Norwegian government to set 15-year age limit for using social media

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.

"Are you 15 or more years old? Y/N"

There, that fixed the problem.

Enforcing it is virtually impossible.

Huh? So...only children get to use social media...?

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.

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?

You may use it only until you are 15. Alternately, you may choose any 15-year window in your life. Choose wisely.

How do they define what a social media is?

Get off my Lemmy kids

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.

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.

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.

If this is any guide, maybe there should also be an upper age limit, too.

I hope they've written a very broad definition of social media.

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

Why does it incorrectly say limit in the headlines then correctly say minimum in the first sentence.

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?

I love the sentiment and would love to see this working, but lets be realistic, It never will how things are now. Just a few things that comes to mind:

• Companies and public services use social media sites for customer service.

• Social media corporations are almost never held responsible for propaganda and any of the sick stuff they serve up on silver platter. Putting up an age warning Y/N window does nothing. They will still target 15 years or younger audiences.

• People profit off other peoples data and corpos will fight hard not to loose a huge chunk of this money machine.

• Social media sites only goal is to show you content and make you go through as many ads as possible. They will definetly not consider people under 15 and change their algorithms to make their product less appealing.

• Parents are also addicted to social media, like what are the chances a kid of two chain smokers will also try cigarettes?

• Probably a million other reasons...

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

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.

Government doing parenting now? Bad idea.

Oppression of young people is the only one that seems to get worse over time