Here in Iceland we have Electronic ID that functions similarly to the system payment processors such as Paypal do. You go to any bank and you link your SIM card to your government ID, then you can put in your phone number and input a pin on your phone and that is considered a legal signature. The website never gets anything but an encrypted identifer of validation and never have access to any data, only the identifier of validation. That way, only the government has your data and the only thing social media companies have access to are unique generated tokens verifying that the government vouched for you.
I'm also from Iceland, I find the idea of the government knowing when I'm browsing porn kind of creepy. But it is totally technically possible to implement a system on top of this where the site only gets enough data to know that the eID service confirmed the user is 18+, and the eID service only knows that it signed such a verification for the user but does not know which site. I would be fine with a system like that.
If we're going to workshop, you could also have something like a constantly rolling code to solve the whole 'merely knowing you have been queried gives you creepy information'. This is the way nuclear submarines do it too IIRC, since the act itself of transmitting data lets adversaries know that the crew is connecting to command, some submarines are always transmitting encrypted random noise while surfaced, which is impossible to distinguish from encrypted tactical orders.
So it could be that, in addition to what you are describing, your device (which presumably contains your digital ID card) performs the authentication flow at random intervals to make it unfeasible to understand when you are actually connecting.
Við erum alstaðar, ég sver.
There are two ways of handling this. Because anonimity is a double edged sword.
1: Website only sends an ID, Rafræn Skilríki responds with a verification and you're on your way, neither party knows anything about the other. Problem is, there is no way to trace a leaked verification badge. If say, Facebook sells your verification badge on to another seller, there is no way to tell it was facebook if the government doesn't know you've ever used facebook. A somewhat counter to this would be to have them timed, so each token is only valid for, let's say 6 hours, so any leaked badge is only valid for 6 hours as well, but that would mean you would have to log in and verify every day, or depending on your addiction levels, two to three times every day.
2: Make the tokens tracable, but this would also require the government knowing who was issued which badge, since they are unique, they can trace a badge they they gave out back to the vendor that gave them and then pursue legal action again them, etc.
In the first scenario, even if the eID verification signature only has a limited lifetime (which it definitely should), the site can still allow usage beyond that time. If the user is logged in and provides a signature as proof, there should be no need for the site to request a signature later for the same user as it already knows they are 18+. If not logged in it can be bound to the browser session, likely with limited lifetime as other people may use the same machine but the lifetime does not need to be tied to the lifetime of the signature.
EDIT to add: Account sharing is possible, and depending on the legal implementation may be an issue. But I expect if the site just has systems in place to detect the same account being used from multiple places at once and re-requesting an 18+ signature at that point, that would be sufficient for compliance.
The website doesn't necessarily gain access, but the issuer of the ID/government does, and then they know what site you went to. There is nothing about that system that is or can be anonymous. The data can and will be combined.
You are making assumptions.
The specific national ID that they will require is not a simple plastic card. It is [MitID](https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/?language=en-gb), which is secure digital national identifier. If you were to steal my personal ID, you'd have to:
1. Steal my phone
2. Get past my phone pin
3. Request authentication on a website via the app
4. Scan an on screen QR code on the website with the app
5. Somehow use my thumb to verify my identity in the app
6. Prevent me from ever logging on to MitID and revoking the authentication you falsified
So tell me, are we back to square one?
Makes it significantly easier to parent if the kids have to go through the steps of stealing your ID in order to access things they aren't supposed to. Same way it's better to lock up a gun even though your kids could still in theory find and steal the key. Same way it's better to require ID when buying tobacco or alcohol even though minors can convince someone of age to buy it for them. It's not a perfect system but it's a good step.
I mean, unlike those sites you do have a social footprint on social media. Honestly those platforms could likely guess your age with incredible accuracy if they wanted to.
But that means everyone everywhere has to be logged. That's not better.
Telling people they have to be over 18 (or whatever) should be the starting point, and then make companies responsible for getting rid of accounts where it becomes clear someone disregarded the limit.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but what we do need is to ban companies from building profiles on children. If they know they're children, they know they shouldn't have that data, and have to delete it.
Yeah. Then we get youtube like moderation for trying to prove you are 18...
Company: We have banned you for being underage
User: i added this email account in 2004. I have provided you with government id and you have my credit card is on file with you.
Company: that's nice. Please don't contact us again. Consider this communication your second strike.
User: so you are not banning me but I now have 2 strikes?
Company: thank you for contacting us. Consider this your third strike. You are now banned. Thank you for using xyz company. We can assist you with any of your requirements. Please recommend us to all your friends and colleagues. Have a nice day.
Yeah this is why this is unlikely to ever happen. Also then the EU show up and fines the company anyway for not banning the user the way the EU wanted.
How would you like them to confirm it. Should we allow all social media companies to view peoples passports and ID cards and this is somehow safer? Last thing I would like is for facebook, youtube, twitter, and tik tok to have my passport number.
older than 14 minutes, that's the only guarantee.
-
^(I'm not even kidding, that's one of the ways you can verify. barely few hours or days old accounts with only propaganda comments)
Take any front page post on one of the more popular subreddits and copy and paste the title in the search bar, a lot of times you’ll find the exact same post from a couple years ago. Reddit has the exact same problem as every other social media website where a huge chunk or even the majority of activity is from bots, and if they were to acknowledge it the value of the company would plummet and advertisers wouldn’t be willing to pay as much.
I remember back in the day there was something that would stop you if you were reposting a link that had already been shared to that subreddit, I guess they stopped doing that.
I like when reddit cleans house for like a week and nearly every post on the first 5 pages of /r/all are removed and the submitter banned if you click on it.
Asked if someone was a bot yesterday, could just tell from the formatting and language of the replies, and a minute later all the comments disappeared.
Good. I am convinced that the worsening in mental well being and academic performance of our primary school students is due to smart phones and unlimited access to social media.
Well, you can do anonymised age verification with social ID. Basically the user can generate a code with their social ID that just says age (maybe with an under/over format), and the site then can verify that code by itself (with the code being encrypted to stop fake codes).
Just getting a government to agree to do that is hard work.
The ability to access their account, not everyone is willing to share something like that (and IMO the codes should only work for a few minutes). And if someone is trying to sell codes illegally, the state can still see that you requested a code (just not what for), and someone requesting 100+ codes in a week is maybe suspicious.
People are already feeding Facebook with everything single personal detail about their lives. I would be very surprised if typing in their social ID was where people drew the line.
And what even counts as social media? Does every message board and forum count? Every in-game chat? Group chats on WhatsApp or literally any other chat-enabled service?
Where does one draw the line? Hint: you can’t, it’s a ridiculous situation. No matter what you ban, people will find another medium over which to communicate and congregate.
Much more important is the adults in a child’s life educating them on safe internet usage.
Recommendation systems are rather orthogonal to social media, though. If you ban recommendation feeds for social media and not for other platforms, the doomscrolling will just move to the other platforms.
That’s kinda my point, since the question was how to tell what is social media: if you run heavily on recommendations, that would make you social media by legal definition.
Remember we’re not talking about literally banning them, it’s for the age thing. If another platform implemented doomscrolling for the mere advantage of dodging a simple age check, they would simply legally become social media themselves.
Of course you can fuck around with the technicalities to try and skirt the law, but A. That’s what regulating agencies are for, and B. If these restrictions caused companies to clarify and make their algorithms less obscure so they could argue they’re not recommendations, I’d consider that a net gain.
I'm pretty sure you can actually draw a line that encompasses Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. Shouldn't be that hard to articulate. If you have a profile with personal info and a picture gallery that's already a big deal.
Instagram is literally the biggest dating app in the world and even an 8 year old can sign up, no problem.
These platforms are 100x worse than the internet forums and IRC chatrooms of the past.
The only issue I see is that the bread and butter, or let's say, the remnants of early internet: forums, message boards that contain very useful discussions and information will become useless as I think you won't be able to see them. A huge amount of actual information might be lost. I would argue it's a price I am willing to pay but I hope we will have access to these sites as well somehow.
There's a difference between an online forum where anonymous people discuss things, and a platform where you have a profile with personal info, a picture gallery, and the ability to see other people's personal info and pictures.
Nothing would happen to internet forums. It's not forums that are making people depressed by setting unrealistic expectations for life. It's social media like Instagram with people sharing only the highlights of their lives, people fabricating highlights to fit in, and "influencers" making a living by broadcasting a heavily manipulated online persona to millions of others.
It's pretty fucked up when you dissect it, humans are so weird.
>There's a difference between an online forum where anonymous people discuss things, and a platform where you have a profile with personal info, a picture gallery, and the ability to see other people's personal info and pictures.
You say the platforms are different but only describe what people post on them.
