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
Enforcing it is virtually impossible.
You are correct, but i’d like to expand a bit on how it could be solved.
It requires that all major social networks use BankID for all traffic from Norway.
Bypassing it would require a VPN, which is a simple hurdle.
But the major win here is that parents will enforce this. Parents can point to this law and say that they have to be old enough. As long as enough parents enforce this law and the VPN requirement is there, then it will probably be effective enough
So you need a BankID to open an account on the covered platforms? That seems like a privacy nightmare.
In Scandinavia every citizen has a registration number and the government has deployed state-enforced online digital identity system.
It’s not a privacy nightmare if you can trust the government. And in Scandinavia you generally can.
I mean… the government already has all your information. If you distrust them with your information, you have an odd problem to overcome. The corpos, however, shouldn’t have all this data on you.
Depends on where you live. Many places you can’t trust the government and they know almost nothing about you.
Everyone in Norway has one, well like 99,99% or something. It is a requirement for banking.
It is used for all banking services in Norway. When you get your own bank account at 13 or something you also get BankID.
it’s a privacy nightmare as it relies on google and apple servers to authenticate verification. neither of which are private. it also makes it impossible for european alternative operative systems to enter the market - giving a foreign state, the US, full control over what we can and can’t do.
Can you elaborate a bit on the google and apple servers for authentication? My impression was that this system uses its own platform.
BankID is it’s own trusted platform. It is not connected to any of them. I am not sure if I understand what the other person is trying to say. Maybe they are afraid that Google and Apple can use BankID verified sessions to better identify the user?
They are using the phone SDKs to verify that BankID was correctly installed, much like any other client side DRM.
We have SmartID and MobiilID in Estonia too, but you don’t need it to log onto social media. You only need it
Right. But Facebook shouldn’t have that number.
As far as I understand, BankID actually abstracts away those numbers. FB have to use an API, and more or less receive a true or false on their query.
They recently opened up for using BankID to prove your age at bars and such, and I think they only get to know if person is old enough or not. Not even a number, just old enough.
This is the right way to protect privacy. Auditable government departments have your data anyways. They don’t provide the data to companies, but they answer questions like “old enough to drink?” With yes no answers.
The government can keep a log of what sites asked for such a proof though, and better assume they do.
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 🤷♂️
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.
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.
Is it even possible to define “social” media? Media on the internet which allows you to connect with others? So the entire internet then? We always have had e-mail, IRC, newsgroups, IM, forums and later on voice calls, and every “new” platform is just an iteration or amalgamation of those early technologies. (Yeah especially you, discord, you worthless piece of shit)
It is a law that makes sense to me from a human standpoint, but looks impossible to uphold if you think about the practical implications. Everything is social. Pure read-only websites are vastly outnumbered. Even wikipedia allows discussions ffs.
That said, i would very much welcome an entire ban of minors on the internet. And while we’re at it, maybe more so a ban on data-harvesting, intrusive advertising and corporate driven monetisation of user created content. Earlier days of the internet. Ctrl-alt-del that fucker back to 1998 please.
Or you know what, just pull the plug. It was fun while it lasted but let’s not succumb to FOMO. The party has ended and yet we’re still on the dance floor with the lights on, clinging on to the last moments that already passed. There’s beer and someone else’s vomit on our clothes, a bunch of drunks stumbling and yelling racist remarks, your girl is riding some loser on the wet floor and the thick, putrid smell of lost hope and forgotten dreams hangs in the air. There’s no more music, just the drunken ramblings of those that also refuse to leave and some shouting reverberated in the now almost empty venue, and you feel the cold air and the humidity. You realise you haven’t seen your friends around for hours. How did this happen all of a sudden, it was so fun here an hour ago?
It never really was.
Let’s just go home.
Here’s one way to do it. The legislators define a list. Products in the list are social media. The list is referenced in the law.
That seems… Inefficient?
New Social media pops up every other year or so. Do they need to meet and vote to add new ones to the list every time?
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.
I would highly recommend listening to the If Books Could Kill podcast about the book “The Anxious Generation”. I feel like it’s probably one of their weaker episodes, if I’m honest, because they kind of have a preconceived bias against social media, but I think they basically come around to the conclusion that there is basically no compelling evidence that social media is particularly harmful to young people, in a general sense, and that on the whole, it’s also very useful for young people.
This is just yet more oppression of young people dressed up as if it’s for their best interests.
How do they define what a social media is?
Yeah I want to know if YouTube and any website with comments (eg all news sites) are social media
And most importantly: How would they enforce that? Kids have been lying about their ages since the dawn of internet.
Would probably require the sites to use Bank ID during signups from Norway.
Bank ID is a national system for confirming identity.
And this is the problem with any age verification online… there’s always some lurking privacy invasion. It’s for your own good.
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 don’t have to accept corporations selling ads that target young people and using algorithms to take advantage of them.
