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

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-24/norway-wants-kids-to-be-kids-with-social-media-ban-for-under-16s

by 1vuio0pswjnm7 • 3 months ago

418 476 3 months ago

benj1113• 3 months 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-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• 3 months ago

Evidence?

This is the 21st century.

ozgrakkurt• 3 months 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

postexitus5• 3 months ago

Why not sell cigarettes and alcohol to kids, but also educate them that it's harmful?

noworriesnate• 3 months ago

Making it illegal will raise awareness about how addictive social media is, i.e. it will educate people

pj_mukh4• 3 months ago

"This is 100% an education issue"

It is not. Most parents I know have seen what it does to their kids, but have zero childcare. I have a white-collar remote job and can police my kids. If I was dual-parent working class, I don't think I'd be able to pull it off. I'm glad these laws are getting on the books, so at least the peer pressure of a classroom can get to a good majority of kids.

The kid with the iPad at the restaurant is just saliency bias ("I see it everywhere!"). This is not that different from blaming parents for sending their kids to school hungry or for their kids getting abducted or some such.

Social media is a vortex with a very strong societal pull.

Aurornis4• 3 months ago

Seriously. I see at least one baby with a phone in hand every time I go out.

Where do you live where this is normal?

I’m a parent who spends a lot of time going on walks and to parks with my kids most days of the week.

It’s rare for me to see kids with tablets or phones in their hands. When I do it’s kind of surprising.

burningChrome• 3 months ago

Anecdotal evidence that made me smile a bit.

Was at my daughter volleyball game a few years back. Sitting in the gym. In walks mom with a baby girl and a boy that looked around 10ish. They sit down. Mom gives the baby the ipad to futz around with. The son? Takes out his book and starts to quietly read.

It was an interesting contrast to say the least.

This is also something I've heard from my son about more kids are getting off of social media, or giving it up for other means to communicate. My son just graduated HS and said all of his peers have left Facebook, Snapchat, X and several others. He said his generation now sees social media as something for Boomers and my (Gen X) generation. He said people think you're lame if you're still on social media. Everything is now back to Discord servers and other platforms like 4Chan. Anonymous, under the radar stuff, out of the prying eyes of adults.

turtlesdown113• 3 months ago

This is 100% an education issue and they don't understand how harmful that can be to their child's brain.

Which social media companies are acknowledging there is a problem and providing data to inform parents?

dataflow• 3 months 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

benj1113• 3 months 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_dreamer8• 3 months 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• 3 months 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.

Aurornis4• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

HN is so full of bootlickers. I really hope they choke on the boots they seem to love to fellate.

dyauspitr• 3 months ago

We need this in the US yesterday.

_aavaa_• 3 months ago

We already have many companies to help, have Palintir de-anonymize every user.

patja• 3 months 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"

seniorThrowaway2• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

The ability to enforce a law doesn't mean it shouldn't be a law. No law is followed and enforced 100%.

insane_dreamer8• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

Laws can be normative.

marginalia_nu• 3 months 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.

sarchertech2• 3 months 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.

reddalo• 3 months ago

In a way, it's nice because young people will find way to circumvent the limits and they'll learn "hacking", just like we used to do in the very different internet we grew up with.

NicuCalcea• 3 months ago

There are a few differences. For one, it's much easier to regulate the sale of alcohol and tobacco, the level of friction is much higher and usually involves an in-person interaction with an adult. Visiting some dodgy website or downloading a VPN is much easier.

Second, the peer pressure to drink/smoke has never been as strong as the network effect of social media. Almost all 15-year-olds are on some form of social media, I don't think you can reasonably expect they will suddenly stop wanting to socialise outside school. Their entire identities are built around their online presence; that was never the case with smoking or drinking, at least not on this scale.

I'm sure it will have some effect, but kids are clever, and they have lots of time, they will find ways to bypass these fairly weak bans. Imo, the only way to do this is to provide an alternative along with the ban, like what the Russians are doing with Max as a replacement for Telegram/WhatsApp, though that's not entirely successful either.

quickthrowman2• 3 months ago

You can’t conjure up a bottle of vodka or a pack of cigarettes out of thin air in your bedroom with a cheap Wi-Fi only Android phone, but you can use that cheap Android phone to access social media.

Aurornis4• 3 months ago

I always find it entertaining to see the contrast and tech sites between everyone bragging about circumventing internet blocks when they were a kid, then when a story about blocking parts of the internet from kids comes up it’s just assumed that it will work.

Then there’s the contrast between calls for regulating social media for kids followed by the outrage when people realize that 1) products they use are considered social media (Discord, Reddit, Hacker News) and 2) you can’t keep kids out without age checking everyone who uses the product.

intrasight• 3 months ago

Age verification is coming. It'll come to all the countries - for one reason because it will be baked into the hardware and the same hardware will be sold everywhere.

nemomarx• 3 months ago

Since something has to be done (seemingly) to appease parents, I think tech companies and people here should focus on something that looks good like parentally controlled smartphones or whatever with age locks on the phone end. The kids will get around it anyway, but that's true in any set up (worst case they borrow an adults ID) and at least it might get the parents to not worry as much?

thinkingtoilet• 3 months ago

People get around the laws of murder. It should still be illegal.

poszlem• 3 months ago

We don't need to ban it to literally every kid ever. As long as most of them don't have access the law will be a net positive.

indymike• 3 months ago

Not really, now the social network can be immune from prosecution by checking the complies with bad regulation box.

danmaz74• 3 months ago

As the father of a girl, having struggled a lot to stop her from TikTok and similar when she was just 9, it would have been so much easier to enforce that if it had been forbidden by law. It's too late for us, but I'm happy that these measures are coming - it would have been good even without age checks.

Aunche• 3 months ago

Cigarettes don't get less addictive when they are banned. On the other hand, a kid is less inclined to use social media if most of their friends aren't on it. They're less likely to post a video on TikTok if there is a significant chance it will be removed if it goes viral. Even if the majority of kids continue to use social media, some of them will follow the rules and they can avoid social media without missing out on socialization altogether.

philipallstar• 3 months ago

If parents have a reason to say no that will be enough for some kids to give up pestering.

brazukadev2• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

how do you plan the governments should decide what algorithms are brainrot, and what are not?

floodfx• 3 months 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".

elictronic2• 3 months 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• 3 months 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.

ottah2• 3 months ago

Because they don't actually care about social media use, it's just a pretext to force everyone to implement mandatory id checks.

brazukadev2• 3 months ago

At least in my country that is not the issue but the US government literally threatening counteract with tariffs and sanctions.