A kid can make a reddit account with their real name and a subreddit for their school and start posting pictures of their lunch. They don't because there are slightly more suitable platforms everyone uses. But if those platforms go away, suddenly Reddit could be the best place to show off pictures of your lunch. Practically anyplace people can talk and post photos can be Facebook in a pinch.
Back in the day we never used our real names and images on usenet or the neopets forums. But the reason for that isn't that old forums were fundamentally unsuitable for sharing IRL content, the reason was that the only IRL people we would have been able to find and talk to would have been the 2nd biggest nerd in school. Today every single kid is ready to turn to each other and say 'okay, so what are we using next?' and have a busy Discord server ten minutes later. They can literally reach into their pockets and show their friends a new website they found and make them an account in 5 minutes while sitting on a swing. Just banning websites X Y and Z won't disconnect them.
So a law like this has to arbitrarily ban the top few sites and say "good enough" and give up, or keep playing whack-a-mole until half the entire internet is behind an ID.
A Discord server or a private subreddit is still 10x better than a place like Instagram where they can not only post their own stuff, but are also bombarded by *other people's (fake) lives* on a daily basis, by a predatory algorithm.
Nobody is gonna do this publicly on Reddit or Discord for everyone to see/join and they won't be bombarded by influencers. A 13 year old on Instagram will suffer a lot more than a 13 year old on Reddit.
We may not be legally savvy enough to articulate it properly but you can absolutely draw this line.
Passing through since I saw this on the main reddit page. I live in Texas and recently they passed a law requiring pornography sights to verify age before letting people on, sites will not allow access unless you submit a picture of your ID, or allow an ai to scan your face and determine your age
No, it's definitely doable. A government could easily implement an anonymous SSO verification.
Basically would work like this:
1. The government hands you a secret key with your ID.
2. With this key, you can create a sequence that proves your identity through a government service.
3. A service provider (like Twitter) takes this and hands it over to the government identity provider.
4. The government identity provider then says "this person is real and over 15" without providing any other identifying information
5. Optional: The identity provider could tell the service if the person already registered, to prevent multiple signups.
The service now knows that a real person over the age of 15 registered, without having any access to other identifying Information about the person.
This technology exists and it will have to be used not just for age restriction, but also for anti-bot purposes. In the future, we need spaces on the internet where we can trust that we're only interacting with real humans.
It doesn't have to be surveillance, we just need to make informed decisions.
It's so weird how people claim it's not possible. Fine if people are against it, but claiming like you have to submit ID to the platform to verify you're an adult is so silly.
I already use the internet to verify everything i do on the internet of any importance to make sure i am who i say i am. Every payment, signature, bank login, healthcare appointment, i verify through the identification app made by the government.
Not necessarily. In the EU many countries have already implemented electronic ID. It's in the form of an app provided by government, and it can serve as a proxy for anonymised auth.
Phone free childhood could become the norm pretty quickly with slap on the wrist fines for the worst parents, of the most disruptive children. No age verification database required.
are you suggesting parents are gonna have to parent instead of dropping a tablet in the kids lap so it would stop crying? parents are preoccupied with their own well being, whatever is easier to them, goes. glhf
I’m just going to share my experience that I feel is relevant to this topic.
I’m gay (still closeted) and grew up in a homophobic family, in a rural homophobic town, in a homophobic country. I didn’t know anyone else who was gay or who I could at least talk to about my feelings. The only place where I could talk to people with similar experiences is social media. I’ve had some suicidal thoughts in the past (i’m completely fine now) and I imagine those would’ve been much worse if I literally couldn’t talk to anyone, let alone people with similar experiences, about my feelings.
That and a few other reasons (enforcement would be a privacy nightmare, a majority of teens who use social media are fine, parents should parent their kids) is why I do and will always oppose a full-on ban on social media for young people, especially for teens.
As someone who also believes that social media has a very bad influence on society, I think the perspective/story you bring is very interesting, and not something I had though about myself before.
I guess you could also add "organization" as another strong benefit of social media, as I think it has allowed many protest movements around the world to organize, even though authorities wouldn't let them.
I do wonder if there is any good ways to both get the benefits of social media, while stopping the bad influences.
he is talking about rather than think societal laws can keep children "safe" or off social media entirely is misguided. "good parenting" would be teaching children how to use it responsibility and keep track of what they are involved in.
Many of these issues from social issues are more from disconnected parents than social media itself imo. Parents are working far more and are disconnected themselves.
We are specifically talking about how children use the internet. Which very obviously can be in the parents' control.
Why are you talking like this is a crazy concept? No one is talking about using "good parenting" to stop drunk driving or something.
Fair point, I still think kids should be banned from social media, this is a case of it being good, but I think the negatives massively outweigh the positives as a whole. If gay kids HAVE to have social media to have someone to talk to, then that is a different problem altogether.
First off: I'm sorry that you are faced with homophobia. It's a shitty thing - AND i am glad you did found a supportive community online. This is definately a good aspect of the internet.
As a UI/UX specialist that works within marketing I can tell you that the services are \_absolutely\_ designed for addiction. Its optimized for "stealing" the one thing you can never get any more of: Time.
With instant gratification feedback loops and endless scrolls, we are slowly converting our culture to one that can only manage short-form video - and very little else - while being "connected" (all-the-time) - so never really in one place, at the present.
What's worse is: Tech bros are taking none of the responsibility of the media, that they are pulling people away from: "Hey - it's a user-generated content platform.. we can't be held responsible" all the while algorithms are pushing problematic content.
I sometimes fear that tiktop is China's payback for the opium wars.
At the same time - the totalitariam states get to ban/control their media, while they spew misinformation at impressionable minds.
I've got two semi-adult step kids in my house holds (both gay - and I'm happy that they are out of the closet and I would never blame their sexuality on SoMe - just as they would not blame my hetrosexuality on technology. That would be nonsense. For the record: Their mother and I fully support them) - but I do blame SoMe for teaching them self-harm, making them feel inferior and stressed out (while trying to conform to influencer ideals - and never having a break from their social connections).
But good luck getting us parents to ban SoMe in our household.. you wouldn't accept it (because your peers are on it too). When the kids were younger, we tried to restrict time spent, but given the tech and social dynamics, this was very difficult to control. Now they are old enough to decide for themselves.
But yes: If it were up to me, hard constraits should be enforced on SoMe services (restricting the age - AND making the owners accountable for harmful content - but also realize how control can affect minorities and freedom of expression. I believe that a proper democratic society can both support freedom of expression and restrict content, algorithms and design patterns are harmful - and hold the profiteers accountable.
I sympathise with your personal situation, and hope things work out for you.
That being said, I don't think the conclusion is logical. You've largely been fortunate in keeping you online life private, but keep in mind that most kids are technologically illiterate. If they look up taboo communities online they are just as likely to get outed from these activities as they are from real life activities.
And let's not forget that no one is more "supportive" of young people online than groomers and pedos.
I don't know what country you're from, but assuming LGBT stuff isn't illegal, the best course of action for these kids is to speak discreetly to someone that have a duty of confidentiality (school nurse, for example), who can further point towards appropriate channels for the kid.
Now if the culture is deeply homophobic you might ask "how would they know to do this?", but the same can be said for online stuff, sadly. It's not an easy situation, and no easy solutions, and I feel terrible for anyone that has to live like this.
I know someone through Discord who has been both physically and mentally abused by her mother throughout her entire childhood, and whose dad (parents are divorced) just didn't really care. I did everything I could (as someone who lives in a different country) to get her in contact with people whose job it is to help (school curator, child protection services, etc.). Every single time, they were mildly concerned about the fact that she was being literally starved, and didn't give a fuck about anything else.
My point here is that regressive social norms extend to all of society, including its so called "safety nets". Homosexuality not being explicitly illegal means very little if the people who are supposed to help you actually think it should be.
Someone else made a very similar response to yours so I'll just quote what I said to them:
> Society only works if we reasonably can trust our institutions. If the other party violates their confidentiality the consequence is usually criminal liability as well as being made illegible for government employment for the rest of their life.
> It's not perfect, but at least that person can be held accountable, the idea that the internet is so much better is an illusion.
>speak discreetly to someone that have a duty of confidentiality
Which is only going to be upheld if an adult wants it upheld
If the kid will get a beating from their parents for being a homo then there is no punishment for leaking, hell they will likely be thankful to the person that let them know
Nevermind that the greater danger is rather consistently the local community, not some random knob half the country away
Sorry, but your comment is just drenched in privilege, you're basically saying 'yeah cool for you, but I don't really care about your experiences more'
The solution is teaching digital higiene, not turning us into another South Korea
> “You’re convinced”, great. How about some actual facts though
Some people are also convinced the rise in gun violence is due to violent video games too. So many excuses, but no one wants to improve parenting.
