Like Australia, Denmark Plans to Severely Restrict Social Media Use for Teenagers (apnews.com) 92
"As Australia began enforcing a world-first social media ban for children under 16 years old this week, Denmark is planning to follow its lead," reports the Associated Press, "and severely restrict social media access for young people."
The Danish government announced last month that it had secured an agreement by three governing coalition and two opposition parties in parliament to ban access to social media for anyone under the age of 15. Such a measure would be the most sweeping step yet by a European Union nation to limit use of social media among teens and children.
The Danish government's plans could become law as soon as mid-2026. The proposed measure would give some parents the right to let their children access social media from age 13, local media reported, but the ministry has not yet fully shared the plans... [A] new "digital evidence" app, announced by the Digital Affairs Ministry last month and expected to launch next spring, will likely form the backbone of the Danish plans. The app will display an age certificate to ensure users comply with social media age limits, the ministry said.
The article also notes Malaysia "is expected to ban social media accounts for people under the age of 16 starting at the beginning of next year, and Norway is also taking steps to restrict social media access for children and teens.
"China — which manufacturers many of the world's digital devices — has set limits on online gaming time and smartphone time for kids."
The Danish government's plans could become law as soon as mid-2026. The proposed measure would give some parents the right to let their children access social media from age 13, local media reported, but the ministry has not yet fully shared the plans... [A] new "digital evidence" app, announced by the Digital Affairs Ministry last month and expected to launch next spring, will likely form the backbone of the Danish plans. The app will display an age certificate to ensure users comply with social media age limits, the ministry said.
The article also notes Malaysia "is expected to ban social media accounts for people under the age of 16 starting at the beginning of next year, and Norway is also taking steps to restrict social media access for children and teens.
"China — which manufacturers many of the world's digital devices — has set limits on online gaming time and smartphone time for kids."
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s/your/you\'re/g
s/parents idiocy/parent\'s idiocy/g
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>"Right. Because without kids damaging their mental health on social media, democracy dies. Sure."
They are, indeed, damaging their mental health, for sure. Which is why kids should not have ANY unsupervised access to unrestricted, internet-connected DEVICES. That is where the focus should be, not on ruining the whole internet for everyone.
But "democracy dies" has nothing to do with it, that is just the buzz word of the last few years.
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>"And how is that to be policed?"
Like anything else that is restricted for children by parents and their agents. It won't be perfect, but adequate.
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>"Right. Because without kids damaging their mental health on social media, democracy dies. Sure."
They are, indeed, damaging their mental health, for sure. Which is why kids should not have ANY unsupervised access to unrestricted, internet-connected DEVICES. That is where the focus should be, not on ruining the whole internet for everyone.
But "democracy dies" has nothing to do with it, that is just the buzz word of the last few years.
I'm conflicted, between allowing people to use the internet, and seeing the obvious damage it does to children.
- side note: it damages adults as well. I've seen friends radicalized both left and right by social media, and people who are seeking validation, then seeing the curated "lives" some others post leading to dissatisfaction with their own good lives. Back to the kids.
Inculcating unrealistic expectations, premature sexualization and bullying. And surrounded by the lies and bullshit that at least
Re: This is how democracy dies (Score:2)
Denmark, or rather the clique in charge in Denmark, was a big "chat control" proponent.
This is "think of the children" all over again. The goal is to get acceptance for policing who can talk to who and what they're allowed to talk about. It's not subtle at all.
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Nemlig.
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The government is there to build roads, hospitals and maintain an army. They collect taxes and have a monopoly on violence.
But they have no business interfering in how you parent your child.
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>"Also most parents aren't tech savvy and they always lose the cat and mouse game of internet access control"
Agreed. So no device = no game. Easy. There needs to be a new social norm that it is NOT OK to give these devices to kids or give them unsupervised access.
If you can't correctly restrict the devices, then they shouldn't have access to them. But we need to do better at getting effective tools to parents and stop trying to police the internet. There are millions of sites that children should no
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>"Making your kid unemployable."
Nonsense. What does using the Internet have to do with being employable?
>"Make a parent unemployable unless there are technical options not requiring constant supervision."
There are, it is called a locked-down whitelist. Or not having the devices.
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>"Making your kid unemployable."
Nonsense. What does using the Internet have to do with being employable?
>"Make a parent unemployable unless there are technical options not requiring constant supervision."
There are, it is called a locked-down whitelist. Or not having the devices.
I had to chuckle. There are people making themselves unemployable using the internet, usually on TikTok. People who post about their jobs, sometimes expressing their hate for the jobs, or their boss, or the people they work with. They tend to get canned when found out.