FrankyHollywood• 3 months ago

For me it's funny to see the discussion is completely black-white, like everyone is hooked.

I have 3 kids, 2 use their phones like half an hour at a time, the other is completely hooked, hours and hours. If I don't intervene he doesn't dress in the morning, and continues until he really can't keep his eyes open anymore somewhere around 3am.

For him I use the parental control on my router. All his devices have time limited wifi, and he has no data in his phone plan. Since I've done this he goes outside more, and has developed other interests. Today he actually prepared lunch for us, a 14 year old boy!

My point is, I think it's better to help your kids use their phones moderately instead of completely blocking. I once heard from an alcoholic who always keeps beer in his fridge. Not to drink it, but to be sure you learn to deal with this shit, and wherever the beer is, you can manage not taking it if you don't want it.

davidee• 3 months ago

Thanks for sharing.

Former alcoholic, I got similar advice early on. It was life changing.

Blocking social media is no different from existing laws for cigarettes, alcohol and various other substances. Nothing wrong with using them, but we do restrict self-serve access for developing minds.

Sure, kids will find a way. That said, like a glass of wine at dinner, parents are free to share their social media experiences with their kids; safely, supervised, limited.

strangegecko• 3 months ago

I find the black and white thinking scary and I see as a result of social media. Nowadays you even have to argue for the possibility of nuance because everyone immediately jumps to "for or against" mode.

I strongly believe humanity needs to find ways to slow down, but the prevailing culture is for everything to go faster and faster, which doesn't leave room for nuance and non-emotional reasoning.

I have to say that I don't believe in most people's ability to teach their children critical thinking, compassion, nuance, etc. Most people barely manage to feed their kids and not mess them up too badly on the emotional side.

drawfloat• 3 months ago

The UK considered blocking X over the generating of CSAM and the US responded by saying any such move would face retaliation. Literally today Trump has been attacking the UK for discussing a possible tax on digital services like Meta, and saying point blank he will implement massive tariffs if they do anything.

I feel like the response of the tech community in the US overlooks the fact other countries don't have many options, nor power to actually make these companies change their ways.

I don't want to see age verification either, but I have limited sympathy for these companies given they've spent the best part of two decades ignoring every attempt at getting them to change and do something themselves.

We've been seeing age verification stuff roll out for a couple of years now and still none of the major companies have done anything to clean their act up (and some, like X, have got way worse) so it's not like they're really helping make a case against these policies.

shevy-java2• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

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

seniorThrowaway2• 3 months ago

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

pokstad• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

We used to hold parents liable.

nwellinghoff• 3 months ago

Not a great trend. Installing a OS that makes me tie provably verifiable identity directly to a install or session will be a pretty stupid liability for anyone to agree to. Feel bad for all the non techs that will just accept this lying down. Especially when the solution is so easy to solve with existing tech. Got a internet connection? Block the domains at the router level. Then we need the cell phone providers to allow parents to do similar things at the network level with cell internet. Done. Let the parents do it.

dude250711• 3 months ago

Should be banned for under 40s and over 70s really...

Also ban giving toddlers iPads with YouTube.

elictronic2• 3 months 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• 3 months 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

varjag5• 3 months 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.

foobiekr5• 3 months 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.

quickthrowman2• 3 months 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.

djyde• 3 months ago

We all have a day when we'll be over 70, I wonder if you'll still think the same way then?

firefax2• 3 months 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• 3 months 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.

firefax2• 3 months ago

There’s been a decent amount of studies to suggest it can actually

Then cite them

ottah2• 3 months 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.

spacedoutman• 3 months ago

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

greggoB• 3 months ago

Source?

john_strinlai7• 3 months ago

now more kids than ever are on social media.

press x to doubt

i would need to see some data for that. no way the law had the effect of causing kids to sign up to social media who otherwise, before the law, didnt.

at worst, i could maybe see the law having a 0% effectiveness (i.e. the same number of kids using social media before/after the law). but i think even that is a big stretch.

mainmailman• 3 months ago

I could see a scenario where well meaning parents prevent kids from going online, and with the promise of a safer internet through ID laws allows their children to get online more. Total conjecture though, I would like to see data on that too.

littlestymaar• 3 months ago

Yeah, there are arguments to be made about the benefits (less teenagers on social media) vs the drawbacks (having to hand your id card to some untrustworthy provider), or the fact that it makes people used to circumventing the law, or about the law addressing the wrong issue (so called “social media” being actively harmful by design in ways that ought to be banned) but claiming that the law increases social media consumption is ridiculous.

retired4• 3 months ago

The problem in Australia is that influencers and musicians are still allowed on social media regardless of age, as they have professionally managed accounts. So the result is that poor children in Australia don't have access to social media and that rich kids just hire an agency to represent them.

The Australian government should fix that.

jmyeet• 3 months 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-beh...

franga2000• 3 months 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• 3 months 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.

bitwize2• 3 months 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_zealot2• 3 months 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.

bitwize2• 3 months 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.

gmanley• 3 months ago

It's twofold, these are laws that are delving more and more into regulating the personal lives of its citizens and as a side effect forcing the de-anonymization of the internet. This in a way that makes it easier for the government to track your internet usage and if we're talking OS level verification, maybe even more than just internet usage.

If you really want to go after abusive capitalists, then go straight to the source. Regulate the things that are making this ban look like a good idea.

We've already had reports of the UK's Online Safety Act resulting in a convenient uptick in defamation lawsuits. Certainly not because the government can now easily track who posted a tweet that ruffled the feathers of someone important. So yeah, at the cynical end, I question the motivation of these laws and at the charitable end, I worry about the direction these laws are moving and their impact.

foobiekr5• 3 months ago

You can ban social media for people under 16 without having age verification at the OS level. These things are not related. Age verification is not a technical problem.

miroljub2• 3 months 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• 3 months 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

miroljub2• 3 months ago

Foreign state existence.

Quizzical4230• 3 months ago

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

ljm• 3 months 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.

foobiekr5• 3 months ago

It wasn't "the early days." It was true until the 1970s when the evangelicals pivoted and started to get power.

holoduke• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

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

10xDev2• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

Does HN count, or is the actual problem the algorithmic feeds?

cooper_ganglia8• 3 months ago

I would categorize HN as a news aggregator with a comment section, not social media.