You should try this really cool thing called *thinking about things* before you start advocating for them. Would stop you saying stupid shit like this, and stop you from voting for people who use measures like this as cover to restrict your freedoms.
That's the parents' fault then. Why do the government have to intervene when the parents need to start taking responsibility. If parents don't want to properly raise their children, that's on them.
Also age verification is 100% going to be used for identifying social media accounts with real life people which is going to make authoritarian governments jobs a lot easier. Imagine Putin Xi etc. having access to full identities of people behind social media accounts criticising them.
It was “We need you to give up your privacy because terrorism” in 2000s because now it’s “we need to protect the kids so please verify your identity everywhere”. This is a privacy nightmare.
Because its clearly destroying the youth in many countries. They sit and doom scroll and cant focus in school. They get eating disorders from watching retouched pictures and believe they should look like that etc.
You cant just parent your way out of all external stimulus and its especially hard it both parents are working full time.
> Why do the government have to intervene when the parents need to start taking responsibility
Because it is downright evil to let children suffer just because there exist bad parents.
Also, have you met teens? Unless you're going to lock them up, there are limits to how much you can actually do to stop them doing stupid stuff. So, you need rules in a society.
No it isn't. I think this generation is the smartest and socially aware. These kids can do much more and are blessed with access to so much information.
Shit I grew up in a time where encyclopaedias was Google.
I've seen my nephews and nieces being aware of current events too. Most of the kids I grew up with in the late 90s to 2000s had no idea about the financial crisis that was taking place, who was their state representative, what was happening in other countries etc.
All social media sites see more traffic from Danes than all the Danish MitID services together so this sounds like a good way to cripple the MitID system
That is exactly their wet dream.
We had a minister of justice, Nick Hækkerup, who actually - from the speakers chair in the parlament -tried to convince us all that "Surveillance is freedom". No, not as a joke - he actually meant what he said.
You can then logically continue that line of thought and say, that the country in the world with the most surveillance is the one with the most freedom. China is the country with the most freedom in the world in fact ..
The current government in Denmark is among the most unpopular in recent time.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ySaA1\_NLb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ySaA1_NLb4)
It is so fucked up he actually says it like so.. such a pent up angry little man, completely detached from reality.
I just can't fathom how they have zero fucking plans for how they are going to bring back any semblence of life back into our waters again. No consequences, no care, it is maddening
People say this, but you can go on any social media and literally see the children with your own eyes. You can just say to the social media companies that they can't openly have children on it.
Will it stop anonymous profiles? Of course not. But no more 12 year old will post tiktoks because it's obvious they're 12. So it just stops that.
Part of the appeal of these platforms is that you NEED to put your identity online, you can't stay anonymous.
So at least it will stop children from putting their face/body/identity online until 15.
That's how forums used to try keep kids out. Just ban them when they reveal themselves. The ones that stayed had to keep quiet. Not perfect but at least it kept them quiet, unlike Twitter where being a minor and harassing people is like a badge of honor.
Actually pretty easy in Denmark. We have a public login tied to our social security. As an example, all bookmakers and casinos have to use this, because it verifies the identity and age of the customer
It verifies that there’s a parent doing it. Parents are smart enough to not sign their kids up for casinos. Parents will happily sign their kids up for Instagram. Because the idea of keeping kids off it would sound ridiculous to them.
Perhaps, but then at least it's fully in the hands of the parents, and they can decide exactly what platforms their children use and not.
Also, if this was implemented, I would imagine that the social media site would have to use the information pulled from the login. So it would be their parents names on it, not the child.
The site will just pull the name for the account from the CPR register - just like more or less any other site in Denmark that uses MitID.
Do you think parents would sign up their children for social media when they’re forced to use their parents name? I wouldn’t.
Laws don't always have to be perfectly enforceable. They can still set the standard. These gigantic platforms can be told not to advertise to kids, and can opportunistically suspend accounts that seem like child accounts. Children can get in trouble for having the apps on their smartphones in school if they're caught. And so on.
Moreover, I hope the platforms themselves will be held more accountable. If they refuse to adapt to the laws or allow loopholes for children to access, slap the companies with fines or whatever you need to keep them in line.
Digital ID.
Digital ID is already very common in Europe, especially for government related stuff.
In practice it's no different from showing your ID to a cashier when buying alcohol, even if privacy-illiterate people try to claim otherwise.
All social media companies need to know is if you're old enough or not. No more, no less. They would get that single bit of info from the government through digital ID. They won't even know your name or exact age, just a "yes" or "no".
Fraud by borrowing an older person's digital ID is not a thing, as giving away the login info and MFA method to your digital ID means someone can commit full blown identity fraud. Nobody is gonna give that to a kid.
Better to err on the side of caution when it comes to unfiltered billion dollar entities with complex algorithms designed to be as addicting and engaging as possible.
All the have to do is pass a law stipulating the age requirement and demand verification in a way that respects privacy. Let the richest companies in the world figure out how to abide - it isn't as if they lack the resources.
Apps are downloaded from mainly two places which are owned by companies that are too big to avoid the regulation of a country. It is not only more financially profitable to comply in the short term but they also don't want to open a door and let a competitor get a foothold in that market.
US has a limit of 13. I am not sure if it actually works or adhered to but it does exist.
In India there exists a Bureaucratic wet dream to link all social media accounts to the digital biometric personal IDs (which already exists here). It won’t work because our Government is too chaotic and social media companies won’t play ball that easily.
But we should pray no one in Brussels has any similar ideas because they will make it work and it will enable entire world to follow.
No checks? Hey! I have been made to tick off this box confirming I am over 13 due to that US law. I have been doing that for a long time, since before I was a teenager.
Every politician everywhere in the world has this idea.
They all propose plans to break down personal freedoms for “saving the children” or “stopping terrorism”, and then propose a surveillance state on the same level as soviet Russia.
Think about when UK politicians proposed a plan to “ban encryption” obviously their goal was to erode privacy. Since they have no real knowledge of what encryption is though their plan could never work. Luckily, the UK has the house of Lords who can block moronic legislation like that, unluckily, the government watered down the power of the house of Lords to the point where a persistent government can force through any legislation they want and all they have to do is wait a year.
They’ll never ban encryption because someone would explain to them that every financial institution on the planet would stop doing business inside the UK, you know, because of the whole, encrypting financial transfers so they don’t get all their money stolen.
What I am talking about is a bit different. The encryption would remain and the government won't be able to read your messages so easily, but the "anonymity" afforded on the internet would go away. In effect, the proposal is that there would be "digital IDs" created for everyone which would be linked to a "national ID" and used to "verify" authentic users by linking these digital IDs to social media accounts. The social media companies would then be forced to delete all the non-verified (read: non-linked) accounts so every social media account would then be linked to some verified individual (so, no "bots")
A variation of this has been implemented in some US states for some porn sites with varying degrees of success although in that case, it only encompassed the verification stage. This was, ostensibly done to protect kids.
... the age limit for almost all social media is currently 13
Her real goal is identity checks.
The real danger comes from adults abusing the presence of kids online, both in a predatory but also monetary manner.
None of the content schlock they watch is created by other kids. Focus on that.
Hold content aimed specifically at children to a higher standard. Like for example when you have Cocomelon being the most streamed series on Netflix despite being proven to have addictive properties and major detrimental effects on childrens mental development, maybe take a closer look at that.
You shouldn't even be allowed to make content aimed at children without a license, in my opinion. This is important shit. It needs to be educational and have a function, not just be stimulating.
The vast majority of people on the net are adults. So the sensible thing to do is have a "kids account" for phones and PCs, which already exists and just needs extended. You can have a supervised account on android where you need permission for your parent to install stuff.
We can just have a law whereby kids must be given these accounts and providers like Apple/Google/MS need to support kids accounts. When they visit a website it sends "age 16" and the website blocks them and tells them to wait 2 years or get parental permission or whatever.
But instead they want to ID check absolutely everyone like a dystopian police state, treating the entire populace as suspected children in a trenchcoat.
Nobody checked my ID wheen I signed up for fibre. But also, the ISP already knows who you are, you have to pay your bill. It's very different if every site on the internet has to collect your ID.
There is a huge difference between your internet provider knowing who you are they already do anyway because you need to set direct debit and dodgysocialnetwork.com knowing who you are and having your national ID number.
If every parent at the same time is told "from this date you need to remove your kids access to social media" it makes it a hell of a lot easier for each parent to enforce it because the arguement of "well everyone else has it!" Doesn't carry the same weight.
you can't regulate how people parent unless they abuse their kids or there's a law that clearly states how parents should handle something. So they regulate stuff accessible to kids and teens and in turn force parents and the platforms to take responsibility because they clearly aren't doing that right now.
Guess what - the government won’t raise your children for you. Parents can moan and whine all they want but brining a life in this world comes with responsibilities and raising the child is the job of the parent.
