12 ms·

Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s

418 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7 7mo ago

benj111 7mo ago
Is there any evidence for all this? This sums up my understanding of the current situation (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understand-the-impact-of-smartphones-and-social-media-on-children-and-young-people/understand-the-impact-of-smartphones-and-social-media-on-children-and-young-people-executive-summary https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understand-the-im...) That isn't anywhere near definitive. Further it seems to me, this will just allow the tech companies to assume there are no kids, and remove the protections currently available. Yes there is an issue of quantity, but it seems that we should be focussing on social norms for what is acceptable parenting in the 21st century. I'm 42, probably the lower age range for having a teenage kid, I have a couple of kids myself, and I'm not 100% sure on what the correct approach to take is, as I suspect the situation is for most other parents as the situation is so different to what we experienced at that age.
- andrewstuart 7mo ago
  Evidence? This is the 21st century.
- ozgrakkurt 7mo ago
  Seriously. I see at least one baby with a phone in hand every time I go out. This is 100% an education issue and they don't understand how harmful that can be to their child's brain. Governments are focusing on banning things because some reason but real solution is education and support imo. Similar issue with school shottings. Government wants to ban guns or put controls on schools but they don't invest enough on mental health, it is almost if they are incapable of understanding that a healthy person wouldn't choose to do this. The social media ussue is similar imo, parents don't understand how harmful it is to the brain. It is harmful for adults and it is even worse for children
  - postexitus 7mo ago
    Why not sell cigarettes and alcohol to kids, but also educate them that it's harmful?
    - rgblambda 7mo ago
      A VPN can't get around a cigarette and alcohol ban. Perhaps children should be given locked down phones, with fines for parents who buy non child safe phones for their kids. It would take time for this to take effect but a social media ban would actually be effective at the end.
      - postexitus 7mo ago
        Just like you can't get around a random adult buying for kids. It's just a imperfect deterrent. Although I agree- hardware level control would be so much better. Apple's on-device age checks can be a good compromise.
        Aurornis 7mo ago
        > Just like you can't get around a random adult buying for kids. It's just an imperfect deterrent. This argument feels really weak. Convincing an adult to buy alcohol for kids is dramatically more difficult on average than setting up a VPN. If you’re on this tech website you should know that it’s not hard to get VPN access even with cash by buying cards at retail. You can also use one of the various free (ad supported or spyware) VPN products. It’s nothing like trying to involve another adult and asking them to take on the legal liability of that action.
        postexitus 7mo ago
        Is it though? Do you actually live in the UK? Do you want to know how often it happens in London?
        rgblambda 7mo ago
- dataflow 7mo ago
  > Is there any evidence for all this? > I'm not 100% sure I don't think anybody was 100% sure social media would be the best thing since sliced bread when they subjected humanity to the experiment, so I don't think you have a whole ton of reason to freak out here. Either they're wrong and can keep moving forward, or they're right and can backtrack. The children will survive and so will you. L
  - benj111 7mo ago
    Isn't that a bit naïve though? Will it actually get rolled back? Seems to me we've added another level of officialdom and it's never going to go. The next generation of plucky startups now have more hoops to jump through, creating a moat around the incumbents. And even if it is harmful, why is a complete ban the best approach? The internet is a tool. Should you not let kids cook because they might harm themselves? Or do you teach them, so that they can avoid hurting themselves in the future? While avoiding the downside of bringing up kids who can't cook?
- insane_dreamer 7mo ago
  yes, plenty of studies of the effect on mental health. whether it's "definitive" is a matter of debate (and opinion). as a parent of teens/preteens, I 100% support this just like I support banning the sale of cigarettes to minors. And if future research definitively shows that social media is not generally harmful, then it can be allowed and no harm done -- meaning that it's not like the ban deprives them of some essential need. It's not even so much the social media itself, but it's the companies controlling social media, who push every lever to try to increase engagement. It's not unlike the cigarette companies back in the day, trying to make them as addictive as possible, with ads everywhere, getting it movies so it's cool, etc. If we had no-ads, paid subscription social media accounts, no endless scrolling, where social media companies revenue was not tied to time spent in the app, where you only see from people you follow, that would be a whole different conversation. Meta/ByteDance/Snap/YouTube have f*ed it up, and this is why we can't have nice things.
- pipes 7mo ago
  My main worry is this is just another step towards government controlling discourse online. Once implemented it will become difficult to be anonymous on social media. Some one in the UK civil service was quoted in the Times, they stated that the online safety act is not about protecting children. It is about controlling the discourse.
- Aurornis 7mo ago
  > Is there any evidence for all this? There was a study shared on Hacker News a few months ago that looked hard to find correlations between different measures and social media use or gaming in kids. It didn’t find any evidence of negative correlations between social media or gaming with different negative effects. The response here was largely skepticism and disbelief. This topic has jumped out of the realm of evidence and into the range of moral panic. Facts don’t matter any more. The conclusion is assumed. It’s really sad to see how quickly Hacker News, of all places, is jumping head first into welcoming age restrictions and bans with barely a passing thought to what it means. We already saw with Discord that tech communities really don’t like what age restrictions look like in practice, but whenever you make the topic about “social media” everyone assumes it will only be Facebook or Instagram, never their Reddits or Discords that have to go through identity checks for age verification.
  - kalaksi 7mo ago
    > It’s really sad to see how quickly Hacker News, of all places, is jumping head first into welcoming age restrictions and bans with barely a passing thought to what it means. I'd avoid such generalizations. It's a divisive topic, but from what I've seen here, there's always lots of criticism (regarding implementation at the minimum) in the comments and it definitely isn't clear that most would be jumping head first into anything.
  - Der_Einzige 7mo ago
    HN is so full of bootlickers. I really hope they choke on the boots they seem to love to fellate.
dyauspitr 7mo ago
We need this in the US yesterday.
- _aavaa_ 7mo ago
  We already have many companies to help, have Palintir de-anonymize every user.
- patja 7mo ago
  We already have COPPA. The result of which I have seen in my child's classroom when the teacher instructs the class "enter a different birth date to get around this restriction so we can use this website for our class activity"
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- seniorThrowaway 7mo ago
  No, we don't. This is big tech shifting liability off themselves with the added bonus of full de-anonymization. Take a look at who is lobbying for this.
deadbabe 7mo ago
Knowing how kids are, they will just snicker and skirt their way around these bans anyway thinking they are some super bad ass. This is mostly symbolic.
- jvuygbbkuurx 7mo ago
  Some will do that, but it will hinder the network effects which will be helpful overall. There is at least a good excuse not to be on social media for the ones that didn't really want to anyways, but felt pressured to do so.
- hmokiguess 7mo ago
  I'm okay with that, I remember the "cool kid" at my school who smoked cigarettes and I see today how he turned out later in life. Doesn't mean everyone will do it.
- avocabros 7mo ago
  The ability to enforce a law doesn't mean it shouldn't be a law. No law is followed and enforced 100%.
- insane_dreamer 7mo ago
  > This is mostly symbolic. sure, just like some kids sneak cigarettes; but the vast majority don't. I disagree that it's symbolic.
- amelius 7mo ago
  Laws can be normative.
  - marginalia_nu 7mo ago
    Teens are famously resilient to that sort of thing though. Making something illegal is just about the only thing to get a teenager to want to do something.
- sarchertech 7mo ago
  Depends on how it’s enforced. The data we have on bans on underage drinking and smoking show that they work. Some kids will still smoke and drink, but the number is reduced, drunk driving accidents go down, and eventually fewer adults abuse alcohol and smoke cigarettes. The myth about age limits making it forbidden and attracting more kids to do it is just that it’s a myth. Spend some time looking at the studies. They almost universally show that age limits on drinking and smoking are harm reducing.
brazukadev 7mo ago
It is funny to see all countries afraid of doing what should be done: fine and block the social media companies that don't fix their brainrot algorithms. Adults are not better at handling them than kids.
- haght 7mo ago
  how do you plan the governments should decide what algorithms are brainrot, and what are not?
- floodfx 7mo ago
  Came here to say something similar. Adults are just as hooked to their addiction feeds as kids. These are uber-personalized feeds optimized to keep you scrolling to the next item (story / video / post) so companies can show more ads. "Social media" is a textbook example of a euphemism. We should be calling this what it is: "addiction feeds".
- elictronic 7mo ago
  It’s changing and the sentiment towards this crap is adjusting fast. Whoever is running the focus groups on the pushback campaigns aren’t finding good vehicles yet either.
- mk89 7mo ago
  They just complain about the algorithms but they use also the same tool for propaganda / marketing. The only thing they literally agree on is "online hatred" because sometimes it goes against them, so they need to keep the system running. For example, the previous German government was paying influencers for sponsoring heat pumps. All these "content creators" must be paid by someone - left, right, center, oil, nuclear, gas companies, it's like watching TV for its advertisements. Crazy what it has become. So, that will most likely never change, although that's probably in the top 3 reasons why social media is unusable.
- ottah 7mo ago
  Because they don't actually care about social media use, it's just a pretext to force everyone to implement mandatory id checks.
shevy-java 7mo ago