Forgeties79• 3 months ago

I would consider HN a barebones forum more than social media. It's a bit "I know it when I see it" but the clear differences are things like no media uploading, no mysterious algorithmic feeds (like you allude to) designed with the explicit goal of keeping you on, no "discoverability" like we see on these sites, etc. It's text posts, [edit: essentially] one page, and a simple up/down system with some weighting. You can't even really build an independent community within HN. We're all more or less seeing the same thing at the same time. Everyone's facebook or instagram or whatever is wildly different. It's siloing.

Also, there's no ad servicing going on/major profit element for ycombinator here. Doesn't mean there isn't self-promotion/astro-turfing, and it clearly benefits ycombinator's reputation to have this, but it isn't an ad platform with social aspects like social media.

caconym_• 3 months ago

Platforms like HN are still vulnerable to astroturfing and bubble effects, but at least the operators aren't optimizing for engagement beyond [what I assume is] a fairly simple up/down ranking system based on user votes and time decay.

Moderation is another question. On HN again I don't really get the sense that there is a lot of censorship. On Reddit, on the other hand, the behavior of moderators and admins is legitimately frightening once you start paying attention.

Overall I would shut it all down forever if I could, but if I had a limited budget I would prioritize Meta's platforms and similar algorithmic infinite-scroll slop feeds. I think all they do is addict people to scrolling and epistemically poison them without giving any real value back.

jjulius• 3 months ago

Yes.

tzs3• 3 months ago

I can't read the article so don't know if they give enough details on the Norway law to tell, but most of the other countries or states with such laws prohibit specific practices that are very common on social media sites. If you site does those things it is covered. If it does not, it is not covered.

HN is usually not covered.

For example New York's law covers sites with an "addictive feed", and defines "addictive feed" this way:

"Addictive feed" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, or a portion thereof, in which multiple pieces of media generated or shared by users of a website, online service, online application, or mobile application, either concurrently or sequentially, are recommended, selected, or prioritized for display to a user based, in whole or in part, on information associated with the user or the user's device, unless any of the following conditions are met, alone or in combination with one another:
(a) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on information that is not persistently associated with the user or user's device, and does not concern the user's previous interactions with media generated or shared by other users;
(b) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is based on user-selected privacy or accessibility settings, or technical information concerning the user's device;
(c) the user expressly and unambiguously requested the specific media, media by the author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
(d) the user expressly and unambiguously requested that specific media, media by a specified author, creator, or poster of media the user has subscribed to, or media shared by users to a page or group the user has subscribed to pursuant to paragraph (c) of this subdivision, be blocked, prioritized or deprioritized for display, provided that the media is not recommended, selected, or prioritized for display based, in whole or in part, on other information associated with the user or the user's device that is not otherwise permissible under this subdivision;
(e) the media are direct and private communications;
(f) the media are recommended, selected, or prioritized only in response to a specific search inquiry by the user;

(> g) the media recommended, selected, or prioritized for display is exclusively next in a pre-existing sequence from the same author, creator, poster, or source; or

(h) the recommendation, prioritization, or selection is necessary to comply with the provisions of this article and any regulations promulgated pursuant to this article.

libria• 3 months ago

On of their main concerns is the social graph created from following/friending.

HN doesn't have this.

nonethewiser4• 3 months ago

Hacker news feed is algorithmic

fleebee• 3 months ago

Great question. Algorithmic recommendations with infinitely scrolling feeds that get fresh, fungible content—i.e. content produced by strangers, not your friends—whenever you visit the platform are are the biggest issues I have with social media. They're designed like slot machines to boost engagement at the cost of, you know, accommodating social connections.

I'm worried that while these bans have good intentions, they might be targeting the wrong things. The direction is right, and I'm glad action is being taken, though.

b00ty4breakfast2• 3 months ago

if it's bad for society then regulate the Social Media companies rather than shifting the burden on the citizenry through ID laws and backdooring increased surveillance under the guise of "muh chillren!"

barbazoo3• 3 months ago

Genuine question, how is it different than tobacco, driving, alcohol, all the things we gate by age for what seem to be valid reasons?

traderj0e10• 3 months ago

The ID laws only apply to social media though. You don't need to give your ID if you don't use those websites. Of course it's also possible that this is just a trojan for other sites asking for ID, but hopefully people see the difference enough that extending this law there wouldn't be popular.

achenet• 3 months ago

In my opinion, the basic idea of social media isn't necessarily bad, it's the fact that it is ad supported, which incentivizes completely controlling the attention of users, which is the issue.

cyanydeez• 3 months ago

The problem is, the borders upon which you want a child operating in social media are pretty fuzzy. Do you want them working with classmates? sure. Other peers in same school grade? of course; older peers? ...sure; older peers in other districts...maybe?

Then there's all the spoofing and the "age gate" software that inevitably needs to be done to do this.

dfxm122• 3 months ago

Please take a beat to think about how this would be implemented (it looks like it's not decided at this time) before reflexively saying "good" because the marketing sounds nice. This is how the US got swindled into accepting the PATRIOT act, et al.

There are problems with social media, yes. However, these problems exist for children and adults. A reasonable way to tackle this issue would be to make social media safer for everyone, not just to exclude kids. These problems are not solved with an age check, and if the age check requires handing over PII, that introduces additional problems. We have to wonder what the motivation here is, and if we aren't heading towards giving up freedom for perceived security.

foobiekr5• 3 months ago

There are problems with cigarettes, yes. However, these problems exist for children _and_ adults. A reasonable way to tackle this issue would be to make cigarettes safer for everyone, not just to exclude kids. These problems are not solved with an age check ...

You may or may not be acting as an apologist for the sleaziest, worst industry on earth here, but you certainly sound like it, even if it is unintentional. As this is hacker news, P(makes money working for sleazy, terrible companies) is high so you'll have to accept this obvious interpretation.

Look, I actually kind of agree with you, but social media _already has all the PII_ to an extent unparalleled in history. Come on. "We have to wonder what the motivation here is"?

vondur• 3 months ago

I think the user needs the ability to set how their data feed works and not be dependent on the hyper addictive algorithmic feed. And parents need to be able to set that for their kids. 90% of the stuff I see in Facebook is garbage that I don't care for.

avaer2• 3 months ago

There is no fixing social media.

These companies need to do what's best for shareholders, which means do the most addicting and damaging thing. Besides that, we have almost 20 years of evidence of attempting to fix it.