And Norwegian parents are doing what many are doing; caring for their kids to the best of their abilities. That oil money has provided good social services and these teens do have access to healthcare, including mental, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t teenagers still. They necessarily require some independence. That’s growing up, so you can’t just parent around every problem. Hence restricting some things, like cigarettes and alcohol for example.
I don’t see this much differently. It is a hazardous drug that warrants some consideration. Enforcement is fraught but that doesn’t mean we should just sit on our hands and accept it as is.
prohibition simply doesn’t work. Especialy with social constructs. Try telling teens that they shouldn’t listen to a specific music genre lol
There are million other better ways to handle and this law just seems like a bunch of populist drivel:
Therefore, the next step will be to push forward an age verification solution specifically for social media.
So, now because some parents suck at parenting I should provide my ID to Instagram? How incredibly dumb is that?
As a parent myself I’m so tired of shitty parents ruining it for everyone. Just talk with your kids, it’s really not that hard.
Interesting. Not going to debate much further with you, but I’m always a bit envious when I run into other parents who claim they have 100% control over their kids. I don’t. My child is grown now, but I absolutely did not. They were their own person, that no matter how much I talked to them had their own life and struggles.
And prohibition does work in some cases. See, cigarettes. Smoking has been in the fall for a long time especially among the young.
But I’m glad your kid will never have any problems ever and if they do that you admit it could have been solved by you talking to them.
I was under the impression that kids don’t smoke anymore because it is not trendy like it was in my parents’ times. But they do drink alcohol. And especially they do vape.
Interesting how in parents’ times, you did not have to be 18 to buy alcohol… But juvenile alcoholism is a much bigger problem now. As if there is some bigger underlying reason…
I’m really confused by this perspective and your comparsion to cigarettes is completely inadequette — you can’t compare substances to social constructs.
If parents can’t influence their kids how is goverment powered prohibition supposed to do that?
List one social construct that is successfully prohibited by a governing body and actually provides societal value. The only thing comes to mind is porn and take a look how fucking twisted countries where porn is supressed are. This is some north korea level of stupidity.
This law is unprecedented and usually I’d say it should be approached with great care but clearly it’s just populist virtue signaling because it’s simply stupid and is backed by zero scientific or intelectual basis.
I agree that it is unprecedented and should be handled thoughtfully. Nevertheless a corporate website is not a social construct. There is no talk of banning socialization. Maybe you thought they meant social networks in the traditional sense (social group connections) but they are referring to websites. So cigarettes is a perfectly suitable analogy, which is why I can understand your dismissal.
So let me just clarify. Norwegian parents are bad, even though kids here are doing pretty well when compared globally. Regulating how young people interact with the world never works and is bad. So, underage drinking should be allowed, smoking, driving at 8, no age of consent? And parents can just talk to their kids to fix all the problems that happen, including psychological manipulation for financial gain? And anybody that has issues or is taken advantage of just has bad parents? Those who think society has a role to play are just virtue signaling?
Where are you getting “corporate website”? when it would affect all social media websites including Lemmy and Mastodon or your moms blog comments.
The idea of online social exchange of opinions or experiences is absolutely a social construct. We literally didn’t have this and now it’s part of every single person’s life in some shape. How can you just prohibit that? Imagine prohibiting phone calls lol it’s incredibly stupid.
Again you compare this to substances and driving? You can’t be serious here? If you can’t even understand this issue then you shouldn’t be parenting let alone tell other people how to.
It could affect those things. But like I agreed with before, it should be handled carefully and this is a big reason. I distinguish simply between Facebook for example and ma’s blog. One tries to make money by gathering data and targeting advertising to people intentionally addicted to a platform. The other is, you know… a blog.
If the law outlawed the online exchange of ideas, I too would be among its biggest opponents but that is probably a strawman.
As far as me parenting? Sure. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m not sure I was fit either, but I did my best.
And prohibition does work in some cases. See, cigarettes. Smoking has been in the fall for a long time especially among the young.
Prohibition only feeds black markets.
Except it doesn’t, like with their smoking example.
Or, if you’d like another… there are age requirements for buying alcohol. Based on your comments, there must be a massive thriving black market for selling moonshine to kids, yet I’ve seen zero evidence of such a thing.
I have evidence in form of drinking classmates. Moderately so in my school because it was cultured, but classmates told it was much worse in their previous schools. I guess it largely comes from the families.
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
I really dislike this sort of daddy over reach but it seems like this is the only way to make corpos get real about enforcement.
This would result needing to provide ID to use normie social media?
How would this even work globally and on places like fediverse tho?
“Are you 15 or more years old? Y/N”
There, that fixed the problem.
True but would you prefer weak enforcement or strong enforcement?
Strong enforcement would likely involve the government having better records of your browsing habits.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.
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.
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”.
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.