I claim this is not about "protecting children", but to mandate age sniffing on the OS level eventually. I also find this all questionable. A 18 years old is not penalised? So why is that a difference? I should say that I don't use "social" media (unless commenting on a forum is called "social" now), but I find the attempt to explain this ... very poor. I could not try to reason about this. I could not claim it is meant to "protect" anyone at all. Is this pushed by over-eager parents, who don't understand what to do on a technical level? I really hate censorship in general. So, even while I think unsocial media such as Facebook should be gone, I hate any such restrictions. Then again I also don't trust any legislator who pushes for this - I am certain this is to force age-sniffing onto everyone. And then extend this slowly. Step by step. Salami by Salami. Until anonymity is gone.
- jagaerglad 7mo ago
  It's often not allowed to sell nicotine or alcohol to those who aren't penalized either
seniorThrowaway 7mo ago
The liability shifting and real identity linking to all online usage that big tech wants is proceeding nicely for them I see.
- pokstad 7mo ago
  This. Big tech shouldn’t rely on ID laws. We should hold big tech liable when we find them in violation. Shift the onus to them.
  - qup 7mo ago
    We used to hold parents liable.
    - contagiousflow 7mo ago
      Can you give an example for this?
      - john_strinlai 7mo ago
        "Parental responsibility laws in all 50 states" https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/PARENTAL-RESPONSIBILITY-LAWS-CHART.pdf https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/PARENTAL-... an excerpt from above: "Almost every state has some sort of parental responsibility law that holds parents or legal guardians responsible for property damage, personal injury, theft, shoplifting, and/or vandalism resulting from intentional or willful acts of their un-emancipated children." "Parental responsibility laws are one vehicle by which parents are held accountable for at least a minimal amount of damage caused by their children as a result of intentional acts or vandalism"
        wrs 7mo ago
        Using social media is not a crime. I think what we’re talking about here is child welfare or child protection laws (which all 50 states probably also have).
dude250711 7mo ago
Should be banned for under 40s and over 70s really... Also ban giving toddlers iPads with YouTube.
- elictronic 7mo ago
  I’m over 40 and this trash works on addicting someone like me just fine. Social media companies went full Icarus and I couldn’t be happier watching the wax run. How do you invest in ad companies that ran ad campaigns for smoking companies.
- marliechiller 7mo ago
  hah - 50 year olds have been amongst the worst offenders from what I've experienced. The only generation that I can see that hasnt completely fallen is the generation that were young adults just around the time facebook first released, i.e Millenials. They grew up with the internet but werent enslaved to it like the generation after (Gen Z). Meanwhile the generation above (Gen X) didnt have the survival instincts fostered whilst growing up with the internet so fall foul of all sorts of fake news pieces etc
  - varjag 7mo ago
    I disagree, the brainrot is about the same across generations. People have a slight bias to reporting their generation as being more resistant though.
  - foobiekr 7mo ago
    Millennials are by far the most FOMO/social media addicted generation there is. I have watched so many of them blow up their lives over stupid shit they saw online.
- quickthrowman 7mo ago
  The only people with a relatively healthy outlook on modern socia media (by this I mean not using it) and ability to detect bullshit are a slice of Millenials that grew up on the pseudonymous internet that transitioned into the real name public internet, birth years from early 80s to early 90s mostly. Before or after that, Gen X were already adults and Gen Z grew up (became teens) with Snapchat/Instagram already existing. Outside of this group (which happens to be my peer group) I see a noticeable drop in media literacy and ability to detect bullshit, but that may just be a blind spot for me since I’m part of the aforementioned Millenial group.
firefax 7mo ago
The issue is not the age you come online, it's what happens when you do. Delaying from 13 (COPPA) to 16 won't change a thing. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Home Alone -- I thought if I had one of those talkboys, I could get some changes made. But in an age where every teen has a recording device in their pocket, I continue to see the kinds of stories that made my blood boil... because when it came time to get the authorities involved they dragged their feet the entire time, if they would even file a report at all, and that inaction is paired with a "zero tolerance" policy on any kind of self defense that sends kids out into the world reluctant to give folks the rightful punch they deserve if they act out (and are entitled to give in most stand your ground states.) Extending adolescence doesn't solve the root problems here, and conversely, more adults should reread a copy of "1984" and be a little more fearful they're held to the rules and norms they instill on the youth.
- naravara 7mo ago
  > Delaying from 13 (COPPA) to 16 won't change a thing. There’s been a decent amount of studies to suggest it can actually, since you’ll be pushing the uptake of social media outside the peak age range where things like bullying, body image issues, grooming, etc. start to happen and, therefore, limiting the harm. It’s also a time when a lot of life-habits start to get set down since 12-13 is when kids start having to assume more responsibility for themselves and begin learning how they manage their time, build their study habits, etc. Not being habituated into doomscrolling during that period seems like it can only be healthy. It’s not as if they’d be cut off from the internet entirely, they’d still have Wikipedia and all the boring, non-attention sapping parts of the web. And they’d still be able to direct-message or group-chat with their friends. They’re just spared the algorithmic feeds.
  - firefax 6mo ago
    >There’s been a decent amount of studies to suggest it can actually Then cite them
ottah 7mo ago
No, they mean, the latest to implement mandatory id for all residents to access the internet. This is not a health issue, it's not demand from lazy parents, this is the elites desire to abolish anonymity on the internet.
krautburglar 7mo ago
[flagged]
spacedoutman 7mo ago
They tried this in australia, now more kids than ever are on social media.
- greggoB 7mo ago
  Source?
  - miroljub 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - mainmailman 7mo ago
      What?
    - greggoB 7mo ago
      Are you stating that as your source, or asking if that's my political affiliation?
      - miroljub 7mo ago
        No. Just a notice that above mentioned group frequently cry for source when they don't agree with an opinion. Opinion is personal, it's not a fact and doesn't need source.
        greggoB 6mo ago
        "now more kids than ever are on social media." is not an opinion, it's a statement of fact, which should be accompanied by a source, at least if you want to be taken seriously.
        miroljub 6mo ago
        It's his opinion based on observing his social group. Should be clear from context.
jmyeet 7mo ago
The one part I was curious about was who would be responsible for this? The app or the OS? The article says the app makers, which I think is correct. In the US, Meta in particular is pushing for OS-level age verification [1]. What a surprise. The company without an OS wants OS makers to do it and, more importantly, to be liable for it. Many purists believe such a move is bad for freedom of expression. I'm sympathetic to this argument to a degree but I think we've shown that it's been a failure. More to the point, whether or not you agree with age verification, it's coming regardless so the only issue really is what form it takes. This will go beyond social media too. I'm thinking specifically of gambling. I'm including crypto gambling as well as sports betting and prediction markets. In the real world we require you to go to a casino to gamble and you will have your age checked at the door. We've just been removing the barriers to gambling addiction and extending it to minors. My prediction is that this will change. For anyone who thinks teens will just get around this with VPNs and other workarounds, of course some will. Not everyone will. And blocking such measures will get better over time. Also, network effects will come into play. What will it do if half your friends aren't on social media? What about 75%? 90%? Also, this is going to cut into advertising to minors. That I think is a win. Companies won't be able to target minors in affected markets. Meta (etc) will be legally responsible for making sure they can't. That's good. Just like tobacco bans to minors aren'100% effective, neither does this. [1]: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh...
- franga2000 7mo ago
  There are two outcomes. Either the implementation is freedom and privacy respecting and very easy to bypass (effectively just a setting the OS passes on to a website) or it comes with strong technical and cryptographic guarantees which destroy privacy and freedom (identity verification, OS and hardware attestation). There is no middle ground. The comparison to ID checks when buying cigarettes is missing the point. Human ID checks have few downsides and are relatively high cost to fool. In the real world, you show your ID to a human and they look at the date of birth and photo. They don't copy or photograph it, they surely won't read let alone remember anything else from your ID, it would be very obvious, costly and dangerous for a criminal to install a hidden camera and secretly record everyone and their IDs. We also don't attach the ID physically to your body and assign an individual police offier to follow you around 24/7 so you don't try to tamper with it somehow. On the Internet, a securely (safe from bypasses) implemented age verification system makes sure your device is owned and used only by you, that you can't lend it to somebody, that you can't modify or inspect it... It also enables some level of reidentification for catching and prosecuting you if enable access to a minor despite this. These are two wildly different situations.
walrus01 7mo ago
There's a solid point to be made about the problem with brainrot algorithms and slop content pushed by default to every (instagram, tiktok, facebook, whatever) user even without banning anything. People in tech who've curated their social media feeds to unfollow/block/dislike brainrot content should seriously sit down with the phone of an average 15 year old (or 75 year old) and spend an hour scrolling. I am equally as worried about slop content being pushed to the social media feeds of gullible people of the older gen-x and boomer generations as I am of young people. The general problem of human attention span being monetized as a commodity for social manipulation, political manipulation and just generally selling things (the advertising industry in general) is getting worse, not better.
bitwize 7mo ago
> government: bans social media for under 16. > hackernews: "Good. It's about time government took action. The only cure for these abusive capitalist companies is government regulation." > government: passes law requiring age verification at the OS level > hackernews: "Oh no! How could this happen? We have to fight this you guys. For sure if it weren't for big tech lobbyists we wouldn't have to worry about draconian laws like this."
- idle_zealot 7mo ago
  And your position is that the government doing anything is bad, then? Better to just resign yourself to abusive capitalists? The position that you're mocking is the belief that some laws are good and some bad. The fact that you seem to find that objectionable is baffling.