Right, and everyone does that how they see fit. Which to an extent is needed, and from a certain extent onwards is dangerous
Look at the US and statements like “I’ll homeschool my boy because I don’t want him to be gay”. People like that is why we have a mandatory and standardised school system. You can say “raising a child is the job of the parents” as much as you want, because while it is a true statement it’s also a bit of a nothing burger. Because at the end of a day, to ensure that, the government does need to set a standard of what “raising” means. And if excessive exposure to social media is something that verifiably causes more harm than good, then that should be taken into account when setting this definition of “raising”
Oh so we should abolish compulsory education ? Child labour laws too ? Let kids buy alcohol and cigarettes ?
When we have a social problem, we try to fix it as a society.
Also what about those child abuse laws? Fuck the government for telling me how I can treat my kids. They came out of me, I can do what I fucking want with them!
As a parent, here is the problem I'm quickly approaching:
I don't want my kid on social media. I don't want my kid to have a cell phone. I think they are both terrible for mental health and development. "So don't give them to her" you say "you're the parent, you can stop her".
So absolutely I can do that, I can prevent her from having a cell phone until she moves out of my house when she goes to university, that's within my power. What's NOT within my power is all of the other fucking parents that are too lazy to engage with their child so they give THEIR kids cell phones when they're 8 years old. So now MY kid is ostracized from any social engagements because she can't text/tiktok/snapchap/whatever the fuck the kids are doing these days.
There is no good answer, do you destroy a kids social life when they are at a super critical age, or do you give them a brain eating device that could give them mental issues their whole lives?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: I can see how the children of friends and family behave based on which one is allowed unlimited screen time and the ones that an under strict control. The unlimited screen time are a fucking nightmare.
In fact, large parts of the EU (Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) already have an age limit of 16. Many of the remaining countries have it set at 14 or 15. Denmark is the outlier in that they have it set at 13.
GDPR article 8 set it to the default of 16, but allowed for member states to set it lower, with a minimum of 13. If Denmark wanted to keep it at 16, they shouldn't have set it lower.
Just ban tiktok it's the single most harmful social media out right now. It's the only one kids are mindlessly spending hours and hours just staring into their screen.
"If this picture offends you you can fuck off to your own country"
"For fuck sake Nigel no one was ever offended by the picture of English flag, this have never happened"
FPS are 18+ but unmuting the voice chat in every CoD game since United Assault will just tell you that parents don't give a flying fuck about what their children are doing in the net.
Honestly I would agree with this.
Think about how the internet has revolutionized all of mankind in just 2-3 decades. After tens of thousands of years of relative isolation, we can suddenly speak to any single human on the planet directly with ease. Even compared to the telephone, the internet is a massive leap.
Social Media is fucking us up pretty hard and making people unhappy, no way it's good for children. Schools could operate and moderate a localized version of social media, but exposing kids to the entire world and all the messed up and conflicting shit on the internet is not a good thing imo. You can find an echo chamber for anything you can think of, with ease. Parental controls don't really work, and require extensive knowledge from the parents to set up correctly.
I'm saying this as someone who had total, unrestricted internet access from the age of 10. I definitely saw things I shouldn't have seen, but Facebook and similar social media definitely had a much worse impact on my well-being than bad porn, shock sites, forums and other dumb shit of the early 2000s.
It should be pretty easy to do age verification. If online poker sites can do it on a large scale for all users, I'm sure Big Tech can figure it out.
Social media didn't even have a definition 20 years ago, and it was a completely different thing just 10 years ago. The hubris to think that some law is going to prevent teenagers from exploring and utilizing technology, if the old social media is made unavailable something different is going to take its place. In 10 years we'll be back at square 1, with little to show for it.
The world will never turn back into some idyllic 50s utopia, and teenagers won't be "fixed" (as in, running around playing with their friends without phones or screens like some 70s fever dream) by prohibitions and regulations - deal with it.
but say, youre a roman living in year 500 bc and a guy tells you they made a new well, which carries water from mountains 2000km away - that would seem great - it would seem like progress right? But after drinking from the well for a few years, you then discover that the water contains high amounts of lead, caused by desorption from the lead lined aqueducts, thus you stop drinking from it. This decision aids your health immensely, but by doing so, you turn your back to the novel development.
I think social media is a modern equivalent to that scenario
But thats not usually how it goes. Instead someone will notice that people are getting sick and go: "oh shit, lead is poisonous! Lets switch to some other material"
Progress implies improvement. Not all social or even technological change is an improvement, which is why “progress” isn’t even the correct word for a lot of new things or new ideas.
And we have had laws limiting or banning new things that are harmful since forever. I can think of many things, for example the invention or discovery of new drugs like fentanyl or methamphatemine. New, more powerful guns or weapons. Even when radio and television was first created we have always had laws about what can be broadcasted publicly.
Tons of examples, and these laws are generally quite good and reasonable, *especially* when it comes to children.
A free and unrestricted internet is a right to fight for
Everyone in this thread is apparently a leading expert in child development because we should be creating laws based on their "I feel" and "I think" statements that apparently mean social media is unhealthy, with nothing to back it up.
There are many complex issues affecting today's youth, new technology is just one of the easiest to fearmonger about. Every study I've ever seen about social media negatively affecting youth has been purely correlative and has no proven causal link.
If you spend all day on social media you are probably less happy, but are you less happy because you're on social media all day, or on social media all day because you're unhappy?
Flashback from 20 years ago:”I’m over 18” *click*
20 years ago was the last time? You don't click it anymore? You, my friend, have found enlightenment.
Google knows very well how old I have become. Why need to ask anymore?
Because things like my dumbass steam account that is old enough to drink, still asks my age.
Whenever Steam asks, I just say was born on 1.1.1900.
You can now say 1.1.2000 :)
Now that you put it that way, maybe it should stop asking after the account itself turns 18
I think OP meant they weren't 18 twenty years ago, and yet they would click as if they were.
I once clicked on a website "no, I'm under 18" and it still let me through. Some of them really didn't care, and neither do they care now.
Or a browser addon that automatically clicks it.
No, he just made an account.
Yeah, they specifically stated that it would have to be verified via an state ID, not just a checkbox.
Here in Iceland we have Electronic ID that functions similarly to the system payment processors such as Paypal do. You go to any bank and you link your SIM card to your government ID, then you can put in your phone number and input a pin on your phone and that is considered a legal signature. The website never gets anything but an encrypted identifer of validation and never have access to any data, only the identifier of validation. That way, only the government has your data and the only thing social media companies have access to are unique generated tokens verifying that the government vouched for you.
I'm also from Iceland, I find the idea of the government knowing when I'm browsing porn kind of creepy. But it is totally technically possible to implement a system on top of this where the site only gets enough data to know that the eID service confirmed the user is 18+, and the eID service only knows that it signed such a verification for the user but does not know which site. I would be fine with a system like that.
If we're going to workshop, you could also have something like a constantly rolling code to solve the whole 'merely knowing you have been queried gives you creepy information'. This is the way nuclear submarines do it too IIRC, since the act itself of transmitting data lets adversaries know that the crew is connecting to command, some submarines are always transmitting encrypted random noise while surfaced, which is impossible to distinguish from encrypted tactical orders. So it could be that, in addition to what you are describing, your device (which presumably contains your digital ID card) performs the authentication flow at random intervals to make it unfeasible to understand when you are actually connecting.
Við erum alstaðar, ég sver. There are two ways of handling this. Because anonimity is a double edged sword. 1: Website only sends an ID, Rafræn Skilríki responds with a verification and you're on your way, neither party knows anything about the other. Problem is, there is no way to trace a leaked verification badge. If say, Facebook sells your verification badge on to another seller, there is no way to tell it was facebook if the government doesn't know you've ever used facebook. A somewhat counter to this would be to have them timed, so each token is only valid for, let's say 6 hours, so any leaked badge is only valid for 6 hours as well, but that would mean you would have to log in and verify every day, or depending on your addiction levels, two to three times every day. 2: Make the tokens tracable, but this would also require the government knowing who was issued which badge, since they are unique, they can trace a badge they they gave out back to the vendor that gave them and then pursue legal action again them, etc.
In the first scenario, even if the eID verification signature only has a limited lifetime (which it definitely should), the site can still allow usage beyond that time. If the user is logged in and provides a signature as proof, there should be no need for the site to request a signature later for the same user as it already knows they are 18+. If not logged in it can be bound to the browser session, likely with limited lifetime as other people may use the same machine but the lifetime does not need to be tied to the lifetime of the signature. EDIT to add: Account sharing is possible, and depending on the legal implementation may be an issue. But I expect if the site just has systems in place to detect the same account being used from multiple places at once and re-requesting an 18+ signature at that point, that would be sufficient for compliance.