Where it's gotten us is that social media is a tool for the president to broadcast threats of genocide to millions of people. Banning or restricting that kind of platform is not the same as the PATRIOT act.

foobiekr5• 3 months ago

The problem is that it really is the 14-21 group that where it has the most (and increasing) influence. They should have banned it for under 18.

pjc502• 3 months ago

I'd prefer a ban for the over 65s, who are especially vulnerable.

10xDev2• 3 months ago

Today it will be <16, tomorrow 18. Doesn't really matter as long as the ball starts rolling.

First it was indoor smoking, now it will be for everyone born after 2008 in the UK.

LanceH2• 3 months ago

As with any ban on anything, I would prefer that it start with the people who want it banned. So any advocates against social media and get off social media. Every politician and government employee in Norway should be off it.

In general, if someone comes along and says that someone else's rights should be shrunk, I think they should give up those same rights first.

You can just look at the US congress for how this isn't done as they frequently carve out exceptions for themselves and staffers.

npunt3• 3 months ago

At least this gives kids the chance to be kids and know a life without it before they encounter it.

Many of us grew up in the offline-is-default time, but our cohort will age out. Then we’ll only be left with people who grew up with these technologies shaping their lives and perspectives, who have little sense for the alternative.

The window of time is closing for us in this cohort to use our understanding of what life was like without these technologies to advocate for a healthier environment for kids.

lurkingllama• 3 months ago

It's funny to me that we still call it "social media", when it bears no similarities to its original form. Back when your feed was sourced from your real-life friends and colleagues, and the only "algorithms" that existed were to show your latest friend's post at the top.

It's a bummer, because I think a platform that follows Facebook's original intent has just as much value in today's world, if not more.

teaearlgraycold• 3 months ago

Well we still call them phones, which is a more extreme case of semantic drift.

zappb• 3 months ago

The original form was referred to as social networking. Social media is the current form with algorithmic broadcasting.

drooopy2• 3 months ago

Calling 2026's facebook, instagram, tiktok, xshitter, whatever "social media" is like calling a casino "the 3rd place that you socialise out with your mates".

pembrook5• 3 months ago

All the astroturfing in favour of social media couldn't possibly change my mind

What astroturfing? This is the most popular moral panic of our times. Yours is the default normie position...basically what is leading to all this poorly thought out legislation being emotionally shouted by the mob into existence.

Just so you're aware, all the worst laws are the ones created when the populace has been emotionally riled up into a mob over something, and where people refuse to rationally look the reality of the issue. See also: nuclear power, 9/11, the 90s satanic panic, violent video games in the 2000s, jazz music in the 1920s, the subliminal lyrics trials of the 80s, etc. etc.

Most of the actual academic literature suggests this is a giant moral panic.

The funniest part of all of it is the "social media mental health crisis" that millennials think they're saving their children from doesn't even exist anymore. All the dominant platforms of today are not based on the social graph. Nobody is getting bullied on their timeline or seeing all the parties they weren't invited to anymore. The most popular platform right now is essentially short form MTV.

If we're banning that and any website with "social" functions, anything with comments or upvotes like this website needs to be included.

You're cheering on identity gating the entire internet and a giant erosion of privacy. But again, your mind is made up already and as you've said, no rational thought can change it. So enjoy the new world of unintended consequences you're creating. When this moral panic is over, you may look back with a few regrets like everyone has over the Patriot Act.

quadrifoliate2• 3 months ago

The funniest part of all of it is the "social media" that millennials think they're saving their children from doesn't even exist anymore. All the dominant platforms of today are not based on the social graph. Nobody is getting bullied on their timeline or seeing all the parties they weren't invited to anymore.

I think in recent years the infinite scroll of auto-generated content that bamboozles your brain is considered way worse than seeing the parties you weren't invited to. I think you're the one that's being "millenial" and thinking this is related to cyberbulling or whatever.

And if its just any website with "social" functions, this one should be included!

This is actually a reasonable take and is being discussed elsewhere -- the "social" tag doesn't really apply any more. "Algorithmic brain-engaging drip feed" would be more apt.

traderj0e10• 3 months ago

I had the same position before there was this panic. Facebook became popular around 2008 and was cheered on as some boon to society, and I was saying this thing needs to die. Also thought it was ridiculous how many of my middle school classmates had iPhones.

logicchains3• 3 months ago

Without social media the majority of the populace would be completely misinformed on everything and the current Iran war would have 60%+ support like the Iraq war did, how is that possibly a better world?

mtoner23• 3 months ago

Maybe maybe not. Counter factuals are easy to dream up but impossible to verify

HerbManic2• 3 months ago

While old style mass media could move in lock step, the lacl of that mechanism seems to just produce a flood of counter narratives to counter narratives. It provides the illusion of being informed but actually being more confused.

As they say, I would rather be uninformed than misinformed.

signatoremo• 3 months ago

Cancer except when it’s in the form that I approve such as HN? Where it has all the problems of social media — astroturfing, self promoting, bots, etc.

npunt3• 3 months ago

Please. At best HN has a very small subset of the problems in social media, and its positives easily outweigh its negatives. This is a well moderated forum with a lot of bright people and industry experts that a young person could learn from by observing conversation and debate. It bears a great deal of resemblance to historic methods of learning by watching experts interact and debate. Tons of pedagogical value is here for a young person to latch onto.

A most obvious difference besides that is HN isn’t a nonstop feed of short form video appealing to the insecurities of teenagers, using notifications and social feedback loops and the suggestion that you’d be missing out on what your friends are up to if you left.

HN doesn’t even let you follow people and barely lets you know who they are. It’s centered on ideas, not people. HN and social media are almost nothing alike.

drooopy2• 3 months ago

HN is as close to social media as my 3rd grade talent show was to Michael Jackson's Super Bowl halftime show.

casey2• 3 months ago

Cancer? really? Is this [1] astroturfing? Seems like most of the astroturfing is coming directly from Newscorp. I wonder why so many seemingly intelligent people have an irrational hatred of social media. Or why their talking points follow the Faux News playbook to a tee.

This kind of behavior is incredibly reactionary and rooted (if not directly in the financial interests of entrenched legacy media) in the belief that your local culture somehow superior to online culture.

The difference is you imagine kids going outside and playing chasey while Murdoch imagines getting them on scratchers and tv and running stories about increased kidnapping. If your position wasn't astroturfed it would come with bans on legacy media consumption too.