  - bitwize 7mo ago
    Actually no. The position I'm mocking is that we can somehow implement enforceable age restrictions on digital platforms without a verification mechanism that extends to the client level, even to the hardware. I think we need to suck it up and accept that the free-wheeling 90s are over, and using computers, the internet, and technology in general will become a much more regulated activity in the very near future, which is going to suck for people who make touching computers their entire personality, but greater society has decided that protection from certain severe social harms is worth the price paid.
    - idle_zealot 7mo ago
      This isn't a real dichotomy. There's not a lever positioned between safety and freedom that people can collectively choose to shift one way or another. The best way to enhance safety is to directly ban the harmful behavior, not install cameras everywhere to make sure that only the right people fall victim to it. A panopticon is both less free and less safe than the world we have now, and a world where Meta and Google are ground into silicon dust is safer and more free.
miroljub 7mo ago
Europe slowly becomes a totalitarian fascist federation. The social media and children protection bullshit serves only to introduce a mandatory identification for accessing the internet. And we all laughed at the "conspiracy theorists" who were constantly warning us.
- ExpertAdvisor01 7mo ago
  Don’t forget the hate speech laws. It’s just ridiculous. A state in Germany wants to criminalize questioning a certain country’s existence, with penalties of up to four years in prison
  - miroljub 7mo ago
    Foreign state existence.
Quizzical4230 7mo ago
I really liked this post by System76: https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification
- ljm 7mo ago
  Reactionary changes are never going to go away but the entire thrust of technological progress is "you don't need to learn." Amusing Ourselves to Death and Superbloom both describe the same thing: methods of communiation become more efficient and education becomes more simplified, to the point of not being valued. The nadir of which is Trump shitposting policy decisions on Twitter because he has no literacy, no intellect, and people like him because of that because he's just as uneducated as they are. Back in the early days of the US intellect was king, it's how the US became what it was as far as I know it.
  - foobiekr 7mo ago
    It wasn't "the early days." It was true until the 1970s when the evangelicals pivoted and started to get power.
holoduke 7mo ago
Fu Norway. This is an example of lobbyists succesfully make regulations based on a fake reason to serve their own totally different interest. Dumpsters in Norway have no idea how they are being played. Noone cares about children. They only care about introducing id verification for everyone everywhere. Again. Fu Norway.
nephihaha 7mo ago
Oh look another one. Funny how they seem to do this at the same time.
10xDev 7mo ago
Good, social media is cancer on society and will only get worse with LLMs, Deepfakes etc. All the astroturfing in favour of social media couldn't possibly change my mind on how harmful social media has been on society.
- fsflover 7mo ago
  Does HN count, or is the actual problem the algorithmic feeds?
  - jjulius 7mo ago
    Yes.
  - cooper_ganglia 7mo ago
    I would categorize HN as a news aggregator with a comment section, not social media.
    - LocalH 7mo ago
      The various laws being proposed don't tend to agree with that
      - cooper_ganglia 7mo ago
        Well, I don’t agree with any laws like that, they’re all silly. Nobody under 16 should be on social media for their own good, but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body.
        latexr 7mo ago
        > but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body. The counter argument is that even if you want to do that as a parent, it’s hard when all your kid’s friends use the thing you’re prohibiting. It makes their life harder, and yours too in the process. It’s worth noting the first initiatives to gate kids from social media did come from parents, who organised locally and collectively agreed on a course of action.
nacozarina 7mo ago
Normalized credential-harvesting will make it possible for govt to enforce digital exile. The govt will be able to deny computer access for anyone it doesn’t like, for as long as they don’t like them. There will then be many ‘underground’ internets, which will all be banned, where the underclass lives. It is also where real innovation will live. It’s a brand new day and our dystopia has new frontiers available for the brave.
- whywhywhywhy 7mo ago
  > There will then be many ‘underground’ internets Only with very old technology, its possible force ID validation from silicon to server or even to unlock the cpu cores so if it ever comes to what you suggest that will also happen.
PunchyHamster 7mo ago
Speedrunning the way for the loneliness generation. Everything remote yet you can't even meet people
- 52-6F-62 7mo ago
  God help us if Mark doesn't collect his fee between every one of our interactions, eh?
- cooper_ganglia 7mo ago
  This is pretty radical, but what if, perhaps, the children touched grass instead of doom scrolling? Lonely children aren’t the fault of the government, they’re the fault of parents who let them scroll TikTok in their rooms all day, because actually parenting would be difficult or inconvenient.
  - bmacho 7mo ago
    > This is pretty radical, but what if, perhaps, the children touched grass instead of doom scrolling? A simple solution would be: - measure the harmful effects of it if there are any, and make it public - tell parents to take away the kids phones while they are at home There is absolutely no need to identify everyone on the internet, or forbid kids to talk to other kids.
    - Sankozi 7mo ago
      - Harmful effects are known, that is why those laws are created. - How is a parent going to take phones of their kid's friends? That is the main problem - your kid is going to be pressured to have a social media account. They even can have one on some old phone from their friend.
      - bmacho 7mo ago
        > That is the main problem - your kid is going to be pressured to have a social media account. Indeed, that would be the goal, kids should be able talk to other kids their age. The problem is, I believe, in the excessive phone and screen usage, but parents are easily able to control that (as opposed to smoking or drinking for example).
herf 7mo ago
Doing this without the parents on board does not work. Kids can lie about their birthdate by a few years. Facial age estimation has error bars of like 5 years and many teens don't have any ID. Younger kids use a parent's phone. Many are not supervised by parents or have parents who are complicit/encouraging in getting them more access. Oh you could be famous! But it is clear that more persistent identifiers online will make anonymity much more difficult for everyone else.
- varjag 7mo ago
  You gotta start somewhere.
  - an0malous 7mo ago
    If you can iterate quickly, sure, but that’s something governments famously don’t do well. It’ll take five years to assess the results and another five years to change them.
    - varjag 7mo ago
      It is certainly better than the status quo. Don't underestimate the effect of simply making something illegal.
      - dmje 7mo ago
        100% agree. The 2007 smoking ban in the UK totally transformed the landscape here, and yes people could still go home and smoke or whatever, but that ban has made a huge and significant change to health and thinking about smoking over the last 20 years. We need to do the same with social media and recognise that it's likely to be seen as toxic as smoking in a few years time - if not already.
      - slopinthebag 7mo ago
        Yes, the effect of prohibition was enormous. Same with America's War on Drugs, that had a massive impact. Probably not the impact you're implying though.
greenleafone7 7mo ago
Yes, the Epstein group is worried about.... ummm children. What they are worried about is wrong-speech and they are desperate to stop people from talking about the swarming waves of immigration and our declining way of life. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=623122650149799 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=623122650149799
sunaookami 7mo ago
This sudden coordinated worldwide effort to ban social media for kids (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop being so naive and stop supporting this.
- pjc50 7mo ago
  The coordination is incredible. It's been easier to ban kids from social media (and impose id verification at the same time) than it was to ban landmines.
  - nonethewiser 7mo ago
    It's not surprising at all. Kids in soveriegn nations are banned from all sorts of things. There is no governing body over sovereign nations that can simply ban land mines. You're talking about countries promising to reduce a common war power.The Ottawa Treaty is a treaty (ie mutually agreed upon rules which can be exited) and not all countries have signed it.
- nonethewiser 7mo ago
  Speak for yourself. I want it banned for kids.
  - afh1 7mo ago
    Do you think this is about kids? It's about online identity and government surveillance and control. Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Or you just want to tell other parents to raise their kids the way you want? Then tell them that, don't hide behind fascist police and justice system to force online ID for adults.
    - nonethewiser 7mo ago
      >Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Common but bad argument. You've misunderstood what the age verification control is for. It's to hold online services accountable for illegally providing services to minors. A parent being negligent doesn't mean Facebook should not be held responsible for breaking the law.
notepad0x90 7mo ago
we desperately need an internet-standard for establishing age without disclosing the identity of the user. this is very much possible, and I won't rant here about all the ways it is possible. Currently, meta and openai have hijacked this to abuse it for their own nefarious ends. If you're European, you should be happy about the law but very angry about how it is going to be implemented. but better than anger, please spread the word on the need to establish a standard protocol for age establishment that does not involve bigtech in any way, shape, or form.
n8cpdx 7mo ago
Wouldn’t it be more effective to ban non-chronological feeds? TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook would be transformed into useful tools overnight.
- broof 7mo ago
  Seriously the anti user algorithm auto play slop is insane. Even Spotify now has endless scroll autoplay videos on their podcast section.
- Oberdiah 7mo ago
  I feel that'd maybe be going a bit far as other kinds of feed are also useful (e.g. by popularity, etc.), but I feel as a first step it should be mandatory for any platform to have to show in a human-readable way exactly why they showed you a piece of content. That allows for some intelligent feeds (users who watched this video watched these ones next most often) but without the addiction, manipulation, and nation-puppetting abilities currently enabled by the personalised algortihm.
- insane_dreamer 7mo ago
  I would want ad-based social media banned altogether.
WaltPurvis 7mo ago
https://archive.ph/rSce4 https://archive.ph/rSce4
geremiiah 7mo ago