Good examples are the Gamestop employee who ridiculed the job, the customers, and the products, and even videos the store safe's location. Or the Chili's employee that went on a rant about people expecting service, good food and clean restro
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>"Back to the issue here - there is nothing to stop a young person to be able to learn technology. I did the greatest part of my computer tech learning before eever using UseNet. Seems like nice graduated process. Learn about the basics on a standalone computer"
BINGO. +100
Non-smartphone for basic communication/text and done. And if the parent wants to go further, THEN dive into an internet connection with lockdown whitelist for older kids and gradually work them up to the insane world.
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>"Back to the issue here - there is nothing to stop a young person to be able to learn technology. I did the greatest part of my computer tech learning before eever using UseNet. Seems like nice graduated process. Learn about the basics on a standalone computer"
BINGO. +100
Non-smartphone for basic communication/text and done. And if the parent wants to go further, THEN dive into an internet connection with lockdown whitelist for older kids and gradually work them up to the insane world.
Yup, the flip phone will serve basic phone calls and text, and allow the parents to get in contact with the kids.
And there is one other thing. I even fall for it. An example is I was supposed to be writing up a paper yesterday about a process I came up with for dealing with a Windows 11 quirk with critical software my group was using. Get up, grab a cup, and get writing after the cobwebs clear.
Oh... an email I was waiting for. Follow that link on it. Then on the linked page, a couple more links. Then
Re: This is how democracy dies (Score:2)
>>Also most parents aren't tech savvy and they always lose the cat and mouse game of internet access control
maybe boomer parents aren't tech savvy but most new parents grew up with the Internet.
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>>Also most parents aren't tech savvy and they always lose the cat and mouse game of internet access control maybe boomer parents aren't tech savvy but most new parents grew up with the Internet.
We only invented it, and built it.
But you are pretty accurate. A determined kid with a bit of smarts can always figure out how to get on the internet. But the question comes up - should we abandon the whole idea of some control just because little 10 YO Jimmy figures out how to get around the rules, and can access all the Midget Shemale scat porn he wants?
I intrinsically am attracted to the idea that parents should control their larvae's internet access. But they don't. Many of them are using the same
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Apparently, those parents don't agree with over policing their kids. Your solution to that is to force them to comply.
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oops replied in the wrong thread
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Schools have school boards for local control and home schooling as a backstop to escape government intervention. You soon won't be able to escape presenting your government issued ID to an app to access the internet in the EU. I don't really care as long as identity doesn't leak to government to the service provider, but it will be inescapable without emigrating to a more free nation.
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You're probably one of these types who thinks that most of the EU is an authoritarian hellhole, and that the US ranks way at the top in most world freedom indices.
(Narrator: it does not [wikipedia.org].)
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Whataboutism much? But you're right. Then again, the US is still buying billions worth of enriched uranium, strategic metals and fertilizer from Russia.
And as far as the oil goes: buying refined products from India or Turkey just provides a tiny fig leaf to let the US pretend that it's not buying Siberian crude in the end.
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You're probably one of these types who thinks that most of the EU is an authoritarian hellhole, and that the US ranks way at the top in most world freedom indices. (Narrator: it does not [wikipedia.org].)
Fresh meat!
Do go on, are you a European Holocaust denier? Tell me all about. Fact is, America ain't all that, But acting like Europe is the cradle and aspect of civilization - when History shows you are capable of and have visited the most horrific crimes against humanity is just beyond the pale.
I love talking to you Europe uber alles types. I take it they don't go over European History, where you had a genocide in teh 1990's. Then again, people who like that sort of thing probably maliciously project
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Cool beans.
Fuck no. When you assume, you make an ass out of you and... well, just you actually.
I don't know what the "aspect" of civilization means, but as far as the cradle of Western civilization goes, there's at least some corroborating evidence. When it comes to the horrific
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Cool beans.
Fuck no.
Here is my point. Europeans are living in a glass house, and throwing bricks at their mortal enemy.
If you want to believe that Europe is teh zenith of sophistication and the most peaceful people on earth. Then I. fully support your hatred and superiority. Until. then every time you hypocrites do your thing, like turd throwing monkeys, I'll be happy to point it out. Especially when you and your ilk try to change every conversation into some anti-US rant. At that point, I'm happy to troll ya. Tit for tat,
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It's always nice to engage in respectful discourse.
You had a good run. Now I think it's time for your nap. I suggest the echo chamber. Under your Gadsden flag (it's the one that says "no step on snek"). I hope you wake up feeling more like yourself.