[1] https://adelaide.edu.au/about/news/2026/social-media--sweet-...

nacozarina• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

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

52-6F-62• 3 months ago

God help us if Mark doesn't collect his fee between every one of our interactions, eh?

cooper_ganglia8• 3 months 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.

bmacho4• 3 months 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.

bmacho4• 3 months ago

Right after the first truly global generation. Who would Norway sell weapons if everyone refused to go to wars?

triceratops2• 3 months ago

Curious that we didn't even have a loneliness generation until social media...

herf• 3 months 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.

varjag5• 3 months ago

You gotta start somewhere.

an0malous• 3 months 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.

AngryData• 3 months ago

Legislation and law is not the place to just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

wwwald• 3 months ago

Can't read the article, paywalled. But what makes you think the parents would not be on board?

semi-extrinsic2• 3 months ago

Parents are massively on board.

And they are probably moving to a system where you need to link your device with a government issued cryptographic ID (i.e. passport) using zero knowledge proofs. With a system that ensures an identity can only be installed on one device at a time.

This means a parent would have to give up all social media accounts and chat apps on their own phone, in order to give their identity to their kids.

ajsnigrutin2• 3 months ago

The parents could also check their kids phones and ground them if they find them using social networks.

The parents don't actually need their adult, childless neighbors to show their IDs to protect their kids, but it seems we're going down that exact path.

simonra• 3 months ago

I use at least 4 different devices on a daily basis, sometimes more. Forfeiting access to things deemed not for children, or I want connected to my ID like banking or prescription renewal, on any one of them because my id can only be on one device, is not an acceptable solution. My phone and gaming machine need equal access to content some would object to others (especially children) interacting with, while my personal and work laptops have hard needs for me being able to prove my identity. And backup devices should any one of the systems I rely on fail need to be able to come up and running in no more time than it takes to get a replacement from the store.

greenleafone72• 3 months 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

sunaookami3• 3 months 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.

pjc502• 3 months 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.

nonethewiser4• 3 months 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.

nonethewiser4• 3 months ago

Speak for yourself. I want it banned for kids.

afh12• 3 months 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.

turtlesdown113• 3 months ago

social media should be banned altogether

AnonymousPlanet9• 3 months ago

Seeing how surprisingly similar the wording and definitions are in every case, in even far flung societies, can send you a shiver down the spine. It's like someone gained unfettered world wide write access to legislation.

It's also interesting how Windows 11 with it's hard dependency on TPM hardware just happens to be in place at the right time. And how a certain former Microsoft employee just happened to start working on a similar solution for Linux before this all started https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572

ben_w8• 3 months ago

(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.

It's partly because of the kids.

It's also because social media is part of the USA's soft power projection, and many of us now consider this to be a threat.

It's also because social media has a long history of manipulation for their own gain, against the users' interests, dark patterns, tracking, they fail to back down from and even file lawsuits to continue tracking when tracking itself required (under GDPR etc.) permission that e.g. Meta did not have: https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/28/report-facebook-building-anti...

For "about the kids", consider: given kids have no direct purchasing power, what adverts can they possibly respond to in a way that actually provides gain for the buyer of the advertising slot? They cannot. Therefore, by fighting for the right to keep kids on their sites (despite the huge extra effort that needs to exist to keep them safe on their sites given the inherent ambient hostility that comes with giving everyone direct access to, in Facebook's case, a few billion other humans), at least one of two things must be true: (a) they think they can get kids hooked, and be able to convert them to profitability as adults, and/or (b) they are scamming the people who buy advertising slots, knowing full well the kids who see the ads cannot possibly buy anything. If a third option exists, I cannot guess it.

lovelearning• 3 months ago

I find the coordination between nations suspicious.

But what you said - "It's also because social media is part of the USA's soft power projection, and many of us now consider this to be a threat." - strikes me as the most plausible driver behind it, given how chummy Trump and the techbros have become.

I agree with your other observations about SM. But they've all been true from many years. That's why this sudden urge by culturally diverse societies to act now feels suspicious, to me at least.

andrewla3• 3 months ago

hint: it's not because of the kids

Why the silly conspiracy theory? Can't something just be stupid and bad but well-intentioned? You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online? If anything, jurisdictions have shown that they are very interested in preventing the tracking of people's activity online, they just don't know how to do it!

sunaookami3• 3 months ago

You really think lawmakers are involved in some secret cabal that wants to track everyone's activities online?

...yes? Not so secret though. The internet gave everyone the power to take matters in their own hands and read up on different sources from different countries and people and to talk to more people. They don't want to lose power and want their citizens to be uninformed and not coordinate efforts to critizice them and hold them accountable. Not only online but also offline because more and more surveillance cameras get installed, police gets more powers, checks citizens without suspicion.

Did you forget the Snowden leaks?

procinct• 3 months ago

There are plenty of examples of law makers passing policy to make online and digital surveillance easier.

See TOLA in Australia, the UK trying to backdoor iCloud, Lawful Access to Encrypted Data act.

Surveillance is often sold with safety as the primary narrative.

insane_dreamer8• 3 months ago

it's common that countries borrow legislation from other countries, even down to the wording

I don't know what makes this more "coordinated" (so there is some supra-national organization coordinating this between nations? starting to sound like the Utopia show) than other legislation that trends very quickly

Anyway, as a parent I 100% support it. I really don't care whether people think it's because of the kids or not.

sunaookami3• 3 months ago

Thanks for ruining the world for everybody and supporting mass surveillance just because you suck at parenting.

notepad0x90• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

Seriously the anti user algorithm auto play slop is insane. Even Spotify now has endless scroll autoplay videos on their podcast section.

Oberdiah• 3 months 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_dreamer8• 3 months ago

I would want ad-based social media banned altogether.

WaltPurvis• 3 months ago

https://archive.ph/rSce4

geremiiah• 3 months 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.

avaer2• 3 months 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• 3 months 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.

voidfunc• 3 months ago

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

pvab3• 3 months ago

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

dandaka• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

You know what else has prohibition? Alcohol and drugs for minors.

slopinthebag4• 3 months ago

Does it work? Minors never drink or do drugs?

braiamp2• 3 months ago

No, educating customers doesn't work. What works is creating safe products. Remove algorithm recommendations as the default option, make collecting personal individual data for any purpose other than what the customer explicitly wants, and you will see that suddenly "social networks" and every other product becomes safe to use for everyone.

deepsun• 3 months ago

Facebook was fine as long as posts appeared chronologically. The moment they started ranking it -- game over.