IMHO, social media itself is not the issue. The issue is rather, why are teenagers glued to their screens? The answer is because they aren't doing something else that is social and physical. So if you ban their access to TikTok or whatever, they are still stuck at home, bored and glued to their screen. Other online entertainment will capture their focus. Before you know it you'll end up trying to ban the whole internet.
- avaer 7mo ago
  I think many people on HN grew up glued to an internet that wasn't trying to intellectually molest them for capitalist and political gains.
  - dv_dt 7mo ago
    No, at the time I was growing up, the music industry was being blamed for corrupting the youth via explicit lyrics and music videos. And there was a whole big discussion around making movie ratings more and more detailed. It turned out that the movie rating media hue and cry all came from mostly from one conservatively funded think tank. This social media ban looks very reminiscent and I think it is all about creating a surveillance state, controlling the population to only see images and video in a centrally approved way.
mastermanas1234 7mo ago
[dead]
voidfunc 7mo ago
Remember kids, always sign-up with a fake birth date.
- pvab3 7mo ago
  I think Facebook still thinks I'm older than I am from my middle-school signup in like 2008
dandaka 7mo ago
Any research supporting this? And proposing guidelines / best practices? What exactly are we banning and why? What is allowed and has little risk? Asking as a parent.
softwaredoug 7mo ago
I feel like education, not abstinence, is the way forward. Prohibition doesn’t work. Educating consumers and holding companies accountable works. It historically takes time though for that pressure to accumulate to the point of having political will. We also need teen social media education - like we have about alcohol and drugs. Where we’re frank about the real research. Don’t moralize. Talk about the realities of the situation.
- b40d-48b2-979e 7mo ago
  You know what else has prohibition? Alcohol and drugs for minors.
  - slopinthebag 7mo ago
    Does it work? Minors never drink or do drugs?
    - post-it 7mo ago
      It doesn't need to be 100% effective in order to work.
    - Epa095 7mo ago
      It is my impression that when drinking age restrictions are introduced, drinking among the (now) underage population goes down. Not disappear, but goes down. My personal experience is also that 17 year olds in countries where the legal drinking age is 16 drink more than 17 year olds where the drinking age is 18, but I don't have numbers on it.
    - hfsh 7mo ago
      Do minors drink less than they would if we allowed (or even encouraged) them to drink or use drugs?
      - slopinthebag 7mo ago
        Not sure, but they would do it more safely, thats the argument for safe supply :)
sackfield 7mo ago
How is it going in the other countries that are trying this? Do we know yet? If not, why move forward with legislation based on untested theories, especially when other countries are currently testing it for you?
6thbit 7mo ago
Meanwhile I’d like a reverse filter, like don’t show me anything posted by people under 25. And I’m sure lots of young people would love to filter out anything posted by people over 40.
kdheiwns 7mo ago
We can't even get countries to agree on a unified drinking age, but somehow the whole world is simultaneously coming to the conclusion that you need to be 16 to use social media, and websites and operating systems all need North Korean ID verification to prove you're over 16. There is a zero percent chance this is organic
- antics9 7mo ago
  You haven’t had children growing up during the last two decades have you?
  - joe_mamba 7mo ago
    In my current EU country, there's mandatory military conscription from the age of 17. And you're telling me you're only fit for social media access one year before being fit to drive tanks and shoot guns at people? Look, I hate (Zuckerberg's) social media just as much as the next person and I would be happy if it were nuked from this planet, but firstly, a lot of this sudden age verification shit to "protect the children" is sus AF, leading me to assume their ulterior motives are surveillance and doxxing of anonymous online free speech, and secondly, I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the bottle anymore similar how prohibition didn't stop alcohol consumption, it just moved underground. As long as kids have smartphones, they'll find a way to use social media, or even make their own social media to organize parties, send nudes or flaunt their parents' wealth and bully the poor and ugly kids, the same way how they start drinking beer at 13 even though the legal age for that is 18. Social media amplifies the worst of human nature, but you won't be able to change human nature. Maybe governments should regulate the amount and type of data collection social media companies can have from their users, instead of regulating their users.
    - ben_w 7mo ago
      > In my current EU country, there's mandatory military conscription from the age of 17. And you're telling me you're only fit for social media access one year before being fit to drive tanks and shoot guns at people? FWIW, in the UK you can learn to drive a tank one year before you're allowed to learn to drive a car. Not go into combat, that's another year, I just mean the learning to drive part. Back when I myself was that age, I also got a letter published in a national newspaper pointing out the oddity that I was allowed to have sex two years before being allowed to look at photos of other people doing so. Since then, cheap cameras would also make it pertinent (though it was true even back then), that I could not have taken photos of myself performing acts I was allowed to perform.
Geee 7mo ago
So, by disabling all social features (comments, chat) kids can keep using Instagram and Youtube? Is it really the social features which are harmful? I'd guess that it's the addictive content which might be more harmful. Also, does these bans extend to text-only social media such as HN?
JamesLeonis 7mo ago
I want to come at this from another angle: We are about to tell the entire world wide web where all the kids are. The more these laws are enforced, the more we hand over this information to any unscrupulous website operator, app developer, or advertiser. Are we about to hand Elon Musk [0] your kids' PII? How about Zuck, who (friendly reminder) sold your 2nd-factor phone number to advertisers [1]? How about all of the leaks from these ID services [2]? Or how about these services doing far more than Age Verification [3][4]? Given the terrible track record of data breaches in tech, this means all this information leaks into even worse hands with little recourse for people and no punishment for companies. From a security and privacy perspective it's in kids' own self-interest and self-protection for them to undermine all of these laws. 0: "I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02706510.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02706... 1: https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-admits-phone-numbers-may-be-used-target-ads/ https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-admits-phone-numbers-m... 2: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/hack-age-verification-company-shows-privacy-danger-social-media-laws https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/hack-age-verification-... 3: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verification-surveillance-biometrics-government-reporting-2026/ https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verificatio... 4: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verification-vendor-persona-left-frontend-exposed https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verificat...
- tzs 7mo ago
  There is no need to implement these kind of things in a way that gives any PII to Musk or Zuck. One way is the California approach which requires that device operating systems offer parental controls that parents can set up when creating accounts for their children that will provide an age bracket to apps when the children are using the device. The California laws requires that apps that need to restrict use by children to ask for that age bracket. Note that the California approach does not actually do any age verification. The parental controls accept whatever the parent says is the the child's age bracket. Another way is to put actual ID documents on the device, cryptographically tied to the device, and to implement a protocol by which software on the device can prove to a remote site that the device contains such ID documents and that those document show an age that is in the age range that is allowed to use the site but without disclosing to the site any another information from the documents. Google, Apple, and the EU are all using and/or working on this type of approach.
programmertote 7mo ago
These bans, in my opinion, are not the right way to go. Who says that once you are 16+, you are mature enough to interact with the social media apps? I'd argue that if one has never used social media when growing up, it'd even be more dangerous to open the floodgate (so to speak) once s/he reaches 17. Then, that person is not going to know what to avoid and how to curb addiction. Educating kids about the potential harm, and also making parents take some more responsibility seem like a more positive approach to me.
- OptionOfT 7mo ago
  We need to draw the line somewhere. Later is better.
- kakacik 7mo ago
  Drinking is harmful... always. Same for smoking. Yet we draw lines there. I don't claim there is much consistency in governments actions (ie see weed demonization for past 60 years and misery it brought when cigarettes and alcohol were just fine), but absolutely, 0 zilch sympathy for the cancer that 'social media' are these days. They can go bankrupt overnight and no amount of former facebook employees screaming about needing to feed their families or similar popular excuses would affect the big smile on my face.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 7mo ago
When they ban social media, what do they actually ban? Like is whatsapp social media? I say no, but news outlets say otherwise. There is no social media official definition from my understanding. The bad ones are the ones with the uncontrolled (by the user) algorithmic feed
midtake 7mo ago
Social media is a cancer today. When I read news like this, I think "darn kids will never know how good we had it, the internet was for nerds and not hostile!" But as I roll that thought over in my head I wonder, was the internet ever really safe? Maybe there weren't companies messing with your psychology for profit, but perhaps it was all an espionage platform the whole time. The internet, http and html in general, has a smell of being designed from the ground up as a spy tool. It's as if we've all been filling out Obsidian documents on ourselves and voluntarily linking them, and somewhere there is a central node that can see the whole brain. Maybe it wasn't hostile in the same way where it turns your brain into mush, but it seems like it was never safe.
- insane_dreamer 7mo ago
  Sure, it may not have been safe back in the day, but the internet wasn't in your pocket at all times and pinging you with notifications. It didn't replace nearly all your in-person social interactions. It's the ubiquitousness of social media that is a big part of the problem.
aftergibson 7mo ago
[dead]
gverrilla 7mo ago
Congratulations for Norway!
patatino 7mo ago
As father of three, lets ban it until 25. It adds zero value. Also parents, lay down your phones more, way more. Every generation is addicted. From teenagers to retired folks!
vinni2 7mo ago
So we need bankid to use social media? I have to move.