Don't worry, daddy Europe isn't mad. Just disappointed.
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It's always nice to engage in respectful discourse.
After which you show that respectful discourse is not something you are able to do. Got it.
You had a good run. Now I think it's time for your nap. I suggest the echo chamber. Under your Gadsden flag (it's the one that says "no step on snek"). I hope you wake up feeling more like yourself.
Don't worry, daddy Europe isn't mad. Just disappointed.
And there we have it, Insults, and attempted diminishment of your "adversary". Understood, Allow me to sink closer to your level for a moment, perhaps you'll understand something at that level.
You've adequately proven that I am in a battle of wits with an unarmed person. You exist for entertainment at this point.
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Interesting way of looking at it. I've never considered the relationship between the US and Europe as adversarial.
I don't know understand why you feel slighted though. When I said "You had a good run etc.", I was obviously referring to the US, not you personally (as I hoped the last sentence would have made clear).
Unless, of course, the identification runs so deep that you can't tell the difference anymore... In that case, I apol
democracy in action, from a consensus government (Score:2, Informative)
While concerns about democratic principles and government intervention are valid and warrant ongoing scrutiny, this policy can be viewed as a measure that reinforces parental responsibility rather than undermining it. Many parents have expressed difficulty in managing their children's exposure to social media's potential harms, including addictive algorithms and inappropriate content.
By establishing a minimum age of 16 (as implemented in Australia, with similar proposals in Denmark), the legislation
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>"this policy can be viewed as a measure that reinforces parental responsibility rather than undermining it."
No, it absolves parents of further responsibility and gives them even MORE excuses to not take the devices away or give them in the first place.
>"Many parents have expressed difficulty in managing their children's exposure to social media's potential harms, including addictive algorithms and inappropriate content."
Utter nonsense. The difficulty they are expressing is of their own making by GIV
Re: democracy in action, from a consensus governme (Score:2)
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>"They need those devices for a lot of other stuff: school work is online."
And in those cases, a locked-down device with a whitelist will work quite nicely. Their agents (presumable the schools) should be able to manage that task.
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>"Who maintains the whitelist?"
The parents/agents.
>"What if a site you think should be on the whitelist is not? Should CNN be on it? What about MSNBC? Fox? "
It doesn't have to be perfect to be effective. But having a news site on the whitelist for children would be incredibly stupid.
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The difficulty they are expressing is of their own making by GIVING CHILDREN ACCESS TO THESE DEVICES. Sometimes parents have to say NO.
Ok, step away from the CAPS LOCK. I think we have a misunderstanding here. "Children" was used in the parent-child relationship sense to mean teenagers. Not biological children.
And I think you fail to grasp the specific problems of social media sites. We are not quite so obsessed with "porn & predator" moral scares here, rather the daily slow damage of addictive scrolling.
then the answer is a non-smartphone with no apps or browser and no internet-connected tablets/computers.
I may be getting the wrong impression, but are you also in favour of "abstinence only" sex education? Or no sex e
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>"I think we have a misunderstanding here. "Children" was used in the parent-child relationship sense to mean teenagers. Not biological children."
All minors need some level of protection from the wild internet. I do agree it would not necessarily be the same for an 8 year old as a 16 year old. Parents would have to play an active role in deciding how much access and to where/when, at what age. But what is common know is to throw an unrestricted device at almost any age child. And that is essentially
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If your kids are amongst the few who don't have social media, they're the odd ones out. If no one is supposed to have social media in there age group, it all gets easy.
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As a parent, I can tell you fail to account for many parenting situations, for instance if schools prescribe MS Office, there's no way to keep your kids clean. Same with social media. However, due to a restriction on anything Meta for under 16 my kids got no requests to get onto WhatsApp.
If your kids are amongst the few who don't have social media, they're the odd ones out. If no one is supposed to have social media in there age group, it all gets easy.
Then we are running face first into horrible damage, and you use Microsoft to say it is just how it is. Microsoft is the glue th the only solution Bullying is okay, little kids getting exposure to seriously advanced sexual situations, and destroying their lives, and we have no choice at all because Microsoft, so it's all okay, Let them at it. There are agents of chaos and anarchy that love you, you not only enable it but you say it must happen.
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Why is it so important to you for other people's children to be available on the internet?
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Leaving the groomers aside, there are probably more than a few people here involved in building digital products for kids. And one of the most important features of those products is leveraging peer pressure to create demand among its community of users (kids).