SamDc73• 3 months ago

It's the war on drugs all over again ...

pembrook5• 3 months ago

If you're upset at collecting personal individual data, you're really going to love what these social media bans require in practice.

I don't disagree we need to look at algorithmic recommendations as a major issue, but these social media bans are not that. The fact they are all being brought about globally at the same time suggests some ulterior motives.

Fundamentally, the idea you're going to hide your kid from social media until some arbitrary age, require the entire populace to register identification when visiting any website, and then open the floodgates on these kids at 16 is absolutely moronic. Two years of brain development doesn't suddenly make them learn how to be responsible with it.

As much as Europe wants to abdicate their parenting responsibilities to the state, at some point you have to draw the line and own up to some level of personal responsibility for raising your children.

You can't hide your kids from reality if you want to raise strong, independent and actualized children who will make good choices.

afh12• 3 months ago

This is not about kids. It's about surveillance.

bluegatty5• 3 months ago

It's about kids. Its serious problem, every parent knows this. It has some scary negative externalities. Related issue, but not the same issue.

46493168• 3 months ago

In what way does prohibition not “work”? It would be helpful to understand the success metric when evaluating whether a solution will enable the metric to be achieved

post-it2• 3 months ago

Prohibition will work exceptionally well for social media, which relies on a herd effect. If you can't send most of your friends memes on Instagram, you're a lot less likely to spend time on it.

keybored• 3 months ago

You can ban things for minors just fine. It’s already a thing.

When are we ever going to get beyond raising awareness/educating bad/arguably-bad things? All of these manufactured wants, needs—totally synthetic. The business model is to prey on people. But the answer is yet more things to lecture about?

By going beyond that I mean real alternatives. Like Christian abstinence organizations might not just have a say-no-to-alcohol stance, sit at home and be bored. No, they sometimes even have social gatherings and activities. They do the same thing for students. The stance towards alcohol-abstinent students is not simply, well you can choose not to drink but heh, most of your peers drink and most of the late-night activities revolve around that. They offer alternatives: alcohol-free activities.

What would I give to be able to opt out of the things that I find bad for myself? Like really, ban myself from say buying cigarettes with my credit card. But is that ever on the table? No. Just the discourse pit of freedom and unfreedom. Where freedom happens to coincide with Big Tech’s bottom line.

And education.

isolay• 3 months ago

So the surveillance and the manipulation your kids are exposed to is safe? How does that work?

mrtksn• 3 months ago

You can't educate around something that's predatory in nature.

IMHO the solution should involve defining what's natural social media and what is predatory social media. The natural one can be a system that connects real people with each other and operates discovery algorithms that have %100 open source and run on open data. When its real people interacting you can educate around it, you can have it with anonymous accounts too but you can develop protections against bad actors by actually looking into the thing to see what's happening. In real world that's how people interact and although damage from things like lying or gossip still exist we also have ways to navigate around it by teaching manners, ethics, etiquette, politeness, fairness etc.

Then there's the unnatural social media, that is most of the social media today. It is not a natural human interactions, it is managed human interactions for profit or influence. Information is hidden from the participants but it is not hidden from the host of the gathering and the host develops tools to create conflicts or control for its own benefit.

kelseyfrog• 3 months ago

You can educate people, but the effect isnt necessarily that it reduces any effect. Education allows failures to be diverted to failures of educators or failures of students. It draws attention away from the manufacturers and if we view education as having a purpose synonymous with what it does, education is VERY, effective at diverting responsibility away from manufacturers.

kasperni• 3 months ago

Good luck educating a 12-year-old whose friends all have social media accounts.

bluegatty5• 3 months ago

Prohibition works very well - it just has externalized costs.

Excessive drinking was curtailed by 70% during the alcohol prohibition era, and acute drinking was a problem (it was more concentrated).

There is zero doubt how much healthier at least some people would have been.

The price paid was limiting freedom for many, and some increase in crime.

Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social disaster, it's not even an argument - obviously - the 'prohibition' works - and in that case, there's nary any negative externality.

Yes, there is 'lost economic potential' from not having kids buy smokes, there is a degree of authoritarianism, but those are trade-offs we are happy to make.

The question is the degree of restrictions on basic freedom, and the direct / indirect externalizations - aka 'underground pubs', 'black market', 'lost benefits' etc.

For social media - kids 'sneaking' onto regular social media is hardly an enormous hazard.

There are also 'critical mass' problems - for example, its' very hard to get people away from a system if they will 'feel left out'.

The negative externalizations of a teen social media ban are likely most related to the positive aspects of social media aka community, connection etc outside of school.

Twitch, for example, I think is fine for kids.

There is probably a happy medium that's a bit nicer, for example, banning phones in schools is something that everyone seems to be ok with - that sets a good baseline.

We may want other social media places for 12-18 to have parental opt-ins and to be a bit more assertive around harassment and bullying - which is a very serious thing, and very pernicious as well. It's really hard to monitor.

Creating 'PG spaces' is probably what most parents want.

The worst negative externalization from all of this is probably state-implemented age verification, identity issues, and the leaks, failures and excessive authoritarianism that can come about aka 'slippery slope', which is a serious argument. Even then - there are smart ways to do this which avoid many of those risks.

logicchains3• 3 months ago

Allowing children to smoke and drink from age 12 would be a social disaster, it's not even an argument - obviously - the 'prohibition' works - and in that case, there's nary any negative externality.

The negative externality is the huge amount of young adults damaging their bodies with excessive alcohol consumption in college because they never learned to drink healthily. The US with its late legal age for alcohol has a far bigger problem with youth alcohol abuse than European countries where youth are introduced to alcohol earlier.

traderj0e10• 3 months ago

The way school taught us about the Prohibition was that everyone disobeyed the law and actually drank more. That's not true though.

Terr_• 3 months ago

We also need to talk more about the third not-mutually-exclusive option: Legal liability if/when things go wrong.

It's often buried because the people making money dislike it, so much so that they will lobby the government to impose wide bans. Especially if:

* The ban makes somebody else pay most of the costs of protecting "the children" against their design-choices or business-model.

* The ban gives them a blanket pass for almost any exploitative design against adults or other acceptable targets.

austin-cheney3• 3 months ago

Would you recommend that same approach to other vices like gambling, prostitution, and heroine? If not why are some vices more distinguished for you than others?

Also, you can have both: substance education and prohibition. Those factors need not be exclusive.

insane_dreamer8• 3 months ago

Prohibition doesn’t work.