418 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7 7mo ago

Is there any evidence for all this? This sums up my understanding of the current situation (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understand-the-impact-of-smartphones-and-social-media-on-children-and-young-people/understand-the-impact-of-smartphones-and-social-media-on-children-and-young-people-executive-summary https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understand-the-im...) That isn't anywhere near definitive. Further it seems to me, this will just allow the tech companies to assume there are no kids, and remove the protections currently available. Yes there is an issue of quantity, but it seems that we should be focussing on social norms for what is acceptable parenting in the 21st century. I'm 42, probably the lower age range for having a teenage kid, I have a couple of kids myself, and I'm not 100% sure on what the correct approach to take is, as I suspect the situation is for most other parents as the situation is so different to what we experienced at that age.

andrewstuart 7mo ago
Evidence? This is the 21st century.
ozgrakkurt 7mo ago
Seriously. I see at least one baby with a phone in hand every time I go out. This is 100% an education issue and they don't understand how harmful that can be to their child's brain. Governments are focusing on banning things because some reason but real solution is education and support imo. Similar issue with school shottings. Government wants to ban guns or put controls on schools but they don't invest enough on mental health, it is almost if they are incapable of understanding that a healthy person wouldn't choose to do this. The social media ussue is similar imo, parents don't understand how harmful it is to the brain. It is harmful for adults and it is even worse for children
- postexitus 7mo ago
  Why not sell cigarettes and alcohol to kids, but also educate them that it's harmful?
  - rgblambda 7mo ago
    A VPN can't get around a cigarette and alcohol ban. Perhaps children should be given locked down phones, with fines for parents who buy non child safe phones for their kids. It would take time for this to take effect but a social media ban would actually be effective at the end.
    - postexitus 7mo ago
      Just like you can't get around a random adult buying for kids. It's just a imperfect deterrent. Although I agree- hardware level control would be so much better. Apple's on-device age checks can be a good compromise.
      - Aurornis 7mo ago
        > Just like you can't get around a random adult buying for kids. It's just an imperfect deterrent. This argument feels really weak. Convincing an adult to buy alcohol for kids is dramatically more difficult on average than setting up a VPN. If you’re on this tech website you should know that it’s not hard to get VPN access even with cash by buying cards at retail. You can also use one of the various free (ad supported or spyware) VPN products. It’s nothing like trying to involve another adult and asking them to take on the legal liability of that action.
        postexitus 7mo ago
        Is it though? Do you actually live in the UK? Do you want to know how often it happens in London?
        rgblambda 7mo ago
dataflow 7mo ago
> Is there any evidence for all this? > I'm not 100% sure I don't think anybody was 100% sure social media would be the best thing since sliced bread when they subjected humanity to the experiment, so I don't think you have a whole ton of reason to freak out here. Either they're wrong and can keep moving forward, or they're right and can backtrack. The children will survive and so will you. L
- benj111 7mo ago
  Isn't that a bit naïve though? Will it actually get rolled back? Seems to me we've added another level of officialdom and it's never going to go. The next generation of plucky startups now have more hoops to jump through, creating a moat around the incumbents. And even if it is harmful, why is a complete ban the best approach? The internet is a tool. Should you not let kids cook because they might harm themselves? Or do you teach them, so that they can avoid hurting themselves in the future? While avoiding the downside of bringing up kids who can't cook?
insane_dreamer 7mo ago
yes, plenty of studies of the effect on mental health. whether it's "definitive" is a matter of debate (and opinion). as a parent of teens/preteens, I 100% support this just like I support banning the sale of cigarettes to minors. And if future research definitively shows that social media is not generally harmful, then it can be allowed and no harm done -- meaning that it's not like the ban deprives them of some essential need. It's not even so much the social media itself, but it's the companies controlling social media, who push every lever to try to increase engagement. It's not unlike the cigarette companies back in the day, trying to make them as addictive as possible, with ads everywhere, getting it movies so it's cool, etc. If we had no-ads, paid subscription social media accounts, no endless scrolling, where social media companies revenue was not tied to time spent in the app, where you only see from people you follow, that would be a whole different conversation. Meta/ByteDance/Snap/YouTube have f*ed it up, and this is why we can't have nice things.
pipes 7mo ago
My main worry is this is just another step towards government controlling discourse online. Once implemented it will become difficult to be anonymous on social media. Some one in the UK civil service was quoted in the Times, they stated that the online safety act is not about protecting children. It is about controlling the discourse.
Aurornis 7mo ago
> Is there any evidence for all this? There was a study shared on Hacker News a few months ago that looked hard to find correlations between different measures and social media use or gaming in kids. It didn’t find any evidence of negative correlations between social media or gaming with different negative effects. The response here was largely skepticism and disbelief. This topic has jumped out of the realm of evidence and into the range of moral panic. Facts don’t matter any more. The conclusion is assumed. It’s really sad to see how quickly Hacker News, of all places, is jumping head first into welcoming age restrictions and bans with barely a passing thought to what it means. We already saw with Discord that tech communities really don’t like what age restrictions look like in practice, but whenever you make the topic about “social media” everyone assumes it will only be Facebook or Instagram, never their Reddits or Discords that have to go through identity checks for age verification.
- kalaksi 7mo ago
  > It’s really sad to see how quickly Hacker News, of all places, is jumping head first into welcoming age restrictions and bans with barely a passing thought to what it means. I'd avoid such generalizations. It's a divisive topic, but from what I've seen here, there's always lots of criticism (regarding implementation at the minimum) in the comments and it definitely isn't clear that most would be jumping head first into anything.
- Der_Einzige 7mo ago
  HN is so full of bootlickers. I really hope they choke on the boots they seem to love to fellate.

dyauspitr 7mo ago

We need this in the US yesterday.

_aavaa_ 7mo ago
We already have many companies to help, have Palintir de-anonymize every user.
patja 7mo ago
We already have COPPA. The result of which I have seen in my child's classroom when the teacher instructs the class "enter a different birth date to get around this restriction so we can use this website for our class activity"
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
seniorThrowaway 7mo ago
No, we don't. This is big tech shifting liability off themselves with the added bonus of full de-anonymization. Take a look at who is lobbying for this.

deadbabe 7mo ago

Knowing how kids are, they will just snicker and skirt their way around these bans anyway thinking they are some super bad ass. This is mostly symbolic.

jvuygbbkuurx 7mo ago
Some will do that, but it will hinder the network effects which will be helpful overall. There is at least a good excuse not to be on social media for the ones that didn't really want to anyways, but felt pressured to do so.
hmokiguess 7mo ago
I'm okay with that, I remember the "cool kid" at my school who smoked cigarettes and I see today how he turned out later in life. Doesn't mean everyone will do it.
avocabros 7mo ago
The ability to enforce a law doesn't mean it shouldn't be a law. No law is followed and enforced 100%.
insane_dreamer 7mo ago
> This is mostly symbolic. sure, just like some kids sneak cigarettes; but the vast majority don't. I disagree that it's symbolic.
amelius 7mo ago
Laws can be normative.
- marginalia_nu 7mo ago
  Teens are famously resilient to that sort of thing though. Making something illegal is just about the only thing to get a teenager to want to do something.
sarchertech 7mo ago
Depends on how it’s enforced. The data we have on bans on underage drinking and smoking show that they work. Some kids will still smoke and drink, but the number is reduced, drunk driving accidents go down, and eventually fewer adults abuse alcohol and smoke cigarettes. The myth about age limits making it forbidden and attracting more kids to do it is just that it’s a myth. Spend some time looking at the studies. They almost universally show that age limits on drinking and smoking are harm reducing.

brazukadev 7mo ago

It is funny to see all countries afraid of doing what should be done: fine and block the social media companies that don't fix their brainrot algorithms. Adults are not better at handling them than kids.

haght 7mo ago
how do you plan the governments should decide what algorithms are brainrot, and what are not?
floodfx 7mo ago
Came here to say something similar. Adults are just as hooked to their addiction feeds as kids. These are uber-personalized feeds optimized to keep you scrolling to the next item (story / video / post) so companies can show more ads. "Social media" is a textbook example of a euphemism. We should be calling this what it is: "addiction feeds".
elictronic 7mo ago
It’s changing and the sentiment towards this crap is adjusting fast. Whoever is running the focus groups on the pushback campaigns aren’t finding good vehicles yet either.
mk89 7mo ago
They just complain about the algorithms but they use also the same tool for propaganda / marketing. The only thing they literally agree on is "online hatred" because sometimes it goes against them, so they need to keep the system running. For example, the previous German government was paying influencers for sponsoring heat pumps. All these "content creators" must be paid by someone - left, right, center, oil, nuclear, gas companies, it's like watching TV for its advertisements. Crazy what it has become. So, that will most likely never change, although that's probably in the top 3 reasons why social media is unusable.
ottah 7mo ago
Because they don't actually care about social media use, it's just a pretext to force everyone to implement mandatory id checks.

