For all those that think this is the government overstepping with an unenforceable law, you are not grasping the intent correctly. Declaring that we have democratically decided to have an age limit for social media means that we have laid the groundwork for collective action. This means that suddenly schools, parents, teenagers themselves, etc. all have a reason and a mandate for keeping young people off platforms that we believe to be detrimental to their development and well-being. True democratic culture lies not in bourgeoisie domination (as many Americans like to believe), but rather in mutual trust and cooperation in order to solve common and big problems.
Exactly!
It’s not about Totalizing Enforcement. What it changes is the cultural norm. Not right away but over time.
An age limit on alcohol never stopped anyone of any age to acquire alcohol, but it sets the societal bar for what’s acceptable. You don’t wanna be the parents that gave your kids alcoholic beverages at 13.
It’s always a little jarring how everyone very readily believes that the Scandinavian countries are the happiest in the world, but won’t believe that the incremental policy changes we implement here have any effect 🤷♂️
As a case study, we did this in 1988 with a smoking law that was incrementally improved with great success. It was controversial at the time, but is now generally regarded as such an obvious policy: no smoking in or around public transport, in bars and restaurants etc…
An age limit on alcohol
This has a very clear means of enforcement, since you can require age checks at the point of purchase and revoke licenses if someone violates that.
This law is a lot harder to enforce, because what exactly is “social media”? If the kids are all blocked from Facebook and whatnot, they could rally around the comments section of a local newspaper or something (or even something like Lemmy, which isn’t large enough to properly regulate). Kids are creative, and a lot of parents (at least here) are pretty oblivious to what they actually do on their devices.
So I’m skeptical of this law, but we’ll see how it plays out.
its the point where people say “but a sneaky vpn will get around so we may as well do nothing” is equivalent to “my friend can buy me a sneaky drink so we may as well do nothing”… just because you can exploit a law doesn’t make it invalid. enforcement concerns are valid, but it seems reasonable to start with “i agree there is a problem” and go for the 80% rule
That really depends on what the proposed solution looks like. My government implemented a similar law (included porn as well as social media), and the net result is that I either need to upload my government ID or use a VPN to access the site. I don’t trust these sites w/ my government ID, so I use a VPN. A lot of sites just don’t support my area, so even if I’m old enough, I can’t access the website. They’re more willing to take the loss than implement some kind of ID vetting.
When my kids want to sign up for social media accounts (and I’m okay with that), I’ll teach them how to use a VPN to get around the law so neither they nor I have to upload our IDs, and they’ll probably teach their friends and whatnot.
That said, if age verification checks were simplified to a debit/credit card payment authorization (and not even an actual payment), then you’d automatically prove that they’re old enough to have access to a debit/credit card, no government ID needed. The bank will check your ID, and if you’re a minor, the parent will have to approve the account. That would be acceptable to me, because maintains the bar for most kids, while still having a reasonable way for a parent to provide access without doxxing either of them (except the name printed on the card, that is).
That’s why I’m skeptical, but willing to see how it plays out. My local law certainly ticked me off though.
Most kids here in Norway get a bank account with debet card and BankID with it at 13. Implementing a solution to use it to verify if you are older than X years old would actually be less work than your proposed solution, both for the social media site, banks, the kids and the parents.
I would be very much against tying my social media accounts to a government services one. I know it can be correlated if needed, but the government automatically neatly having this information all in one place? No thanks, it’s outright dangerous.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want my account tied to my bankid either. But bankid could easily make an age verification that wasn’t tied to accounts.
True democratic culture lies not in bourgeoisie domination (as many Americans like to believe), but rather in mutual trust and cooperation in order to solve common and big problems.
American here who has visited Scandinavia a couple times.
There are so many little differences, but they add up to a staggering divide in the amount of mutual trust and cooperation you see in little everyday interactions.
“Are you 15 or more years old? Y/N”
There, that fixed the problem.
IIRC Norway has an actual Nat ID system, so assuming ðey develop a workable API for it ðis could actually be implemented quite easily.