It absolutely does. Just look at smoking and alcohol.

We also need teen social media education

Sure, that too. But to think that it's enough is very naive. Unlike alcohol and drugs, social media is being pushed on teens at every turn. If there was a drug dealer on every corner, and drugs were free and tasted great, the education on drugs wouldn't go that far, honestly.

sackfield• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

You haven’t had children growing up during the last two decades have you?

joe_mamba3• 3 months 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.

AnonymousPlanet9• 3 months ago

If it was organic the wording and the definitions in these legislations would be wildly different, the timing would be all over the place, the age limits and the methods to provide ID as well. But they are not.

edited for tone

Matl7• 3 months ago

Why am I being forced to prove to my OS that I am an adult just because of your inadequate parenting skills?

pmg1012• 3 months ago

I'm a parent and on board with this, and many parents I know are too. It's organic. We just have a different view from you.

traderj0e10• 3 months ago

I'm on board with it too, but the timing and methodology is suspicious. We already got a "protect the kids" law to semi-block TikTok in the US, but it was really about protecting Israel's image (its sponsors even admitted). I hope it's not related to that.

_factor• 3 months ago

I’m an AI bot, and I’m on board with this, and many parents I know are too. It’s inorganic. We just have a different tokenizer from you.

Yummy yummy targeted data now directly to identified children with the ability to hide the smoking gun from the parents entirely. We’ll wait till you leave them home alone. Don’t worry.

iamthemonster• 3 months ago

Absolutely. My kid just started high school shortly after our social media ban started, and they only interact with their friends outside of school via phone calls and text, without the interference of addiction-optimised algorithms. It's superb.

I always had it in my control go prevent my child using social media, but I couldn't control every other child in the school using it as the way to stay in touch. This is the kind of collective action that is beneficial for kids.

ben_w8• 3 months ago

False, it isn't all 16. These two pages for nations and states is showing different jurisdictions picking in the 12-18 range: https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/28/report-facebook-building-anti... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...

Some have lower ages with parental consent, this isn't reported in all cases. Some also talk about banning the downloading of apps, again this isn't reported in all cases. Not that I'm going to read 27 national jurisdictions in varying languages to confirm the point.

Also, lol wtf at "and websites and operating systems all need North Korean ID verification to prove you're over 16". Is "North Korean" the new "Communist"?

whack• 3 months ago

There is a zero percent chance this is organic

Who exactly has a vested interest in starting a worldwide conspiracy to ban social media for kids?

FWIW as an adult in my 30s, social media has caused me far greater harm than even binge drinking. I can't even imagine growing up as a teenager under the social media microscope

synecdoche• 3 months ago

It’s pretext for identifying and tracking everyone. A inevitable ”byproduct” from getting your age by digital ID.

runarberg• 3 months ago

Like you observed the damage of social media is not unique to children. So a more sensible legislation would serve to help everybody from the harm of social media, not just children.

Second, age verification systems have a lot to benefit from a government contract.

Third, social media and ad companies would for sure prefer a blanket ban on children rather then a more careful legislation which e.g. ban targeted advertising, or further regulates social media from harmful patterns.

fc417fc80218• 3 months ago

Who exactly has a vested interest in starting a worldwide conspiracy to [ think of the children ] in order to push [ nefarious measure ]? Difficult question that.

slg10• 3 months ago

People have been drinking alcohol since time immemorial. Our laws need to overcome those longstanding cultural standards that vary greatly across the globe and therefore laws will be different too.

It varies by country, but I would guess most political leaders didn't grow up in the era of social media, so there isn't some ingrained belief that kids actually need this stuff. And with growing globalization, it makes perfect sense that many new laws would be similar because they are both motivated by the same factors and can be used as examples for each other.

asdfman1232• 3 months ago

We didn't need social media before it existed. If no one's on it, that sounds like the ideal situation for young kids.

yumraj• 3 months ago

People have been drinking alcohol since time immemorial.

This is probably the reason why there is no unified age for drinking, because everyone came at it at different times from different place and have differing rationale including social, religious, cultural etc.

Social media is new and there is no cultural/religious rule for/against it. So 16 is the starting point someone decided (was it Australia or NZ?), and others are following since it's a good starting point. As time progresses, maybe it'll move up or down and different countries might take a different stand.

xg153• 3 months ago

The world is much more globalized now. Countries are watching each other, political movements can be global. That wasn't the case when drinking laws were enacted.

Also, the object - social networks - is global. Yes, all kinds of societies have had alcohol, but alcoholic beverages don't suddenly become 20% more potent or harmful everywhere at once. With centralized platforms, that can happen.

SoftTalker• 3 months ago

Yes I think this is it. News headlines and Tweets and other social media posts mean that trends are much more global than they used to be. "Controlling kids' access to social media" is just trending right now, and that means it's getting attention all over the globe at the same time.

npunt3• 3 months ago

Totally. Today’s social media is not the same as last years etc. Read Meta’s quarterly reports and they brag about Reels increasing time spent on site by 30% in a year. That’s not even considering the other ill effects like giving kids a firehose of all the worlds problems when they’re not yet equipped to handle that information, which causes them to internalize those things, making them feel like things are fucked, that they’re responsible, etc. It’s psychologically devastating. And so many other things! Let kids be kids.

pessimizer4• 3 months ago

The world is much more globalized now. Countries are watching each other, political movements can be global.

This is simply not true. The US puts pressure on countries to harmonize their regulations and laws to ours, unless it is to the US's advantage that other countries have different laws than ours. The world didn't suddenly get draconian drug laws through "political movements," it got them through diplomatic and funding pressures. The US often used those laws as excuses for military and intelligence interventions, or to build political organizations in those countries in the guise of antidrug organizations.

All countries do things like this, but the US is rich and dangerous enough to do it hardest. The US has decided that it wants everybody tracked at all times, especially online, and when it explains the advantages of this to the elites of other countries, they also like the idea.

Smaller European countries have also made it a cottage industry to fanatically push US agendas in places like NATO and the EU, because it gives their little homelands outsized influence (and bags of cash) to operate on behalf of the bully. For some reason, everybody in Europe has to care what e.g. Estonia thinks about something, although Estonia is just saying what the US wants Europe to be doing, and the US is financing Estonian candidates for European positions (and maybe even having Trump lobby against them to give them even more credibility.)

