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As usual, this has nothing to do with protecting children. It is all about forcing people to identify themselves on social media. Free speech in Europe is unde

As usual, this has nothing to do with protecting children. It is all about forcing people to identify themselves on social media. Free speech in Europe is under serious attack.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
ben_w 8mo ago
I'm old enough to remember when the big names in social media sites decided to copy Facebook's "Real names" policy, which they added themselves for better targeted ads. If this is an attack on free speech, the war was lost 15 years ago, even in the USA. Of course, given what's going on in the US right now, one may well respond "yes, the US did lose sometime around then". For now though, I'd be more worried about all the verifiers leaking PII due to vibe coding and competent attackers.
- expedition32 8mo ago
  America is run by tech bro billionaires. Europe doesn't really have a tech industry and the CCP has the balls to jail them.
  - ben_w 8mo ago
    > America is run by tech bro billionaires. IMO, that would be an improvement if it were so. Rather, it is being exploited by tech bro billionaires, squeezing the population's ability to generate disposable income in the same way Malthusianism expects populations to always grow to the point of squeezing the environment's ability to supply food. That's much worse than "running" the country.
beardyw 8mo ago
So how would you protect children?
- jjgreen 8mo ago
  Make child possession of a phone illegal, jail the parents who do not comply.
- jamesnorden 8mo ago
  That's the responsibility of their parents. Your reply exemplifies exactly why this kind of thing is presented this way, anyone questioning it is immediately asked why "they don't want to protect children", it's the perfect kafkatrap.
  - jbs789 8mo ago
    I’m going to guess you are not a parent…? I think the problem is a bit more nuance than you are making out…
    - lurking_swe 8mo ago
      i don’t have kids (yet) but this sounds like a social problem, not a technology problem. You literally need to have parents in a community work together to COLLECTIVELY decide what’s best for their children. A simple technical “ban” is dumb because it’s trivial to bypass, and doesn’t actually solve the problem. Kids are not stupid, they will happily find workarounds. For example schools could facilitate this. Don’t allow smartphones on school property until children are in high school - only dumb phones allowed. Schools can educate parents early and heavily encourage a no social media policy at home. The only reason kids want to use social media because all the other kids are using it.
- Ukv 8mo ago
  I'd say network filtering, like already done by schools, would be preferable. For privacy concerns there'd be no need for handing over your ID to see websites, and for ownership/treacherous computing concerns the home router and phone plan are typically owned by a parent so there's no need for devices working against their owner. Mostly feels like just a matter of sorting out UX/defaults and pushing towards standardization. Not impossible to bypass, but nor is the current approach. Likely more effective in that it only requires compliance from a handful of entities operating commercially in your country rather than thousands of websites globally.
belter 8mo ago
Free speech is not a concept that exist in Europe, at least not in the USA form...I dont say it as critique just as a factual statement. Free speech as understood in the US, like rooted in the First Amendment protection against government restriction, does not have a direct legal equivalent in Europe. Most countries balance expression against other rights like dignity, public order, etc...
user____name 8mo ago
A lot of it is also wrangling Big Tech, which is increasingly an existential geopolitical risk.
wormpilled 8mo ago
The silver lining could be that people just spend more time in the real world, discussing important things. Which is definitely good for peoples autonomy and freedom. That's why I'm not too bothered by AI slop for instance, making the internet a worse, less rewarding/novel place in general.
thatguy0900 8mo ago
I'm convinced the real reason for this is nations are growing terrified of the extreme effectiveness of political bot farms. Nations have been asleep at the wheel letting hostile countries spew trash into their citizens heads 24/7, even epstein was in on it with him potentially being the impetus for 4chans /pol/ board that was a major driver for Trump. Everyone is panicking trying to put a stop to it before every western government gets overthrown by a extremist one with foreign backing.
general1465 8mo ago
Europe is also being under hybrid warfare attack for years from Russia and their bot farms and now officially from USA as well - See recent US doctrine where they want to shift EU more to the right. This identification is just a result.
juliusceasar 8mo ago
Free speech abused by Russia, USA and China to target EU.
a15971 8mo ago
True EDIT: Speaking as a European.

