access to. Children should not have unrestricted access to the Internet, unless directly supervised by an adult. The end.
There aren't just "some" sites that are a problem. There are millions of them. Trying to control all sites and strip adults of their privacy is not an acceptable way to deal with the problem. A whitelist restrict is needed. It needs to be made socially unaccep
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> Trying to control all sites and strip adults of their privacy
Not what's proposed here - it's just to set the minimum age. There's already a minimum age (13) which was set by the social media companies themselves. Why would you trust their motives for this? Pushing that up to 16 (at least) is probably the right* thing to do.
If the minimum age is moved up, then you give parents a tool to help them hold back the relentless barrage of forces that are trying to get their kids hooked on social media. It does
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There is no way to enforce age limits unless you require identification for a login or it is something built into the devices, themselves, that signal it is a minor and in lockdown mode. And since the latter seems to not be happening, the trend is to try and "age-wall login" more and more sites. And that requires ID. And that strips both adults and children of privacy.
I think the parents should be setting the age limits for what minors access, with recommendations made available by various sites and orga
\o/ (Score:1)
Voting age (Score:2)
As elsewhere... (Score:1)
FIFY: "Elites order de-anonymization using excuse" (Score:2)
The baby in the bathwater (Score:1)
AI is very useful for education, in particular providing a private one-on-one tutor for every student on any subject. Just because one time (out of ~100 million) it encouraged a suicidal teenager to go through with it (rather than talking them out of it), doesn't mean we should deny an entire generation of children access to a better education. I'm sure in the 80s some kid used their new pocket calculator to do the accounts of their illegal drug business. It doesn't mean we should ban pocket calculators
not parents' job (Score:3)
Of course the ignorant (you know who you are) will say this is the parents' business. First, helicoptering isn't a solution either, and no, there's no serious control anyway.
My main point however, is that this kind of law makes it impossible for schools and such to prescribe WhatsApp and such as a communication channel. So when our eldest kid got into middle school, after the government had decided that WhatsApp was only for 16 and up, before 16 no go without parental consent, no discussion was necessary.
So it's not about parents not parenting, it's about enabling parents to keep others from prescribing stuff that would leave their kids behind if they would decide to make that stand.
social maturity (Score:2)
The social maturity required to safely access chatbots is typically achieved at an age of about 50 years.