This attack on any sort of privacy online is not coming from the churches. There is no lobby group that it pushing it that doesn't get the majority of its funds from any number of governments, which is just government lobbying itself. The way democracy is supposed to work is that the people support something, and they then vote for candidates that will give it to them - but there is no visible constituency lobbying for this other than casual liberal cynics who aren't organized in any way.

As a comparison, in 2015 there was like 65-70% popular support for single-payer health care in the US. There were dozens of organized groups supporting it. It even crossed 50% among Republicans for at least a year. Not a hint of anything happened.

edit: Also Europe, like Japan, is one of those places that had a really emotionally tough time outlawing pedophilia and child pornography. They certainly don't care this much about the sexual aspect of child safety, at least. What Europe has never been behind on is the censorship of political speech. That is what can excite people.

Dig1t2• 3 months ago

political movements can be global.

You are saying exactly what OP is saying but just rephrasing it another way.

The more a movement crosses borders, the less likely it is to be based on the needs of any particular country and the more likely it is to be based on the needs of the transnational billionaire class.

Drinking age is not the only example, driving age is another good example and also the old TV rating system. What was considered taboo in America was often at the same time considered to be fine in places like Europe, or vice versa. But we never had a coordinated international push for censorship when it came to TV/movies like we are seeing with social media.

I can remember how much people used to deride mass surveillance and censorship in places like Russia and China and now here we are very quickly catching up to them in every way.

redeeman3• 3 months ago

are you for real suggesting that this is just countries that just so happen to look at eachother than then all go "wow, gotta get that age verification going" ?

its blindly obvious that this is an agenda that SOMEONE is pushing EVERYWHERE, one can then speculate who that might be, or for what purpose

Gud• 3 months ago

It is clearly a campaign by the surveillance state profiteers.

Palantir and similar corporations are on tour and hand in hand with our bought off representatives are they killing the open internet.

Don’t get me wrong, I dislike Facebook and such as much as the rest of the HN crowd, but this not the answer.

everdrive2• 3 months ago

You're "just asking questions" -- if it's not organic, then what do you suspect it is?

andrewla3• 3 months ago

There is a zero percent chance this is organic

Why go to the silly conspiracy theory place? Up until then I was in violent agreement, but things don't need to be a conspiracy to be bad. The rules are well-intentioned but poorly thought through, which is devastatingly common for government action in digital spaces; witness the fucking cookie popups (no illuminati involved in that one, just stupidity).

People and lawmakers are just not thinking through the privacy implications for the people who are exempt from these limitations, and the persistent nature of digital paper trails.

pzo2• 3 months ago

why 'silly' conspiracy? Many cases of documented conspiracy in the past anyway.

Being on this social media (YC) people aware it's all about implementation and we should at least demanding better solutions. If you want to regulate/limit access of kids to social media just make that you have to be 16 years old to buy simcard - in many places in EU you already have to show ID to seller.

Allow parent to buy simcard to their under 16 year old children if thats what they want to and allow parents to decide at their home wifi if kid should have access to social media or not.

tylerchilds• 3 months ago

Probably something akin to the data shows that human worldview gets pretty locked in by 16.

barbazoo3• 3 months ago

Obvious straw man because age check can be done in a privacy preserving way. I think it's less that everyone agrees but more that one country did it and others followed.

chid• 3 months ago

I can't quite understand how Australia was at the forefront of this. It seems like an easy way to limit the open web, and no children actually saved.

anenefan2• 3 months ago

Any time the powers want to do something to help out Fat Cats and top end companies with something they don't like happening, any action thrust out, the excuse it's always "for the children" or "think of the children."

Make no mistake social media as it was with scraping so hard kids bled, was bad for children. Facebook ignored the lessons learned from the 90s with TMI (too much information) and in fact some people who used a lot of yahoo mailing groups from that time might still recall the big sweep that occurred. It came to pass that some people still ignored Facebook rules and used pseudonyms - you know just in case and in Australia this became a big big thing back a few years ago with a different govt running the show here with a prominent pro Trump (sycophantic) leader ruling the roost. maube hours after Trump got roasted by an anonymous comment, the crew in Australia were pushing to require ID to access the internet ... a person was appointed to address anonymous accounts ... and in the end after the govt changed she was also tasked to oversee social media.

One might think that age limiting a site it would force ID checks, however other smarter people know that most social media sites, especially the ones there were scraping hard and targeting young teens dieting and other BS young teens seem to susceptible to, have the capacity to guess fairly accurately if the account holder is a youngster. Right now these companies are saying nah these algorithms are dumb and the govt can't do a thing ... right up to the point when the present govt decides to start fining for every account that should not be there and or just offering bounties to the average Joe Jill public [and not businesses or those tooled up with A.I. help] There's a phase in time going now at the moment -- none of the big tools out there have figured out how bureaucracy works in Australia.

bigfatkitten• 3 months ago

I can. Australian governments of both partisan persuasions have always had an authoritarian streak. This sort of thing has always been naturally attractive to them.

627467• 3 months ago

we can't even get countries to agree on unified drinking age

I don't know... looking at the map[0] it looks like there's a fair consensus on 18yo.

Also, maybe the reason for the "whole world"[1] is doing this at the same time as to do with the globalized nature of internet and its effects?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age

[1] put me on the skeptical bucket that this map will ever look like the drinking age map

rendang• 3 months ago

Who is behind it then?

insane_dreamer8• 3 months ago

I honestly don't care whether it's organic or not. I have kids and it's 100% needed.

beAbU• 3 months ago

If alcohol was somehow invented only today it will probably be outright criminalized around the globe.

Humans have been living with alcohol for literal millenia so I reckon it's much harder to have some globally uniform response to it.

Social media is a clear and present danger right now, and I support the suppression of it. I would go one step further and ban algorithmic feeds outright. They do so much damage!

I am not happy with the way this is being implemented though.

hyperman1• 3 months ago

I see a lot of coherence in the ages used in the western world. Laws use age 16-18-21 to say almost adult - adult - need to be sure adult.

Geee• 3 months 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• 3 months 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/EFTA02706...

1: https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-admits-phone-numbers-m...

2: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/hack-age-verification-...

3: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/persona-age-verificatio...

4: https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2026/02/age-verificat...

tzs3• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

We need to draw the line somewhere. Later is better.

kakacik• 3 months 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• 3 months 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• 3 months 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_dreamer8• 3 months 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.

gverrilla• 3 months ago

Congratulations for Norway!

patatino• 3 months 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• 3 months ago

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

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

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