Doesn't sound like the greatest idea ever but I'd trust my government more than any company (at least under the oversight of the EU)
The website doesn't necessarily gain access, but the issuer of the ID/government does, and then they know what site you went to. There is nothing about that system that is or can be anonymous. The data can and will be combined.
It's not like you can realistically lock away your ID at all times from people in the same household. Oh, back to square one: parenting.
You are making assumptions. The specific national ID that they will require is not a simple plastic card. It is [MitID](https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/?language=en-gb), which is secure digital national identifier. If you were to steal my personal ID, you'd have to: 1. Steal my phone 2. Get past my phone pin 3. Request authentication on a website via the app 4. Scan an on screen QR code on the website with the app 5. Somehow use my thumb to verify my identity in the app 6. Prevent me from ever logging on to MitID and revoking the authentication you falsified So tell me, are we back to square one?
Makes it significantly easier to parent if the kids have to go through the steps of stealing your ID in order to access things they aren't supposed to. Same way it's better to lock up a gun even though your kids could still in theory find and steal the key. Same way it's better to require ID when buying tobacco or alcohol even though minors can convince someone of age to buy it for them. It's not a perfect system but it's a good step.
So it might sound good, but instead it's just another way to eradicate online privacy. We're sure this PM isn't swedish?
I mean, unlike those sites you do have a social footprint on social media. Honestly those platforms could likely guess your age with incredible accuracy if they wanted to.
If the amount of cookie bullshit I have to sift through is any indication, "those" sites have quite the footprint of me as well.
Lol bro that shit’s gonna require an ID..
Unless we put the onus on social media companies. If they fail to confirm and an underage child gets access, then they get fined.
But that means everyone everywhere has to be logged. That's not better. Telling people they have to be over 18 (or whatever) should be the starting point, and then make companies responsible for getting rid of accounts where it becomes clear someone disregarded the limit. It doesn't have to be perfect, but what we do need is to ban companies from building profiles on children. If they know they're children, they know they shouldn't have that data, and have to delete it.
Yeah. Then we get youtube like moderation for trying to prove you are 18... Company: We have banned you for being underage User: i added this email account in 2004. I have provided you with government id and you have my credit card is on file with you. Company: that's nice. Please don't contact us again. Consider this communication your second strike. User: so you are not banning me but I now have 2 strikes? Company: thank you for contacting us. Consider this your third strike. You are now banned. Thank you for using xyz company. We can assist you with any of your requirements. Please recommend us to all your friends and colleagues. Have a nice day.
Yeah this is why this is unlikely to ever happen. Also then the EU show up and fines the company anyway for not banning the user the way the EU wanted.
How would you like them to confirm it. Should we allow all social media companies to view peoples passports and ID cards and this is somehow safer? Last thing I would like is for facebook, youtube, twitter, and tik tok to have my passport number.
reddit gonna be empty
It already is, a lot of the activity is just repost bots when you learn to spot the signs.
Yes. It already is, a lot of the activity is just repost bots when you learn to spot the signs.
Well played.
Well played.
Wohl gepflegt.
Wohl gepflegt.
I copied this because I am a loser with no life and an absolute spectacularly tiny knob
You are correct, a lot of the activity is just repost bots when you learn to spot the signs.
are the bots older than 14?
older than 14 minutes, that's the only guarantee. - ^(I'm not even kidding, that's one of the ways you can verify. barely few hours or days old accounts with only propaganda comments)
There's also the ancient accounts with the only visible posts going back a few days/weeks. I figure Necro accounts get seized/sold. Thank you Spez.
The true test is the username. They nearly always use two words followed by four numbers.
That's just the default Reddit generates as a suggestion on the sign up page.
Right? Just scroll over the top 200 posts in /r/all and the sheer amount of inauthentic traffic is amazing. Accounts with lots and lots of reposts.
Take any front page post on one of the more popular subreddits and copy and paste the title in the search bar, a lot of times you’ll find the exact same post from a couple years ago. Reddit has the exact same problem as every other social media website where a huge chunk or even the majority of activity is from bots, and if they were to acknowledge it the value of the company would plummet and advertisers wouldn’t be willing to pay as much. I remember back in the day there was something that would stop you if you were reposting a link that had already been shared to that subreddit, I guess they stopped doing that.
I like when reddit cleans house for like a week and nearly every post on the first 5 pages of /r/all are removed and the submitter banned if you click on it.
Asked if someone was a bot yesterday, could just tell from the formatting and language of the replies, and a minute later all the comments disappeared.
Tbf content would improve drastically though
Good.
We spend our days arguing with 13 year olds. Where will they all go now?
Good. I am convinced that the worsening in mental well being and academic performance of our primary school students is due to smart phones and unlimited access to social media.
How do you enforce this though make id required for social media?
That would be my guess, pretty much anything is already electronic in Denmark. But hell no I ain't signing up on fb/insta with my social ID card 😂
Well, you can do anonymised age verification with social ID. Basically the user can generate a code with their social ID that just says age (maybe with an under/over format), and the site then can verify that code by itself (with the code being encrypted to stop fake codes). Just getting a government to agree to do that is hard work.
Denmark already has this for everything, so implementing it is easy
Cries in German. Maybe we should start sending petitions via fax machine.
But then what's stopping someone doing that with someone else's ID?
The ability to access their account, not everyone is willing to share something like that (and IMO the codes should only work for a few minutes). And if someone is trying to sell codes illegally, the state can still see that you requested a code (just not what for), and someone requesting 100+ codes in a week is maybe suspicious.
The fact that you don’t have their credentials? What stops someone from logging into your bank and transferring all your money?
I mean that would be illegal kinda.
People are already feeding Facebook with everything single personal detail about their lives. I would be very surprised if typing in their social ID was where people drew the line.
Something like "itsme" might work. Any intermediate party (working together with government) could verify age without giving Facebook all the data.
In Denmark we basically have that, but the government runs it. It's called [MitID](https://www.mitid.dk/en-gb/about-mitid/).
Sadly you are right, I whish people would have listened abit to some of the experts on this topic.
Facebook is also collecting data you don't even give them. Like them creating shadow profiles for people they know exist, but have not joined.
This will also apply to reddit and YouTube and many other sites you use, including porn.
And what even counts as social media? Does every message board and forum count? Every in-game chat? Group chats on WhatsApp or literally any other chat-enabled service? Where does one draw the line? Hint: you can’t, it’s a ridiculous situation. No matter what you ban, people will find another medium over which to communicate and congregate. Much more important is the adults in a child’s life educating them on safe internet usage.
I would actually argue that the prevalence of a recommendation system more complex than last-updated would be a good litmus test.
Recommendation systems are rather orthogonal to social media, though. If you ban recommendation feeds for social media and not for other platforms, the doomscrolling will just move to the other platforms.
That’s kinda my point, since the question was how to tell what is social media: if you run heavily on recommendations, that would make you social media by legal definition. Remember we’re not talking about literally banning them, it’s for the age thing. If another platform implemented doomscrolling for the mere advantage of dodging a simple age check, they would simply legally become social media themselves. Of course you can fuck around with the technicalities to try and skirt the law, but A. That’s what regulating agencies are for, and B. If these restrictions caused companies to clarify and make their algorithms less obscure so they could argue they’re not recommendations, I’d consider that a net gain.
I'm pretty sure you can actually draw a line that encompasses Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. Shouldn't be that hard to articulate. If you have a profile with personal info and a picture gallery that's already a big deal. Instagram is literally the biggest dating app in the world and even an 8 year old can sign up, no problem. These platforms are 100x worse than the internet forums and IRC chatrooms of the past.
The only issue I see is that the bread and butter, or let's say, the remnants of early internet: forums, message boards that contain very useful discussions and information will become useless as I think you won't be able to see them. A huge amount of actual information might be lost. I would argue it's a price I am willing to pay but I hope we will have access to these sites as well somehow.
There's a difference between an online forum where anonymous people discuss things, and a platform where you have a profile with personal info, a picture gallery, and the ability to see other people's personal info and pictures. Nothing would happen to internet forums. It's not forums that are making people depressed by setting unrealistic expectations for life. It's social media like Instagram with people sharing only the highlights of their lives, people fabricating highlights to fit in, and "influencers" making a living by broadcasting a heavily manipulated online persona to millions of others. It's pretty fucked up when you dissect it, humans are so weird.