shevy-java 7mo ago

I claim this is not about "protecting children", but to mandate age sniffing on the OS level eventually. I also find this all questionable. A 18 years old is not penalised? So why is that a difference? I should say that I don't use "social" media (unless commenting on a forum is called "social" now), but I find the attempt to explain this ... very poor. I could not try to reason about this. I could not claim it is meant to "protect" anyone at all. Is this pushed by over-eager parents, who don't understand what to do on a technical level? I really hate censorship in general. So, even while I think unsocial media such as Facebook should be gone, I hate any such restrictions. Then again I also don't trust any legislator who pushes for this - I am certain this is to force age-sniffing onto everyone. And then extend this slowly. Step by step. Salami by Salami. Until anonymity is gone.

jagaerglad 7mo ago
It's often not allowed to sell nicotine or alcohol to those who aren't penalized either

seniorThrowaway 7mo ago

The liability shifting and real identity linking to all online usage that big tech wants is proceeding nicely for them I see.

pokstad 7mo ago
This. Big tech shouldn’t rely on ID laws. We should hold big tech liable when we find them in violation. Shift the onus to them.
- qup 7mo ago
  We used to hold parents liable.
  - contagiousflow 7mo ago
    Can you give an example for this?
    - john_strinlai 7mo ago
      "Parental responsibility laws in all 50 states" https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/PARENTAL-RESPONSIBILITY-LAWS-CHART.pdf https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/PARENTAL-... an excerpt from above: "Almost every state has some sort of parental responsibility law that holds parents or legal guardians responsible for property damage, personal injury, theft, shoplifting, and/or vandalism resulting from intentional or willful acts of their un-emancipated children." "Parental responsibility laws are one vehicle by which parents are held accountable for at least a minimal amount of damage caused by their children as a result of intentional acts or vandalism"
      - wrs 7mo ago
        Using social media is not a crime. I think what we’re talking about here is child welfare or child protection laws (which all 50 states probably also have).

dude250711 7mo ago

Should be banned for under 40s and over 70s really... Also ban giving toddlers iPads with YouTube.

elictronic 7mo ago
I’m over 40 and this trash works on addicting someone like me just fine. Social media companies went full Icarus and I couldn’t be happier watching the wax run. How do you invest in ad companies that ran ad campaigns for smoking companies.
marliechiller 7mo ago
hah - 50 year olds have been amongst the worst offenders from what I've experienced. The only generation that I can see that hasnt completely fallen is the generation that were young adults just around the time facebook first released, i.e Millenials. They grew up with the internet but werent enslaved to it like the generation after (Gen Z). Meanwhile the generation above (Gen X) didnt have the survival instincts fostered whilst growing up with the internet so fall foul of all sorts of fake news pieces etc
- varjag 7mo ago
  I disagree, the brainrot is about the same across generations. People have a slight bias to reporting their generation as being more resistant though.
- foobiekr 7mo ago
  Millennials are by far the most FOMO/social media addicted generation there is. I have watched so many of them blow up their lives over stupid shit they saw online.
quickthrowman 7mo ago
The only people with a relatively healthy outlook on modern socia media (by this I mean not using it) and ability to detect bullshit are a slice of Millenials that grew up on the pseudonymous internet that transitioned into the real name public internet, birth years from early 80s to early 90s mostly. Before or after that, Gen X were already adults and Gen Z grew up (became teens) with Snapchat/Instagram already existing. Outside of this group (which happens to be my peer group) I see a noticeable drop in media literacy and ability to detect bullshit, but that may just be a blind spot for me since I’m part of the aforementioned Millenial group.

firefax 7mo ago

The issue is not the age you come online, it's what happens when you do. Delaying from 13 (COPPA) to 16 won't change a thing. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Home Alone -- I thought if I had one of those talkboys, I could get some changes made. But in an age where every teen has a recording device in their pocket, I continue to see the kinds of stories that made my blood boil... because when it came time to get the authorities involved they dragged their feet the entire time, if they would even file a report at all, and that inaction is paired with a "zero tolerance" policy on any kind of self defense that sends kids out into the world reluctant to give folks the rightful punch they deserve if they act out (and are entitled to give in most stand your ground states.) Extending adolescence doesn't solve the root problems here, and conversely, more adults should reread a copy of "1984" and be a little more fearful they're held to the rules and norms they instill on the youth.

naravara 7mo ago
> Delaying from 13 (COPPA) to 16 won't change a thing. There’s been a decent amount of studies to suggest it can actually, since you’ll be pushing the uptake of social media outside the peak age range where things like bullying, body image issues, grooming, etc. start to happen and, therefore, limiting the harm. It’s also a time when a lot of life-habits start to get set down since 12-13 is when kids start having to assume more responsibility for themselves and begin learning how they manage their time, build their study habits, etc. Not being habituated into doomscrolling during that period seems like it can only be healthy. It’s not as if they’d be cut off from the internet entirely, they’d still have Wikipedia and all the boring, non-attention sapping parts of the web. And they’d still be able to direct-message or group-chat with their friends. They’re just spared the algorithmic feeds.
- firefax 6mo ago
  >There’s been a decent amount of studies to suggest it can actually Then cite them

ottah 7mo ago

No, they mean, the latest to implement mandatory id for all residents to access the internet. This is not a health issue, it's not demand from lazy parents, this is the elites desire to abolish anonymity on the internet.

krautburglar 7mo ago

[flagged]

spacedoutman 7mo ago

They tried this in australia, now more kids than ever are on social media.

greggoB 7mo ago
Source?
- miroljub 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mainmailman 7mo ago
    What?
  - greggoB 7mo ago
    Are you stating that as your source, or asking if that's my political affiliation?
    - miroljub 7mo ago
      No. Just a notice that above mentioned group frequently cry for source when they don't agree with an opinion. Opinion is personal, it's not a fact and doesn't need source.
      - greggoB 6mo ago
        "now more kids than ever are on social media." is not an opinion, it's a statement of fact, which should be accompanied by a source, at least if you want to be taken seriously.
        miroljub 6mo ago
        It's his opinion based on observing his social group. Should be clear from context.

jmyeet 7mo ago

The one part I was curious about was who would be responsible for this? The app or the OS? The article says the app makers, which I think is correct. In the US, Meta in particular is pushing for OS-level age verification [1]. What a surprise. The company without an OS wants OS makers to do it and, more importantly, to be liable for it. Many purists believe such a move is bad for freedom of expression. I'm sympathetic to this argument to a degree but I think we've shown that it's been a failure. More to the point, whether or not you agree with age verification, it's coming regardless so the only issue really is what form it takes. This will go beyond social media too. I'm thinking specifically of gambling. I'm including crypto gambling as well as sports betting and prediction markets. In the real world we require you to go to a casino to gamble and you will have your age checked at the door. We've just been removing the barriers to gambling addiction and extending it to minors. My prediction is that this will change. For anyone who thinks teens will just get around this with VPNs and other workarounds, of course some will. Not everyone will. And blocking such measures will get better over time. Also, network effects will come into play. What will it do if half your friends aren't on social media? What about 75%? 90%? Also, this is going to cut into advertising to minors. That I think is a win. Companies won't be able to target minors in affected markets. Meta (etc) will be legally responsible for making sure they can't. That's good. Just like tobacco bans to minors aren'100% effective, neither does this. [1]: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-behind-meta-154717384.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/reddit-user-uncovers-beh...

franga2000 7mo ago
There are two outcomes. Either the implementation is freedom and privacy respecting and very easy to bypass (effectively just a setting the OS passes on to a website) or it comes with strong technical and cryptographic guarantees which destroy privacy and freedom (identity verification, OS and hardware attestation). There is no middle ground. The comparison to ID checks when buying cigarettes is missing the point. Human ID checks have few downsides and are relatively high cost to fool. In the real world, you show your ID to a human and they look at the date of birth and photo. They don't copy or photograph it, they surely won't read let alone remember anything else from your ID, it would be very obvious, costly and dangerous for a criminal to install a hidden camera and secretly record everyone and their IDs. We also don't attach the ID physically to your body and assign an individual police offier to follow you around 24/7 so you don't try to tamper with it somehow. On the Internet, a securely (safe from bypasses) implemented age verification system makes sure your device is owned and used only by you, that you can't lend it to somebody, that you can't modify or inspect it... It also enables some level of reidentification for catching and prosecuting you if enable access to a minor despite this. These are two wildly different situations.

walrus01 7mo ago

There's a solid point to be made about the problem with brainrot algorithms and slop content pushed by default to every (instagram, tiktok, facebook, whatever) user even without banning anything. People in tech who've curated their social media feeds to unfollow/block/dislike brainrot content should seriously sit down with the phone of an average 15 year old (or 75 year old) and spend an hour scrolling. I am equally as worried about slop content being pushed to the social media feeds of gullible people of the older gen-x and boomer generations as I am of young people. The general problem of human attention span being monetized as a commodity for social manipulation, political manipulation and just generally selling things (the advertising industry in general) is getting worse, not better.

bitwize 7mo ago

> government: bans social media for under 16. > hackernews: "Good. It's about time government took action. The only cure for these abusive capitalist companies is government regulation." > government: passes law requiring age verification at the OS level > hackernews: "Oh no! How could this happen? We have to fight this you guys. For sure if it weren't for big tech lobbyists we wouldn't have to worry about draconian laws like this."

idle_zealot 7mo ago
And your position is that the government doing anything is bad, then? Better to just resign yourself to abusive capitalists? The position that you're mocking is the belief that some laws are good and some bad. The fact that you seem to find that objectionable is baffling.
- bitwize 7mo ago
  Actually no. The position I'm mocking is that we can somehow implement enforceable age restrictions on digital platforms without a verification mechanism that extends to the client level, even to the hardware. I think we need to suck it up and accept that the free-wheeling 90s are over, and using computers, the internet, and technology in general will become a much more regulated activity in the very near future, which is going to suck for people who make touching computers their entire personality, but greater society has decided that protection from certain severe social harms is worth the price paid.
  - idle_zealot 7mo ago
    This isn't a real dichotomy. There's not a lever positioned between safety and freedom that people can collectively choose to shift one way or another. The best way to enhance safety is to directly ban the harmful behavior, not install cameras everywhere to make sure that only the right people fall victim to it. A panopticon is both less free and less safe than the world we have now, and a world where Meta and Google are ground into silicon dust is safer and more free.

miroljub 7mo ago

Europe slowly becomes a totalitarian fascist federation. The social media and children protection bullshit serves only to introduce a mandatory identification for accessing the internet. And we all laughed at the "conspiracy theorists" who were constantly warning us.