As usual, this has nothing to do with protecting children. It is all about forcing people to identify themselves on social media. Free speech in Europe is under serious attack.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

ben_w 8mo ago

I'm old enough to remember when the big names in social media sites decided to copy Facebook's "Real names" policy, which they added themselves for better targeted ads. If this is an attack on free speech, the war was lost 15 years ago, even in the USA. Of course, given what's going on in the US right now, one may well respond "yes, the US did lose sometime around then". For now though, I'd be more worried about all the verifiers leaking PII due to vibe coding and competent attackers.

expedition32 8mo ago
America is run by tech bro billionaires. Europe doesn't really have a tech industry and the CCP has the balls to jail them.
- ben_w 8mo ago
  > America is run by tech bro billionaires. IMO, that would be an improvement if it were so. Rather, it is being exploited by tech bro billionaires, squeezing the population's ability to generate disposable income in the same way Malthusianism expects populations to always grow to the point of squeezing the environment's ability to supply food. That's much worse than "running" the country.

beardyw 8mo ago

So how would you protect children?

jjgreen 8mo ago
Make child possession of a phone illegal, jail the parents who do not comply.
jamesnorden 8mo ago
That's the responsibility of their parents. Your reply exemplifies exactly why this kind of thing is presented this way, anyone questioning it is immediately asked why "they don't want to protect children", it's the perfect kafkatrap.
- jbs789 8mo ago
  I’m going to guess you are not a parent…? I think the problem is a bit more nuance than you are making out…
  - lurking_swe 8mo ago
    i don’t have kids (yet) but this sounds like a social problem, not a technology problem. You literally need to have parents in a community work together to COLLECTIVELY decide what’s best for their children. A simple technical “ban” is dumb because it’s trivial to bypass, and doesn’t actually solve the problem. Kids are not stupid, they will happily find workarounds. For example schools could facilitate this. Don’t allow smartphones on school property until children are in high school - only dumb phones allowed. Schools can educate parents early and heavily encourage a no social media policy at home. The only reason kids want to use social media because all the other kids are using it.
Ukv 8mo ago
I'd say network filtering, like already done by schools, would be preferable. For privacy concerns there'd be no need for handing over your ID to see websites, and for ownership/treacherous computing concerns the home router and phone plan are typically owned by a parent so there's no need for devices working against their owner. Mostly feels like just a matter of sorting out UX/defaults and pushing towards standardization. Not impossible to bypass, but nor is the current approach. Likely more effective in that it only requires compliance from a handful of entities operating commercially in your country rather than thousands of websites globally.

belter 8mo ago

Free speech is not a concept that exist in Europe, at least not in the USA form...I dont say it as critique just as a factual statement. Free speech as understood in the US, like rooted in the First Amendment protection against government restriction, does not have a direct legal equivalent in Europe. Most countries balance expression against other rights like dignity, public order, etc...

user____name 8mo ago

A lot of it is also wrangling Big Tech, which is increasingly an existential geopolitical risk.

wormpilled 8mo ago

The silver lining could be that people just spend more time in the real world, discussing important things. Which is definitely good for peoples autonomy and freedom. That's why I'm not too bothered by AI slop for instance, making the internet a worse, less rewarding/novel place in general.

thatguy0900 8mo ago

I'm convinced the real reason for this is nations are growing terrified of the extreme effectiveness of political bot farms. Nations have been asleep at the wheel letting hostile countries spew trash into their citizens heads 24/7, even epstein was in on it with him potentially being the impetus for 4chans /pol/ board that was a major driver for Trump. Everyone is panicking trying to put a stop to it before every western government gets overthrown by a extremist one with foreign backing.

general1465 8mo ago

Europe is also being under hybrid warfare attack for years from Russia and their bot farms and now officially from USA as well - See recent US doctrine where they want to shift EU more to the right. This identification is just a result.

juliusceasar 8mo ago

Free speech abused by Russia, USA and China to target EU.

a15971 8mo ago

True EDIT: Speaking as a European.