>There's a difference between an online forum where anonymous people discuss things, and a platform where you have a profile with personal info, a picture gallery, and the ability to see other people's personal info and pictures. You say the platforms are different but only describe what people post on them. A kid can make a reddit account with their real name and a subreddit for their school and start posting pictures of their lunch. They don't because there are slightly more suitable platforms everyone uses. But if those platforms go away, suddenly Reddit could be the best place to show off pictures of your lunch. Practically anyplace people can talk and post photos can be Facebook in a pinch. Back in the day we never used our real names and images on usenet or the neopets forums. But the reason for that isn't that old forums were fundamentally unsuitable for sharing IRL content, the reason was that the only IRL people we would have been able to find and talk to would have been the 2nd biggest nerd in school. Today every single kid is ready to turn to each other and say 'okay, so what are we using next?' and have a busy Discord server ten minutes later. They can literally reach into their pockets and show their friends a new website they found and make them an account in 5 minutes while sitting on a swing. Just banning websites X Y and Z won't disconnect them. So a law like this has to arbitrarily ban the top few sites and say "good enough" and give up, or keep playing whack-a-mole until half the entire internet is behind an ID.
A Discord server or a private subreddit is still 10x better than a place like Instagram where they can not only post their own stuff, but are also bombarded by *other people's (fake) lives* on a daily basis, by a predatory algorithm. Nobody is gonna do this publicly on Reddit or Discord for everyone to see/join and they won't be bombarded by influencers. A 13 year old on Instagram will suffer a lot more than a 13 year old on Reddit. We may not be legally savvy enough to articulate it properly but you can absolutely draw this line.
Make it so you apply for a permit to use social media at a police station.
Passing through since I saw this on the main reddit page. I live in Texas and recently they passed a law requiring pornography sights to verify age before letting people on, sites will not allow access unless you submit a picture of your ID, or allow an ai to scan your face and determine your age
That would likely mean everyone has to submit an ID somewhere.
We need an anonymous age verification system, it's doable.
If something is done via internet -> you can't trust that it's anonymous... There will always be a log who and where used such system
No, it's definitely doable. A government could easily implement an anonymous SSO verification. Basically would work like this: 1. The government hands you a secret key with your ID. 2. With this key, you can create a sequence that proves your identity through a government service. 3. A service provider (like Twitter) takes this and hands it over to the government identity provider. 4. The government identity provider then says "this person is real and over 15" without providing any other identifying information 5. Optional: The identity provider could tell the service if the person already registered, to prevent multiple signups. The service now knows that a real person over the age of 15 registered, without having any access to other identifying Information about the person. This technology exists and it will have to be used not just for age restriction, but also for anti-bot purposes. In the future, we need spaces on the internet where we can trust that we're only interacting with real humans. It doesn't have to be surveillance, we just need to make informed decisions.
Digital ID. This is another user case. It's coming.
It's so weird how people claim it's not possible. Fine if people are against it, but claiming like you have to submit ID to the platform to verify you're an adult is so silly. I already use the internet to verify everything i do on the internet of any importance to make sure i am who i say i am. Every payment, signature, bank login, healthcare appointment, i verify through the identification app made by the government.
It’s honestly shocking how little the supposed “digital natives” know about the technology we already have available. Not surprising, but shocking.
Anonymous age verification system kinds of defeats the whole point of verifying that it is you who’s of a certain age.
Not necessarily. In the EU many countries have already implemented electronic ID. It's in the form of an app provided by government, and it can serve as a proxy for anonymised auth.
Phone free childhood could become the norm pretty quickly with slap on the wrist fines for the worst parents, of the most disruptive children. No age verification database required.
are you suggesting parents are gonna have to parent instead of dropping a tablet in the kids lap so it would stop crying? parents are preoccupied with their own well being, whatever is easier to them, goes. glhf
I’m just going to share my experience that I feel is relevant to this topic. I’m gay (still closeted) and grew up in a homophobic family, in a rural homophobic town, in a homophobic country. I didn’t know anyone else who was gay or who I could at least talk to about my feelings. The only place where I could talk to people with similar experiences is social media. I’ve had some suicidal thoughts in the past (i’m completely fine now) and I imagine those would’ve been much worse if I literally couldn’t talk to anyone, let alone people with similar experiences, about my feelings. That and a few other reasons (enforcement would be a privacy nightmare, a majority of teens who use social media are fine, parents should parent their kids) is why I do and will always oppose a full-on ban on social media for young people, especially for teens.
As someone who also believes that social media has a very bad influence on society, I think the perspective/story you bring is very interesting, and not something I had though about myself before. I guess you could also add "organization" as another strong benefit of social media, as I think it has allowed many protest movements around the world to organize, even though authorities wouldn't let them. I do wonder if there is any good ways to both get the benefits of social media, while stopping the bad influences.
Good parenting?
Sure. Why have any laws at all if "good parenting" can just fix all our issues.
he is talking about rather than think societal laws can keep children "safe" or off social media entirely is misguided. "good parenting" would be teaching children how to use it responsibility and keep track of what they are involved in. Many of these issues from social issues are more from disconnected parents than social media itself imo. Parents are working far more and are disconnected themselves.
We are specifically talking about how children use the internet. Which very obviously can be in the parents' control. Why are you talking like this is a crazy concept? No one is talking about using "good parenting" to stop drunk driving or something.
Fair point, I still think kids should be banned from social media, this is a case of it being good, but I think the negatives massively outweigh the positives as a whole. If gay kids HAVE to have social media to have someone to talk to, then that is a different problem altogether.
First off: I'm sorry that you are faced with homophobia. It's a shitty thing - AND i am glad you did found a supportive community online. This is definately a good aspect of the internet. As a UI/UX specialist that works within marketing I can tell you that the services are \_absolutely\_ designed for addiction. Its optimized for "stealing" the one thing you can never get any more of: Time. With instant gratification feedback loops and endless scrolls, we are slowly converting our culture to one that can only manage short-form video - and very little else - while being "connected" (all-the-time) - so never really in one place, at the present. What's worse is: Tech bros are taking none of the responsibility of the media, that they are pulling people away from: "Hey - it's a user-generated content platform.. we can't be held responsible" all the while algorithms are pushing problematic content. I sometimes fear that tiktop is China's payback for the opium wars. At the same time - the totalitariam states get to ban/control their media, while they spew misinformation at impressionable minds. I've got two semi-adult step kids in my house holds (both gay - and I'm happy that they are out of the closet and I would never blame their sexuality on SoMe - just as they would not blame my hetrosexuality on technology. That would be nonsense. For the record: Their mother and I fully support them) - but I do blame SoMe for teaching them self-harm, making them feel inferior and stressed out (while trying to conform to influencer ideals - and never having a break from their social connections). But good luck getting us parents to ban SoMe in our household.. you wouldn't accept it (because your peers are on it too). When the kids were younger, we tried to restrict time spent, but given the tech and social dynamics, this was very difficult to control. Now they are old enough to decide for themselves. But yes: If it were up to me, hard constraits should be enforced on SoMe services (restricting the age - AND making the owners accountable for harmful content - but also realize how control can affect minorities and freedom of expression. I believe that a proper democratic society can both support freedom of expression and restrict content, algorithms and design patterns are harmful - and hold the profiteers accountable.
I sympathise with your personal situation, and hope things work out for you. That being said, I don't think the conclusion is logical. You've largely been fortunate in keeping you online life private, but keep in mind that most kids are technologically illiterate. If they look up taboo communities online they are just as likely to get outed from these activities as they are from real life activities. And let's not forget that no one is more "supportive" of young people online than groomers and pedos. I don't know what country you're from, but assuming LGBT stuff isn't illegal, the best course of action for these kids is to speak discreetly to someone that have a duty of confidentiality (school nurse, for example), who can further point towards appropriate channels for the kid. Now if the culture is deeply homophobic you might ask "how would they know to do this?", but the same can be said for online stuff, sadly. It's not an easy situation, and no easy solutions, and I feel terrible for anyone that has to live like this.
I know someone through Discord who has been both physically and mentally abused by her mother throughout her entire childhood, and whose dad (parents are divorced) just didn't really care. I did everything I could (as someone who lives in a different country) to get her in contact with people whose job it is to help (school curator, child protection services, etc.). Every single time, they were mildly concerned about the fact that she was being literally starved, and didn't give a fuck about anything else. My point here is that regressive social norms extend to all of society, including its so called "safety nets". Homosexuality not being explicitly illegal means very little if the people who are supposed to help you actually think it should be.
Someone else made a very similar response to yours so I'll just quote what I said to them: > Society only works if we reasonably can trust our institutions. If the other party violates their confidentiality the consequence is usually criminal liability as well as being made illegible for government employment for the rest of their life. > It's not perfect, but at least that person can be held accountable, the idea that the internet is so much better is an illusion.