Re: This is how democracy dies (Score:2)
Ah but that should be illegal regardless of the topic at hand. Children are vulnerable, targeting them shouldn't be allowed. It puts so much pressure on the parents too. Everybody relevant that we should care about loses. The only ones who win something are the people trying to sell stuff by manipulating kids, fuck these people.
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It's important for me not to be forced to authenticate to a government server with proof of who I am just to access certain websites that the Government doesn't like
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Everybody seems to be piling on and attacking, but it's only a little exaggerated.
To enforce this you need centralised, state-ID-linked age-verification systems for website access. Bear in mind that Denmark is the country pushing Chat Control. That's the play here imho.
Re: This is how democracy dies (Score:2)
Re: This is how democracy dies (Score:2)
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I’m aware of the plan; I live there
The same state has had a raging, unboundaried surveillance hardon for 25 years. Again, they really, *really* want to scan all your private messages (while theirs are exempted from scanning).
The solution requires state digital ID, even if they claim your actual activity can’t be linked.
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I don't think social media is good for democracy in general (because it's manipulation through power, $$, and algorithm, and driven by outrage, not empathy), but that's a different discussion.
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And then there are dog pictures (Score:3)
Like some Australian teens are now successfully (!) using to sign up to social media.
Lets face it, you cannot keep kids out of any mainstream social activity humans do. As soon as they are interested, they will find a way in. Trying to prevent them will only cause harm and have zero benefits.
Re:And then there are dog pictures (Score:5, Interesting)
You are correct.
Which is why the business model used today by social media should be banned for everyone. Any social media business model that depends on so-called engagement to drive revenue is toxic.
A social media business should only be permitted to operate if (1) it does not fund itself through advertising, but instead charges clients subscription fees. Facebook's worldwide annual revenue per user is about $3.50/month, which is a reasonable subscription fee.
(2) the social media platform must not show you content unless you have explicitly asked for it. So you see your friends and groups you're in, but no sponsored posts.
And (3), the platform must not allow anonymous signups. You don't need to use your real name when you post or comment, but the platform must know who you are (more-or-less required to accept payments.)
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It can also be argued, in the case of teenagers, telling them they can't do something will only increase (or create) a demand that might not have been there to begin with.
It could be argued, but that would be pretty silly, as the demand is clearly there to begin with, and couldn't really be any larger.
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Actually, I think a ban on the surveillance-capitalism/engagement business model would work pretty well. There simply wouldn't be enough advertisers willing to risk their brands on something illegal to make it profitable.
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You are not thinking this through. In the end, all that would happen is this being misused for mass-surveillance and the actual problem would not be solved.
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That will not work either. The only way to deal with this is education and help for those affected, with probably not very good results. But that is life. Some things cannot really be fixed and trying to do so only makes things worse, with countless historic and present examples. Of course, if a platform overdoes it, there is always the possibility of fines and eventually a forced shut-down. But that would require some international agreements on what is acceptable and what is not to work well and those are
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And (3), the platform must not allow anonymous signups.
Oh, goody! I can't wait for that.
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Trying to prevent them will only cause harm and have zero benefits.
So you reckon don't even try to stop harm? Let them buy cigarettes and booze because you can never stop it completely?
That makes no sense. Can you elaborate?
If nothing else, it sends a message to kids that this stuff is toxic. Some don't care, but plenty of kids will take the warnings.
Of course it helps if the parents stay off that scrolling shit too.
Re:And then there are dog pictures (Score:4, Interesting)
>"Lets face it, you cannot keep kids out of any mainstream social activity humans do. As soon as they are interested, they will find a way in.
If your objective is no access ever, anywhere, you are correct. If your objective is to severely restrict access, that is 100% doable. And that obsessive overuse of the devices is the main problem, not occasional/accidental exposure. More-so if it becomes the social norm that kids should not have unsupervised access to unrestricted, internet-connected devices. Restricting access by "papers please" to a few sites isn't going to do it. And it creates lots of other problems.
>"Trying to prevent them will only cause harm and have zero benefits."
Totally disagree.
You go ahead and NOT restrict access to children running into the street, guns, alcohol, dangerous chemicals, horror movies, tobacco, knives, alone time in swimming pools, walking alone at night in city streets, prescription meds, explosives, etc, and get back with us. Or do you think it is not worth trying....
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>"A few parents might be able to manage severe restrictions but at great cost to their relationship with their children given that their peers will not be so restricted."
Like I said, it has to become a new social norm. Then there won't be that type of pressure.
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While it's true that you can't keep kids from seeing content that mabey isn't appropriate, social media companies haven't exactly done themselves any favours by failing to have any kind of rating system for their content.