Preventing kids stealing ðeir parents’ IDs to open accounts anyway will be ð actual challenge.
so assuming they develop
Psst… ðey
Þkſ m8
Is there a reason that you use some character (I’m afraid I don’t know the name of it) wherever you would otherwise use “th”? I can’t guess if it’s some kind of technical issue with federated text, something from a different language you’re incorporating, or one of those “I think we should add x symbol to the language so I’ll use it to draw attention to the effort” deals, like with the people that use the combined !? symbols whenever both are relevant at once.
It’s a thorn, a letter making a th sound. Still in use in Icelandic, I think. In English, it’s archaic at best.
Fun fact, when it fell out of use, the letter Y was used to replace it for a while. So when you see something saying “ye olde”, verbally it’s still “the old”.
It’s eth, actually, not thorn.
I had thought that eth was used in Old English for the voiced “th” and thorn for the unvoiced “th”, but Wikipedia says they were used interchangeably for both sounds.
You’re right otherwise. Thorn was not available on printing presses because they were being made in countries that didn’t use the letter, which is why the letter Y was used instead until “th” became more common.
That’s a shame, I would have loved to keep using those thorns and eths. Quite weird to think that they didn’t even want to ask for a few customs pieces for those letters.
I actually always wondered about the y in old texts. Thanks!
I’m probably doing exactly what they want here (e.g. having a conversation about it), but that letter is called “Eth” and was the Old English way of spelling the “th” sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth
A number of linguistic buffs want to bring it back to the modern English alphabet.
I don’t think ð was pronounced exactly the same way as thSeems like I was thinking of other languages where they were/are pronounced differently.
What ð heck are are you talking about, it looks normal. To me. Maybe ðeres someðing wrong wið your computer.
A møøse once bit my sister.
This commenter has been sacked.
… I’m also one of ðose people ðat uses ð interrobang
Wow, aren’t you a hip cat.
I do what I want
Is there a reason that you use some character (I’m afraid I don’t know the name of it) wherever you would otherwise use “th”?
Passive aggressive typing.
So then the kids will just use a VPN
Yup, ProtonVPN is free, and there are covert ways to purchase other VPNs (i.e. cash in an envelope).
All this would do is make it much harder for their parents to figure out what their kids are doing. If they can access it w/o a VPN, a regular internet logger can help inform parents of their traffic.
Kids often have no money, especially not money they can spend online, no?
Whats that O with an aeroplane?
It’s the original English letter for
thwhich was more or less deleted from the alphabet when imported printing press types lacked said letter.Before it got universally replaced by
thsome printers usedylike in “ye olde” which is really pronounced “the old”
No need of this. Make a mandatory physical check of the ID that can’t be subcontracted. People want an account? They need to go to an office and open it there like it was the case in the past for a bank account.
Not all VPNs have offices in Norway, and supplying ð check via ð internet will reduce ð likelihood of ð VPNs trying to fight compliance
True but would you prefer weak enforcement or strong enforcement?
Strong enforcement would likely involve the government having better records of your browsing habits.My government already knows all of my kinks, I include a list of all the porn I watched each year with my tax return. They don’t ask for that, but I provide it anyway.
Hey, you never know, maybe you’ll get a response with some recommendations. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, after all.
I prefer weak enforcement every time. It’s effective for kids who would follow the law anyway, and it doesn’t push the kids to use more covert means if they wouldn’t follow the law anyway. The latter group is therefore much easier to monitor using standard tools, and good parents with deviant children can use that effectively to help solve their problems before they become more serious.
If they admit they’re below the age of 15 they should be banned until they reach the mature age.
That’ll get them. No one under 15 has any idea what a VPN is.
How hard up are you for Facebook? Like, there’s a technical solution, sure. But a big part of social media’s addictive quality is ease of access.
Making access annoying absolutely will curb teen use.
downloading and using a vpn is super easy now though???
Sure, but what they’re saying is that even a little bit of friction will make some people give up, and that kills the virality of things like social media
IDK… Where I live, a lot of things are blocked. And while there was a decline after the bans, the banned social media are NOWHERE close to being “dead” or “not viral”.
fair
Could also age gate ð VPNs wiðin Norwegian networks. Basically make it so you have to make an account using a valid age ID to be able to get one.
Yeah, cause VPN companies are known for complying with foreign governments…
Ðere is a world of difference between complying wið online censorship and complying wið rules ðat would have a tangible positive impact on childhood mental healþ.
Huh? So…only children get to use social media…?