ExpertAdvisor01 7mo ago
Don’t forget the hate speech laws. It’s just ridiculous. A state in Germany wants to criminalize questioning a certain country’s existence, with penalties of up to four years in prison
- miroljub 7mo ago
  Foreign state existence.

Quizzical4230 7mo ago

I really liked this post by System76: https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification https://blog.system76.com/post/system76-on-age-verification

ljm 7mo ago
Reactionary changes are never going to go away but the entire thrust of technological progress is "you don't need to learn." Amusing Ourselves to Death and Superbloom both describe the same thing: methods of communiation become more efficient and education becomes more simplified, to the point of not being valued. The nadir of which is Trump shitposting policy decisions on Twitter because he has no literacy, no intellect, and people like him because of that because he's just as uneducated as they are. Back in the early days of the US intellect was king, it's how the US became what it was as far as I know it.
- foobiekr 7mo ago
  It wasn't "the early days." It was true until the 1970s when the evangelicals pivoted and started to get power.

holoduke 7mo ago

Fu Norway. This is an example of lobbyists succesfully make regulations based on a fake reason to serve their own totally different interest. Dumpsters in Norway have no idea how they are being played. Noone cares about children. They only care about introducing id verification for everyone everywhere. Again. Fu Norway.

nephihaha 7mo ago

Oh look another one. Funny how they seem to do this at the same time.

10xDev 7mo ago

Good, social media is cancer on society and will only get worse with LLMs, Deepfakes etc. All the astroturfing in favour of social media couldn't possibly change my mind on how harmful social media has been on society.

fsflover 7mo ago
Does HN count, or is the actual problem the algorithmic feeds?
- jjulius 7mo ago
  Yes.
- cooper_ganglia 7mo ago
  I would categorize HN as a news aggregator with a comment section, not social media.
  - LocalH 7mo ago
    The various laws being proposed don't tend to agree with that
    - cooper_ganglia 7mo ago
      Well, I don’t agree with any laws like that, they’re all silly. Nobody under 16 should be on social media for their own good, but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body.
      - latexr 7mo ago
        > but it’s their parent’s job to prevent them from rotting their brains, not some governing body. The counter argument is that even if you want to do that as a parent, it’s hard when all your kid’s friends use the thing you’re prohibiting. It makes their life harder, and yours too in the process. It’s worth noting the first initiatives to gate kids from social media did come from parents, who organised locally and collectively agreed on a course of action.

nacozarina 7mo ago

Normalized credential-harvesting will make it possible for govt to enforce digital exile. The govt will be able to deny computer access for anyone it doesn’t like, for as long as they don’t like them. There will then be many ‘underground’ internets, which will all be banned, where the underclass lives. It is also where real innovation will live. It’s a brand new day and our dystopia has new frontiers available for the brave.

whywhywhywhy 7mo ago
> There will then be many ‘underground’ internets Only with very old technology, its possible force ID validation from silicon to server or even to unlock the cpu cores so if it ever comes to what you suggest that will also happen.

PunchyHamster 7mo ago

Speedrunning the way for the loneliness generation. Everything remote yet you can't even meet people

52-6F-62 7mo ago
God help us if Mark doesn't collect his fee between every one of our interactions, eh?
cooper_ganglia 7mo ago
This is pretty radical, but what if, perhaps, the children touched grass instead of doom scrolling? Lonely children aren’t the fault of the government, they’re the fault of parents who let them scroll TikTok in their rooms all day, because actually parenting would be difficult or inconvenient.
- bmacho 7mo ago
  > This is pretty radical, but what if, perhaps, the children touched grass instead of doom scrolling? A simple solution would be: - measure the harmful effects of it if there are any, and make it public - tell parents to take away the kids phones while they are at home There is absolutely no need to identify everyone on the internet, or forbid kids to talk to other kids.
  - Sankozi 7mo ago
    - Harmful effects are known, that is why those laws are created. - How is a parent going to take phones of their kid's friends? That is the main problem - your kid is going to be pressured to have a social media account. They even can have one on some old phone from their friend.
    - bmacho 7mo ago
      > That is the main problem - your kid is going to be pressured to have a social media account. Indeed, that would be the goal, kids should be able talk to other kids their age. The problem is, I believe, in the excessive phone and screen usage, but parents are easily able to control that (as opposed to smoking or drinking for example).

herf 7mo ago

Doing this without the parents on board does not work. Kids can lie about their birthdate by a few years. Facial age estimation has error bars of like 5 years and many teens don't have any ID. Younger kids use a parent's phone. Many are not supervised by parents or have parents who are complicit/encouraging in getting them more access. Oh you could be famous! But it is clear that more persistent identifiers online will make anonymity much more difficult for everyone else.

varjag 7mo ago
You gotta start somewhere.
- an0malous 7mo ago
  If you can iterate quickly, sure, but that’s something governments famously don’t do well. It’ll take five years to assess the results and another five years to change them.
  - varjag 7mo ago
    It is certainly better than the status quo. Don't underestimate the effect of simply making something illegal.
    - dmje 7mo ago
      100% agree. The 2007 smoking ban in the UK totally transformed the landscape here, and yes people could still go home and smoke or whatever, but that ban has made a huge and significant change to health and thinking about smoking over the last 20 years. We need to do the same with social media and recognise that it's likely to be seen as toxic as smoking in a few years time - if not already.
    - slopinthebag 7mo ago
      Yes, the effect of prohibition was enormous. Same with America's War on Drugs, that had a massive impact. Probably not the impact you're implying though.

greenleafone7 7mo ago

Yes, the Epstein group is worried about.... ummm children. What they are worried about is wrong-speech and they are desperate to stop people from talking about the swarming waves of immigration and our declining way of life. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=623122650149799 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=623122650149799

sunaookami 7mo ago

This sudden coordinated worldwide effort to ban social media for kids (hint: it's not because of the kids) needs to stop, it's dangerous and people need to stop being so naive and stop supporting this.

pjc50 7mo ago
The coordination is incredible. It's been easier to ban kids from social media (and impose id verification at the same time) than it was to ban landmines.
- nonethewiser 7mo ago
  It's not surprising at all. Kids in soveriegn nations are banned from all sorts of things. There is no governing body over sovereign nations that can simply ban land mines. You're talking about countries promising to reduce a common war power.The Ottawa Treaty is a treaty (ie mutually agreed upon rules which can be exited) and not all countries have signed it.
nonethewiser 7mo ago
Speak for yourself. I want it banned for kids.
- afh1 7mo ago
  Do you think this is about kids? It's about online identity and government surveillance and control. Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Or you just want to tell other parents to raise their kids the way you want? Then tell them that, don't hide behind fascist police and justice system to force online ID for adults.
  - nonethewiser 7mo ago
    >Even if you think it is about kids, then take responsibility into your own hands, be a parent and prevent your kids from using it. Common but bad argument. You've misunderstood what the age verification control is for. It's to hold online services accountable for illegally providing services to minors. A parent being negligent doesn't mean Facebook should not be held responsible for breaking the law.

notepad0x90 7mo ago

we desperately need an internet-standard for establishing age without disclosing the identity of the user. this is very much possible, and I won't rant here about all the ways it is possible. Currently, meta and openai have hijacked this to abuse it for their own nefarious ends. If you're European, you should be happy about the law but very angry about how it is going to be implemented. but better than anger, please spread the word on the need to establish a standard protocol for age establishment that does not involve bigtech in any way, shape, or form.

n8cpdx 7mo ago

Wouldn’t it be more effective to ban non-chronological feeds? TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook would be transformed into useful tools overnight.

broof 7mo ago
Seriously the anti user algorithm auto play slop is insane. Even Spotify now has endless scroll autoplay videos on their podcast section.
Oberdiah 7mo ago
I feel that'd maybe be going a bit far as other kinds of feed are also useful (e.g. by popularity, etc.), but I feel as a first step it should be mandatory for any platform to have to show in a human-readable way exactly why they showed you a piece of content. That allows for some intelligent feeds (users who watched this video watched these ones next most often) but without the addiction, manipulation, and nation-puppetting abilities currently enabled by the personalised algortihm.
insane_dreamer 7mo ago
I would want ad-based social media banned altogether.