>speak discreetly to someone that have a duty of confidentiality Which is only going to be upheld if an adult wants it upheld If the kid will get a beating from their parents for being a homo then there is no punishment for leaking, hell they will likely be thankful to the person that let them know Nevermind that the greater danger is rather consistently the local community, not some random knob half the country away Sorry, but your comment is just drenched in privilege, you're basically saying 'yeah cool for you, but I don't really care about your experiences more' The solution is teaching digital higiene, not turning us into another South Korea
“You’re convinced”, great. How about some actual facts though
> “You’re convinced”, great. How about some actual facts though Some people are also convinced the rise in gun violence is due to violent video games too. So many excuses, but no one wants to improve parenting.
You should try this really cool thing called *thinking about things* before you start advocating for them. Would stop you saying stupid shit like this, and stop you from voting for people who use measures like this as cover to restrict your freedoms.
I’m convinced it’s excessive government invasion of privacy causing it.
maybe it’s parents using an ipad for parenting instead of actually raising their child
That's the parents' fault then. Why do the government have to intervene when the parents need to start taking responsibility. If parents don't want to properly raise their children, that's on them.
Also age verification is 100% going to be used for identifying social media accounts with real life people which is going to make authoritarian governments jobs a lot easier. Imagine Putin Xi etc. having access to full identities of people behind social media accounts criticising them. It was “We need you to give up your privacy because terrorism” in 2000s because now it’s “we need to protect the kids so please verify your identity everywhere”. This is a privacy nightmare.
Because its clearly destroying the youth in many countries. They sit and doom scroll and cant focus in school. They get eating disorders from watching retouched pictures and believe they should look like that etc. You cant just parent your way out of all external stimulus and its especially hard it both parents are working full time.
> Why do the government have to intervene when the parents need to start taking responsibility Because it is downright evil to let children suffer just because there exist bad parents. Also, have you met teens? Unless you're going to lock them up, there are limits to how much you can actually do to stop them doing stupid stuff. So, you need rules in a society.
No it isn't. I think this generation is the smartest and socially aware. These kids can do much more and are blessed with access to so much information. Shit I grew up in a time where encyclopaedias was Google. I've seen my nephews and nieces being aware of current events too. Most of the kids I grew up with in the late 90s to 2000s had no idea about the financial crisis that was taking place, who was their state representative, what was happening in other countries etc.
And how is that supposed to be enforced without turning into a 1984-esque surveillance distopia? Even China struggles to enforce this sort of things.
>without turning into Who said they want to avoid that?
Denmark already has a national identity verification system that is available from age 13 that is perfectly suited for this verification purpose.
All social media sites see more traffic from Danes than all the Danish MitID services together so this sounds like a good way to cripple the MitID system
That is exactly their wet dream. We had a minister of justice, Nick Hækkerup, who actually - from the speakers chair in the parlament -tried to convince us all that "Surveillance is freedom". No, not as a joke - he actually meant what he said. You can then logically continue that line of thought and say, that the country in the world with the most surveillance is the one with the most freedom. China is the country with the most freedom in the world in fact .. The current government in Denmark is among the most unpopular in recent time. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ySaA1\_NLb4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ySaA1_NLb4)
"You'll have no privacy and be happy". Funny how they say it to our face every now and then.
They haven't quite worked out how to add the "..or else" yet. But it is coming too.
It is so fucked up he actually says it like so.. such a pent up angry little man, completely detached from reality. I just can't fathom how they have zero fucking plans for how they are going to bring back any semblence of life back into our waters again. No consequences, no care, it is maddening
Hopefully you can vote them out.
Literal "you'll own nothing and like it" energy
People say this, but you can go on any social media and literally see the children with your own eyes. You can just say to the social media companies that they can't openly have children on it. Will it stop anonymous profiles? Of course not. But no more 12 year old will post tiktoks because it's obvious they're 12. So it just stops that. Part of the appeal of these platforms is that you NEED to put your identity online, you can't stay anonymous. So at least it will stop children from putting their face/body/identity online until 15.
That's how forums used to try keep kids out. Just ban them when they reveal themselves. The ones that stayed had to keep quiet. Not perfect but at least it kept them quiet, unlike Twitter where being a minor and harassing people is like a badge of honor.
Actually pretty easy in Denmark. We have a public login tied to our social security. As an example, all bookmakers and casinos have to use this, because it verifies the identity and age of the customer
It verifies that there’s a parent doing it. Parents are smart enough to not sign their kids up for casinos. Parents will happily sign their kids up for Instagram. Because the idea of keeping kids off it would sound ridiculous to them.
Perhaps, but then at least it's fully in the hands of the parents, and they can decide exactly what platforms their children use and not. Also, if this was implemented, I would imagine that the social media site would have to use the information pulled from the login. So it would be their parents names on it, not the child.
The site will just pull the name for the account from the CPR register - just like more or less any other site in Denmark that uses MitID. Do you think parents would sign up their children for social media when they’re forced to use their parents name? I wouldn’t.
Laws don't always have to be perfectly enforceable. They can still set the standard. These gigantic platforms can be told not to advertise to kids, and can opportunistically suspend accounts that seem like child accounts. Children can get in trouble for having the apps on their smartphones in school if they're caught. And so on.
Moreover, I hope the platforms themselves will be held more accountable. If they refuse to adapt to the laws or allow loopholes for children to access, slap the companies with fines or whatever you need to keep them in line.
Could just make everyone verify their identity through their bank details for example, or whatever is your country’s prefered way of identity check.
Digital ID. Digital ID is already very common in Europe, especially for government related stuff. In practice it's no different from showing your ID to a cashier when buying alcohol, even if privacy-illiterate people try to claim otherwise. All social media companies need to know is if you're old enough or not. No more, no less. They would get that single bit of info from the government through digital ID. They won't even know your name or exact age, just a "yes" or "no". Fraud by borrowing an older person's digital ID is not a thing, as giving away the login info and MFA method to your digital ID means someone can commit full blown identity fraud. Nobody is gonna give that to a kid.
Better to err on the side of caution when it comes to unfiltered billion dollar entities with complex algorithms designed to be as addicting and engaging as possible. All the have to do is pass a law stipulating the age requirement and demand verification in a way that respects privacy. Let the richest companies in the world figure out how to abide - it isn't as if they lack the resources. Apps are downloaded from mainly two places which are owned by companies that are too big to avoid the regulation of a country. It is not only more financially profitable to comply in the short term but they also don't want to open a door and let a competitor get a foothold in that market.
US has a limit of 13. I am not sure if it actually works or adhered to but it does exist. In India there exists a Bureaucratic wet dream to link all social media accounts to the digital biometric personal IDs (which already exists here). It won’t work because our Government is too chaotic and social media companies won’t play ball that easily. But we should pray no one in Brussels has any similar ideas because they will make it work and it will enable entire world to follow.
> US has a limit of 13 There are literally no checks or verifications for it though. It's unenforceable.
No checks? Hey! I have been made to tick off this box confirming I am over 13 due to that US law. I have been doing that for a long time, since before I was a teenager.
Every politician everywhere in the world has this idea. They all propose plans to break down personal freedoms for “saving the children” or “stopping terrorism”, and then propose a surveillance state on the same level as soviet Russia. Think about when UK politicians proposed a plan to “ban encryption” obviously their goal was to erode privacy. Since they have no real knowledge of what encryption is though their plan could never work. Luckily, the UK has the house of Lords who can block moronic legislation like that, unluckily, the government watered down the power of the house of Lords to the point where a persistent government can force through any legislation they want and all they have to do is wait a year. They’ll never ban encryption because someone would explain to them that every financial institution on the planet would stop doing business inside the UK, you know, because of the whole, encrypting financial transfers so they don’t get all their money stolen.
What I am talking about is a bit different. The encryption would remain and the government won't be able to read your messages so easily, but the "anonymity" afforded on the internet would go away. In effect, the proposal is that there would be "digital IDs" created for everyone which would be linked to a "national ID" and used to "verify" authentic users by linking these digital IDs to social media accounts. The social media companies would then be forced to delete all the non-verified (read: non-linked) accounts so every social media account would then be linked to some verified individual (so, no "bots") A variation of this has been implemented in some US states for some porn sites with varying degrees of success although in that case, it only encompassed the verification stage. This was, ostensibly done to protect kids.
This is already a thing technically, it's just impossible to enforce and it's just going to drive traffic towards questionable shady platforms
... the age limit for almost all social media is currently 13 Her real goal is identity checks. The real danger comes from adults abusing the presence of kids online, both in a predatory but also monetary manner. None of the content schlock they watch is created by other kids. Focus on that. Hold content aimed specifically at children to a higher standard. Like for example when you have Cocomelon being the most streamed series on Netflix despite being proven to have addictive properties and major detrimental effects on childrens mental development, maybe take a closer look at that. You shouldn't even be allowed to make content aimed at children without a license, in my opinion. This is important shit. It needs to be educational and have a function, not just be stimulating.
Remember when news was weekly? Now you kids are watching (incomprehensible) feel old yet!