Every finite range has 2 limits. A bottom limit and a top limit.
Ah, ok, so it might only be newborns.
This isn’t a finite range.
Get off my Lemmy kids
Sad to see people here supporting the same kinds of policies that are diametrically opposed to privacy on the internet.
Parental control softwares are always parents failing to take the time to properly educate themselves and their children to the internet, as well as trust issue towards their children, which is bad parenting since it leads children into lying to them and finding alternatives as well as feeling seen “as a child”, bad for teens…
Moreover those softwares are, as I said earlier nearly malwares
Don’t stop at social media. Put that same limit on religion, too.
Are you pointing out how you don’t like this law or are you actually suggesting we ban religion for kids?
People should be of legal age before officially joining a religion.
Agreed
I’m gonna go with what home dude below said. “People should be of legal age before officially joining a religion.”
I’m thinking neither one is really enforceable.
It’s norway, so that’s kinda pointless
You’re right. I was just talking in a broader scope.
Governmental overreach. Good luck trying to enforce this shit.
Social media isn’t bad inherently. Addictive algorithms, violation of user privacy, etc. is bad.
Kids should be taught how to make use of social media for good. I was bullied quite a lot as a kid. Social media is what kinda brought me out of it.
Social media told 13 year old me, that it is alright to be gay. Social media is what made me interested in politics. A huge part of who I am today is because of the nice people I met online. Fuck the government for trying to take it away from others like me.
Social media isn’t bad inherently. Addictive algorithms, violation of user privacy, etc. is bad.
Cigarettes aren’t bad for you. It’s just the burning tar and the nicotine.
But social media don’t have to burn tar. They chose to because this way they can get more money, but it’s not an inherent part of the system, it’s an exploitation of it for profit, and can be separated
This. ^
comparing substances to social media is fucking stupid and you should feel bad.
While all of that may be true, it doesn’t necessarily negate the adverse affects social media can also have on young people.
I think you got lucky and found a community that accepted and welcomed you. But a lot of kids aren’t as fortunate, and their experiences with social media are a lot more sinister. Children are more exposed to predators and harassment now than ever before.
I dunno that a full “ban until ___ years old” policy is the cure, either. But it’s a start.
I don’t understand why the knee jerk reaction for everything is just “ban it”.
You want to reduce the exposure of children to predators? Moderate the platforms. We can agree that Reddit n Lemmy’s moderation is a lot better than Instagram’s moderation. Why don’t we start with that???
The biggest way predators do their predatoring is by sliding into ur DMs. You could restrict this by requiring approval for all such new DMs by a parent’s account or something. There r just so many ways that social media can be made safer for kids.
Social media is a digital townsquare. Sure, there r some malicious actors lurking about. Does that mean that kids should just be banned from this townsquare? No. The townsquare should be made safer for kids. There must be some hand-holding for kids in the beginning so that they can learn how to make the best use of this infrastructure in the future.
There is little evidence for this claim. As far as I recall, evidence actually shows that things like bullying, harassment and child sexual exploitation are dropping.
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If anything, it would be far better to ban people above a certain age from social media. I’ve seen far more older people get sucked in by online misinformation and become extreme conspiracy theorists than kids.
It’s not the government’s job to tell adults to not partake in self-harm. Kids don’t know better.
Sorry, but that logic is absolute and total bullshit.
Adults are extremely bad at making decisions in their best interests too. Why does the government have to oppress kids to protect them, but you when the exact same logic is applied to adults, that’s a problem?
It’s all oppression. It’s all wrong. Kids should have autonomy too.
It’s you who was suggesting adults of certain age should be banned from social media, not me. You don’t get to then say ‘It’s all oppression. It’s all wrong.’ in the next sentence. You’re being a hypocrite.
There’s a good reason we don’t let kids eat sand, hit their friend, drive cars, vote, watch porn, drink alcohol and smoke tobacco. Their brains are undeveloped. They don’t know any better. They’re entitled to autonomy when they’re capable of it.
My point was that anyone sensible would immediately see the problem with my suggestion, and that would perhaps lead them to understand why enforcing the same rule against kids is wrong.
And again, I’m sorry, but your reasoning is weak as fuck. Would you take away the rights of someone with an intellectual disability from watching porn or smoking?