I think a far better solution would be for content to be rated, with controls in place so rating filters could be applied, similar to how tv has ratings for content, and in some cases has the ability to set a parental lock for some content.
For sites like youtube, which has so much good educ
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I forgot to mention that although it is possible to set some content rating based restrictions on some sited, there isn't any browser level standard. I think ideally what you would want is a way you could set your browser to be in "PG" mode for example, and then all websites (or content on websites) would be filterable accordingly.
Of course some websites might not choose to apply ratings to their content, or would apply inappropriate ratings to the content, but search engines could quickly down rate mis-rat
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Like some Australian teens are now successfully (!) using to sign up to social media.
Lets face it, you cannot keep kids out of any mainstream social activity humans do. As soon as they are interested, they will find a way in. Trying to prevent them will only cause harm and have zero benefits.
I dunno; it seems to have worked for smoking. Use and demand fell massively, social approval vanished, now pretty much only losers smoke.
Re:And then there are dog pictures (Score:5, Interesting)
Like some Australian teens are now successfully (!) using to sign up to social media.
Congrats you pointed out why this law is a success. You used the word *some*. At no point was the law ever designed in such a way to keep 100% of them out. Most laws aren't.
Kind of like how it's illegal to speed in the car, that ended speeding right?
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Nonsense. This is in the first days after the ban and already it is broken.
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The first day speed limits are introduced or changed there are also people who speed. What's your point? There's literally zero laws that are 100% effective. Murder still happens, fraud still happens, and if tomorrow it becomes illegal to say mindblowingly stupid stuff on the internet, you will none the less still be here.
The law is a success by your own measure: *some* kids are using social media, down from "all".
Sign of a bigger picture? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether it works or not, or partially works, or blows up, these moves are interesting because part of a very belated attempt by governments to regulate the unregulatable. Groomers, cyberbullying, all kinds of stuff is known to be harmful, especially to kids but to others as well. So is too-early exposure to pr0n, violence and so on. (In fact, the 'this is how democracy dies' flamebait at the top of this screen is interesting in itself; would the poster speak like that to a room full of parents who are struggling to get by and are trying to protect their kids from online crap while they both work all day? or would codebase7 only say it in the safety and distance of a forum like this? Is that comment a very mild example of one of the main problems with so much online communication -- a basic lack of respect?)
The very fact that governments are finally having a go at this is the interesting thing.
If toy companies were as unregulated as the 'net, kids would be finding MDMA tabs packaged with their Hot Wheels cars, to encourage them to go back for more.
It needed to happen 30 years ago, at the beginning of the internet, to set different expectations. The big techs have been created in an environment when they can essentially be parasites on society, and they don't like having to contribute, and they don't like anything that clamps down on their freedoms. And, given that their business is making money, you cannot blame them for being pricks. It works.
This is good. And not about teenagers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Commercial "social media" shouldn't exist in the first place. This will force teenagers to learn about computers, networks, pseudonyms, IRC and self-hosted forums. That can't be a bad thing.
These laws aren't about teenagers anyway. Like a 15 year old me would care if commercial social media is off limits to me. I'd have a spoof account up and running in 5 minutes of the law taking effect. This is about the authorities being able to fine social media giants for bazillions if they chose to target teens. Good stuff. The sooner these corps vanish again and get replaced by citizen run networks, the better.
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This is about the authorities being able to fine social media giants for bazillions if they chose to target teens. Good stuff.
I disagree, it's more about eliminating anonymity on the internet. Goodbye free speech.
Older than that (Score:2)
Denmark has long argued school children should be the commerical social media. For a decade Denmark have had a smaller school based social media to replace the need.
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..shouldn't be..
Social media bad for children? (Score:2)
misbehaviour training wheels (Score:3)
If they are serious, the government could act as an age verification broker. Parents could opt in (I don't know, maybe check a box on their tax return) get access tokens they can give to their kids and set permissions and automated review notificatons for thir Kid's devices. That provides one more lever for parents
if they are not serious then they should let it drop and just allow unfettered access as it is today, because lax enforcement seems worse to me somehow, almost like encouraging misbehaviour
Social media as a recursive function (Score:2)
Maybe: there are too many unknowns to determine what's going to happen with these bans. Also, it may help to think of them as the first step in a recursive function. That is, if the ban (largely) doesn't work, what then? The policymakers learn from those who want to avoid tha ban and vice versa.
Also, this is an explicit large, worldwide experiment in which countries are attempting to exclude an important part of childhood in many countries, social media. So, you have a few controls and many experimental gro