WaltPurvis 7mo ago

https://archive.ph/rSce4 https://archive.ph/rSce4

geremiiah 7mo ago

IMHO, social media itself is not the issue. The issue is rather, why are teenagers glued to their screens? The answer is because they aren't doing something else that is social and physical. So if you ban their access to TikTok or whatever, they are still stuck at home, bored and glued to their screen. Other online entertainment will capture their focus. Before you know it you'll end up trying to ban the whole internet.

avaer 7mo ago
I think many people on HN grew up glued to an internet that wasn't trying to intellectually molest them for capitalist and political gains.
- dv_dt 7mo ago
  No, at the time I was growing up, the music industry was being blamed for corrupting the youth via explicit lyrics and music videos. And there was a whole big discussion around making movie ratings more and more detailed. It turned out that the movie rating media hue and cry all came from mostly from one conservatively funded think tank. This social media ban looks very reminiscent and I think it is all about creating a surveillance state, controlling the population to only see images and video in a centrally approved way.

mastermanas1234 7mo ago

[dead]

voidfunc 7mo ago

Remember kids, always sign-up with a fake birth date.

pvab3 7mo ago
I think Facebook still thinks I'm older than I am from my middle-school signup in like 2008

dandaka 7mo ago

Any research supporting this? And proposing guidelines / best practices? What exactly are we banning and why? What is allowed and has little risk? Asking as a parent.

softwaredoug 7mo ago

I feel like education, not abstinence, is the way forward. Prohibition doesn’t work. Educating consumers and holding companies accountable works. It historically takes time though for that pressure to accumulate to the point of having political will. We also need teen social media education - like we have about alcohol and drugs. Where we’re frank about the real research. Don’t moralize. Talk about the realities of the situation.

b40d-48b2-979e 7mo ago
You know what else has prohibition? Alcohol and drugs for minors.
- slopinthebag 7mo ago
  Does it work? Minors never drink or do drugs?
  - post-it 7mo ago
    It doesn't need to be 100% effective in order to work.
  - Epa095 7mo ago
    It is my impression that when drinking age restrictions are introduced, drinking among the (now) underage population goes down. Not disappear, but goes down. My personal experience is also that 17 year olds in countries where the legal drinking age is 16 drink more than 17 year olds where the drinking age is 18, but I don't have numbers on it.
  - hfsh 7mo ago
    Do minors drink less than they would if we allowed (or even encouraged) them to drink or use drugs?
    - slopinthebag 7mo ago
      Not sure, but they would do it more safely, thats the argument for safe supply :)

sackfield 7mo ago

How is it going in the other countries that are trying this? Do we know yet? If not, why move forward with legislation based on untested theories, especially when other countries are currently testing it for you?

6thbit 7mo ago

Meanwhile I’d like a reverse filter, like don’t show me anything posted by people under 25. And I’m sure lots of young people would love to filter out anything posted by people over 40.

kdheiwns 7mo ago

We can't even get countries to agree on a unified drinking age, but somehow the whole world is simultaneously coming to the conclusion that you need to be 16 to use social media, and websites and operating systems all need North Korean ID verification to prove you're over 16. There is a zero percent chance this is organic

antics9 7mo ago
You haven’t had children growing up during the last two decades have you?
- joe_mamba 7mo ago
  In my current EU country, there's mandatory military conscription from the age of 17. And you're telling me you're only fit for social media access one year before being fit to drive tanks and shoot guns at people? Look, I hate (Zuckerberg's) social media just as much as the next person and I would be happy if it were nuked from this planet, but firstly, a lot of this sudden age verification shit to "protect the children" is sus AF, leading me to assume their ulterior motives are surveillance and doxxing of anonymous online free speech, and secondly, I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the bottle anymore similar how prohibition didn't stop alcohol consumption, it just moved underground. As long as kids have smartphones, they'll find a way to use social media, or even make their own social media to organize parties, send nudes or flaunt their parents' wealth and bully the poor and ugly kids, the same way how they start drinking beer at 13 even though the legal age for that is 18. Social media amplifies the worst of human nature, but you won't be able to change human nature. Maybe governments should regulate the amount and type of data collection social media companies can have from their users, instead of regulating their users.
  - ben_w 7mo ago
    > In my current EU country, there's mandatory military conscription from the age of 17. And you're telling me you're only fit for social media access one year before being fit to drive tanks and shoot guns at people? FWIW, in the UK you can learn to drive a tank one year before you're allowed to learn to drive a car. Not go into combat, that's another year, I just mean the learning to drive part. Back when I myself was that age, I also got a letter published in a national newspaper pointing out the oddity that I was allowed to have sex two years before being allowed to look at photos of other people doing so. Since then, cheap cameras would also make it pertinent (though it was true even back then), that I could not have taken photos of myself performing acts I was allowed to perform.

Geee 7mo ago

So, by disabling all social features (comments, chat) kids can keep using Instagram and Youtube? Is it really the social features which are harmful? I'd guess that it's the addictive content which might be more harmful. Also, does these bans extend to text-only social media such as HN?

JamesLeonis 7mo ago

I want to come at this from another angle: We are about to tell the entire world wide web where all the kids are. The more these laws are enforced, the more we hand over this information to any unscrupulous website operator, app developer, or advertiser. Are we about to hand Elon Musk [0] your kids' PII? How about Zuck, who (friendly reminder) sold your 2nd-factor phone number to advertisers [1]? How about all of the leaks from these ID services [2]? Or how about these services doing far more than Age Verification [3][4]? Given the terrible track record of data breaches in tech, this means all this information leaks into even worse hands with little recourse for people and no punishment for companies. From a security and privacy perspective it's in kids' own self-interest and self-protection for them to undermine all of these laws. 0: "I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for." https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02706510.pdf https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02706... 1: https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-admits-phone-numbers-may-be-used-target-ads/ https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-admits-phone-numbers-m... 2: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/hack-age-verification-company-shows-privacy-danger-social-media-laws https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/hack-age-verification-... 3: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verification-surveillance-biometrics-government-reporting-2026/ https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verificatio... 4: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verification-vendor-persona-left-frontend-exposed https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verificat...

tzs 7mo ago
There is no need to implement these kind of things in a way that gives any PII to Musk or Zuck. One way is the California approach which requires that device operating systems offer parental controls that parents can set up when creating accounts for their children that will provide an age bracket to apps when the children are using the device. The California laws requires that apps that need to restrict use by children to ask for that age bracket. Note that the California approach does not actually do any age verification. The parental controls accept whatever the parent says is the the child's age bracket. Another way is to put actual ID documents on the device, cryptographically tied to the device, and to implement a protocol by which software on the device can prove to a remote site that the device contains such ID documents and that those document show an age that is in the age range that is allowed to use the site but without disclosing to the site any another information from the documents. Google, Apple, and the EU are all using and/or working on this type of approach.

programmertote 7mo ago

These bans, in my opinion, are not the right way to go. Who says that once you are 16+, you are mature enough to interact with the social media apps? I'd argue that if one has never used social media when growing up, it'd even be more dangerous to open the floodgate (so to speak) once s/he reaches 17. Then, that person is not going to know what to avoid and how to curb addiction. Educating kids about the potential harm, and also making parents take some more responsibility seem like a more positive approach to me.

OptionOfT 7mo ago
We need to draw the line somewhere. Later is better.
kakacik 7mo ago
Drinking is harmful... always. Same for smoking. Yet we draw lines there. I don't claim there is much consistency in governments actions (ie see weed demonization for past 60 years and misery it brought when cigarettes and alcohol were just fine), but absolutely, 0 zilch sympathy for the cancer that 'social media' are these days. They can go bankrupt overnight and no amount of former facebook employees screaming about needing to feed their families or similar popular excuses would affect the big smile on my face.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 7mo ago

When they ban social media, what do they actually ban? Like is whatsapp social media? I say no, but news outlets say otherwise. There is no social media official definition from my understanding. The bad ones are the ones with the uncontrolled (by the user) algorithmic feed

midtake 7mo ago

Social media is a cancer today. When I read news like this, I think "darn kids will never know how good we had it, the internet was for nerds and not hostile!" But as I roll that thought over in my head I wonder, was the internet ever really safe? Maybe there weren't companies messing with your psychology for profit, but perhaps it was all an espionage platform the whole time. The internet, http and html in general, has a smell of being designed from the ground up as a spy tool. It's as if we've all been filling out Obsidian documents on ourselves and voluntarily linking them, and somewhere there is a central node that can see the whole brain. Maybe it wasn't hostile in the same way where it turns your brain into mush, but it seems like it was never safe.

insane_dreamer 7mo ago
Sure, it may not have been safe back in the day, but the internet wasn't in your pocket at all times and pinging you with notifications. It didn't replace nearly all your in-person social interactions. It's the ubiquitousness of social media that is a big part of the problem.

aftergibson 7mo ago

[dead]

gverrilla 7mo ago

Congratulations for Norway!

patatino 7mo ago

As father of three, lets ban it until 25. It adds zero value. Also parents, lay down your phones more, way more. Every generation is addicted. From teenagers to retired folks!

vinni2 7mo ago

So we need bankid to use social media? I have to move.