If anything, it would be far better to ban people above a certain age from social media.
Yeah, sure. That screams that you don’t advertise, but rather oppose banning adults and above that all age groups. You are backpedaling and moving the goal posts. It would be much more adult to accept the flaw of your first comment.
Would you take away the rights of someone with an intellectual disability from watching porn or smoking?
That’s a perfectly valid discussion to be had.
Would you take away the rights of someone with an intellectual disability from watching porn or smoking?
I think the idea is that kids brains are still developing, so their decision-making should be considered temporarily impaired. If their brains won’t develop further, then there’s not really any reason to restrict them from things that only harm themselves (e.g. smoking and drinking), though they should potentially have some guardrails around other people harming them (e.g. scams and other forms of fraud).
That said, I’m against this law. I think parents should be responsible for what media their children consume, and this law could conceivably be used against parents who make sure their kids are safely interacting w/ social media, and it could motivate the kids who need the supervision to be more discrete (i.e. use a VPN).
Again, this argument is extremely weak and fails under even the slightest investigation.
Firstly, the claim that kids brains are developing but adults’ brains aren’t is just factually untrue. Redditors love to repeat a little “factoid” about 25 being the age that the brain matures, but it’s just not true. Everyone develops differently and some people may be functionally mature in their mid teens, others may take much longer. Additionally there’s not really an end point where the brain stops developing, so everyone’s brains are always developing. So now you have to draw a line about, how much development is enough? and that asks the question, how do you measure brain development? And there’s actually not really any good answer to that question.
Even if you had some vague range under which brains are developed, which again, we don’t have - where would you draw a line? Anywhere you put it is going to be arbitrary and exclusionary. If you place it somewhere, let’s say, 18, then ask yourself - is it conceivable that there could be a 17 year old who would be capable and mature enough to take on this responsibility? If your answer is yes, then by making that line 18, you’re being ageist.
99% of all oppressions against young people are not justifiable.
there’s not really an end point where the brain stops developing
Sure, but the “25 years old” figure comes from when the pre-frontal cortex is sufficiently developed (i.e. reaches peak volume). That part of the brain has a lot to do with cognitive control, and it’s generally a time when most people have made or are about to make very long-term decisions, such as careers, relationships, etc.
The age of 18 for being an “adult” is even more arbitrary, 25 is a pretty decent cut-off that has some scientific merit. I’m not saying we should base any laws on it, I’m just saying that after that point, you’re probably about as prepared to make these types of choices as you’ll ever be, so if you have a mental development disability, we should probably end any restrictions around that time unless you specifically opt-in to additional protections.
is it conceivable that there could be a 17 year old who would be capable and mature enough to take on this responsibility?
Sure, which is why every rule like this should have exceptions. For example, I think we should allow 16yos (and perhaps 15yos) to vote, if they can answer important questions about how government works (i.e. what does a Senator do vs a House Rep?), policy choices of various candidates, etc. As in, demonstrate that they are actually interested in politics instead of just being pushed/manipulated by their parents/other adults. That type of “test” should exist for any policy where there’s an age gate. Who is in power absolutely will impact 16yos before they get a chance to vote, so it makes a ton of sense to give them a say if they’re aware of the political process.
But once you’re an adult, society has essentially decided that you’re free to screw up your life. We let you smoke, drink (in some areas), go into debt, join the military, etc. If we’re okay with that, there’s no reason to limit your choices on other things as well.
Going back to the topic at hand, if this law needs to exist, there should be a way for younger kids to demonstrate understanding of the dangers of social media, how to recognize predators, etc in order to get access before that legal cutoff. But even if that exists, I’m still against it because of the privacy violations that would need to exist to actually enforce this law. If this is just a token law and is effectively neutered by other privacy laws, maybe it’s not an issue. I don’t know Norwegian law, but I do have a similar law here and it absolutely involves privacy violations to enforce (i.e. have to provide government-issued ID to many websites now).
Kids are disadvantaged in a number of ways compared to adults
- the obvious factor is that the prefrontal cortex is not developed. they simply do not have the capacity to make fully informed decisions.
- another factor is the simple lack of experience. when you compare an 8 year old to an adult, that adult has been through a lot of shit in their life. they learned a thing or two and that gives him the ability to sniff out bullshit much more easily than a child. think of it as the bullshit immune system
- kids don’t have the resources that adults do. they typically don’t have access to credit cards so the free things on the internet attract them more easily. websites (really apps these days) prey on this fact.