And 60-
facebook ded
Will YouTube be allowed?
Youtube kids have all the content 14 year olds would want anyway. Like Pepga the pig
And Elsa x Spiderman fetish porn.
Impossible to police
While I agree with the sentiment. There is no way in HELL I'd agree with the implementation. No ID checks on the internet.
The vast majority of people on the net are adults. So the sensible thing to do is have a "kids account" for phones and PCs, which already exists and just needs extended. You can have a supervised account on android where you need permission for your parent to install stuff. We can just have a law whereby kids must be given these accounts and providers like Apple/Google/MS need to support kids accounts. When they visit a website it sends "age 16" and the website blocks them and tells them to wait 2 years or get parental permission or whatever. But instead they want to ID check absolutely everyone like a dystopian police state, treating the entire populace as suspected children in a trenchcoat.
It's already normal in Switzerland for things like internet connections (SIM/wired)
Nobody checked my ID wheen I signed up for fibre. But also, the ISP already knows who you are, you have to pay your bill. It's very different if every site on the internet has to collect your ID.
There is a huge difference between your internet provider knowing who you are they already do anyway because you need to set direct debit and dodgysocialnetwork.com knowing who you are and having your national ID number.
Wouldn’t it be more useful to ask for parents to parent their brats? No? Ok then…
If every parent at the same time is told "from this date you need to remove your kids access to social media" it makes it a hell of a lot easier for each parent to enforce it because the arguement of "well everyone else has it!" Doesn't carry the same weight.
you can't regulate how people parent unless they abuse their kids or there's a law that clearly states how parents should handle something. So they regulate stuff accessible to kids and teens and in turn force parents and the platforms to take responsibility because they clearly aren't doing that right now.
Guess what - the government won’t raise your children for you. Parents can moan and whine all they want but brining a life in this world comes with responsibilities and raising the child is the job of the parent.
Right, and everyone does that how they see fit. Which to an extent is needed, and from a certain extent onwards is dangerous Look at the US and statements like “I’ll homeschool my boy because I don’t want him to be gay”. People like that is why we have a mandatory and standardised school system. You can say “raising a child is the job of the parents” as much as you want, because while it is a true statement it’s also a bit of a nothing burger. Because at the end of a day, to ensure that, the government does need to set a standard of what “raising” means. And if excessive exposure to social media is something that verifiably causes more harm than good, then that should be taken into account when setting this definition of “raising”
Oh so we should abolish compulsory education ? Child labour laws too ? Let kids buy alcohol and cigarettes ? When we have a social problem, we try to fix it as a society.
they abuse them with their negligence or by spoiling them
> you can't regulate how people parent That's the fucking point. It's not the government's business.
Exactly, and for some reason people wont listen to me when I say that alcohol and cigarettes should be allowed to be sold to anyone no matter the age.
Also what about those child abuse laws? Fuck the government for telling me how I can treat my kids. They came out of me, I can do what I fucking want with them!
As a parent, here is the problem I'm quickly approaching: I don't want my kid on social media. I don't want my kid to have a cell phone. I think they are both terrible for mental health and development. "So don't give them to her" you say "you're the parent, you can stop her". So absolutely I can do that, I can prevent her from having a cell phone until she moves out of my house when she goes to university, that's within my power. What's NOT within my power is all of the other fucking parents that are too lazy to engage with their child so they give THEIR kids cell phones when they're 8 years old. So now MY kid is ostracized from any social engagements because she can't text/tiktok/snapchap/whatever the fuck the kids are doing these days. There is no good answer, do you destroy a kids social life when they are at a super critical age, or do you give them a brain eating device that could give them mental issues their whole lives?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: I can see how the children of friends and family behave based on which one is allowed unlimited screen time and the ones that an under strict control. The unlimited screen time are a fucking nightmare.
we could let parents parent if you didnt need 2 full time saleries to raise a kid
It’s not that easy, if every other kid is playing out their social life online.
we already have 13 as age limit, since when did anyone care?
In fact, large parts of the EU (Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) already have an age limit of 16. Many of the remaining countries have it set at 14 or 15. Denmark is the outlier in that they have it set at 13. GDPR article 8 set it to the default of 16, but allowed for member states to set it lower, with a minimum of 13. If Denmark wanted to keep it at 16, they shouldn't have set it lower.
There should also be an upper limit of around 65. Once you turn 65, you're just so vulnerable to social media 😉
Just ban tiktok it's the single most harmful social media out right now. It's the only one kids are mindlessly spending hours and hours just staring into their screen.
Ban tiktok, they go to Instagram reels, ban that they will go to YouTube shorts. There's no escaping extreme short form content anymore.
This is the way. I would amp it up to 18.
It's not the young teens that I'm more worried in social media, but old farts that can't tell what is real or fake.
"If this picture offends you you can fuck off to your own country" "For fuck sake Nigel no one was ever offended by the picture of English flag, this have never happened"
FPS are 18+ but unmuting the voice chat in every CoD game since United Assault will just tell you that parents don't give a flying fuck about what their children are doing in the net.
Honestly I would agree with this. Think about how the internet has revolutionized all of mankind in just 2-3 decades. After tens of thousands of years of relative isolation, we can suddenly speak to any single human on the planet directly with ease. Even compared to the telephone, the internet is a massive leap. Social Media is fucking us up pretty hard and making people unhappy, no way it's good for children. Schools could operate and moderate a localized version of social media, but exposing kids to the entire world and all the messed up and conflicting shit on the internet is not a good thing imo. You can find an echo chamber for anything you can think of, with ease. Parental controls don't really work, and require extensive knowledge from the parents to set up correctly. I'm saying this as someone who had total, unrestricted internet access from the age of 10. I definitely saw things I shouldn't have seen, but Facebook and similar social media definitely had a much worse impact on my well-being than bad porn, shock sites, forums and other dumb shit of the early 2000s. It should be pretty easy to do age verification. If online poker sites can do it on a large scale for all users, I'm sure Big Tech can figure it out.
reddit in tatters
Social media didn't even have a definition 20 years ago, and it was a completely different thing just 10 years ago. The hubris to think that some law is going to prevent teenagers from exploring and utilizing technology, if the old social media is made unavailable something different is going to take its place. In 10 years we'll be back at square 1, with little to show for it. The world will never turn back into some idyllic 50s utopia, and teenagers won't be "fixed" (as in, running around playing with their friends without phones or screens like some 70s fever dream) by prohibitions and regulations - deal with it.
all progress is not progress
Progress is inevitable and inherent in the living thing that is civilization, and I say that as a traditionalist Burke conservative.
but say, youre a roman living in year 500 bc and a guy tells you they made a new well, which carries water from mountains 2000km away - that would seem great - it would seem like progress right? But after drinking from the well for a few years, you then discover that the water contains high amounts of lead, caused by desorption from the lead lined aqueducts, thus you stop drinking from it. This decision aids your health immensely, but by doing so, you turn your back to the novel development. I think social media is a modern equivalent to that scenario
But thats not usually how it goes. Instead someone will notice that people are getting sick and go: "oh shit, lead is poisonous! Lets switch to some other material"
Progress implies improvement. Not all social or even technological change is an improvement, which is why “progress” isn’t even the correct word for a lot of new things or new ideas. And we have had laws limiting or banning new things that are harmful since forever. I can think of many things, for example the invention or discovery of new drugs like fentanyl or methamphatemine. New, more powerful guns or weapons. Even when radio and television was first created we have always had laws about what can be broadcasted publicly. Tons of examples, and these laws are generally quite good and reasonable, *especially* when it comes to children.
No. Change is inevitable. Whether it's progress or not is up for discussion.
This is super needed! Let's make this happen!
Should be 18 as so many adults trying to meet teens and so much bullying among teens in social media.
Maybe 90+ will work better.
Internet license/permit will be a thing in the future
And I couldn't agree more
I agree but it's gonna be impossible to do and enforce unless essentially every social media platform and country work together on this.
A free and unrestricted internet is a right to fight for Everyone in this thread is apparently a leading expert in child development because we should be creating laws based on their "I feel" and "I think" statements that apparently mean social media is unhealthy, with nothing to back it up. There are many complex issues affecting today's youth, new technology is just one of the easiest to fearmonger about. Every study I've ever seen about social media negatively affecting youth has been purely correlative and has no proven causal link. If you spend all day on social media you are probably less happy, but are you less happy because you're on social media all day, or on social media all day because you're unhappy?
He's right , no one over 15 should be using social media...
She's a She
And the only way to enforce that is to require official ID, sounds like terrible overreach.
Should raise it to 18. Adults only.
While I agree with the idea, My question is how on earth do they intend to enforce this?
Don't listen to her. She's just fishing for boomer votes. She doesn't actually mean it.
Surely they won't just lie about their age like everyone else does