But government can take away the means or incentive for self harm. It is just a matter of society agreeing. That will never happen in the USA and Americans are fine. Norway agreed and they are fine.
Ok? Well that’s what an age limit would imply, isn’t it?
Its possible to have back and forth conversation on a wikipedia user talk page, are they banning wikipedia too? The comments section on a news website? Desktop email clients and hotmail accounts?
I can’t see a way where this doesn’t end up being used to restrict information from wider society. Even just banning kids from the internet, is restricting millions of people who deserve to be able to access the resources on the www
What a weird take…
You’re acting like Wikipedia talk pages and especially news site comment sections are some bastions of discourse 😆
They’re all cesspools of shit that don’t bring any joy to anyone except trolls, pedants and energy vampires
How do they define what a social media is?
And most importantly: How would they enforce that? Kids have been lying about their ages since the dawn of internet.
I don’t think they really need to.
Laws are often just an acknowledgement of a society’s expectation.
“We’ve all decided that kids under 15 using social isn’t great.”
The fact that this law exists makes it infinitely b easier for parents to establish and maintain rules in their household, because peer pressure is minimised.
Yes, some kids will still use social before they’re 15. Perhaps most kids. However, I think harmfully excessive use will be minimised.
Porn sites have age limits, we know this doesn’t mean shit. No middleschooler gets condemned for watching porn.
The enforcing part is where this is likely to get shitty. Once they establish this as a law they maybe will try and sue companies that don’t provide an age check on their websites. Now if that is possible I am not sure, seeing as many of those are having HQs in Ireland or Netherlands due to tax reasons.
But if that is successful it would mean they actually have to check everyone’s age by some means, which means collecting IDs. Which definitely is bad news for users, we all know that data won’t be securely stored or deleted.
Not sure how else this could go down.
Would probably require the sites to use Bank ID during signups from Norway.
Bank ID is a national system for confirming identity.
Sounds dystopian as fuck. Also, they can just pretend they’re not from Norway.
Now Meta not only knows your name and where you live and your darkest secrets but your legal ID too — fun!
Not saying you might be right, but this could be solved with a simple API that returns yes/no for the age check, without providing additional information.
Since Leisure Suit Larry at least. ;) Since alcohol sales were restricted to adults? Since… ?
I know I have been surfing the hub ever since I was 13
Just like everyone on the internet.
Yeah I want to know if YouTube and any website with comments (eg all news sites) are social media
It will just be the ones they don’t get kickbacks from.
What about Ecommerse site where you can interact with other buyers, talk to the seller and reply to people’s reviews? Isnt that a social media?
No, that’s quite obviously not social media.
Probably networks where users post personal data in conjunction with chat features. Obviously, Wikipedia is not social media in this regard and neither is a mailing list.
You may use it only until you are 15. Alternately, you may choose any 15-year window in your life. Choose wisely.
The wisest choice is no period at all
That ship has long sailed. Most teens will find a way and the ones that don’t will be social rejects.
Social media is fundamentally a part of our social fabric. There’s no going back on that. Instead, collectively we should promote healthier social networks not prohibit them. Norway is fucking stupid here.
Also, wtf are Norvegian parents doing with their infinite oil money they don’t have time to care for their teens?
We shouldn’t blocked the social media, they are pure shit, don’t get me wrong, but we should only educate correctly the people to show them how bad it is
With that logic we should give everyone a nuclear bomb and teach them not to press the button. Let’s see how that works out.
Big tegh companies spend billions on ways to influence your behaviour, making it even difficult for adults to not fall for their traps, let alone kids with still very much underdeveloped brains. Just look at all the stupid things you had done when you were a kid.
My answer was an ideal thing, but it will not happened soon because of the big corporates, they are keeping us for profit. You’re absolutely right that it’s the fault of corporations.
Government doing parenting now? Bad idea.
Is it? Not dealing with “the other kids have social media so I can too”!
Governments have always been involved in parenting and the education of kids.
What exactly do you think schools are?
a production line for corporate slaves.
If this is any guide, maybe there should also be an upper age limit, too.
