I mean, kids are smart when it comes to technology, some even more than me who got a degree in computer science.
They'll find an alternative, maybe they'll to go back to personal websites, or join the fediverse, who knows.
Imma stay optimistic
I've been trying to capitalize on the commotion about all this in /r/privacy to bring more people to Lemmy. I've converted at least one redditor already!
It should be dependent on the sites offering adult material to have an account with a login. All other non-adult sites keep operating as before and kids can peruse freely. If a kid steals a password that's a kid thing, not a system thing. Nothing is foolproof and people get slapped in the face with shit they don't want to see all the time. Education and proper implementation is the key, not restriction and censorship.
Adoption is perhaps the impetus needed for common sense to prevail. If everyone keeps spending all their money at a partcular casino, they aren't going to change a thing. But if everyone stopped coming, you can be damn sure they start looking at what they can reform. Nothing improves if people don't start to care about the security of their PII. That's a huge rock.
Yeah. For sure. Nothing is simply black and white anymore. Lots to consider.
For one, they want all our data, they want to know all we do online.
For other, they found out children who grew exposed to people's opinions online grows more critical that kids that grew on they caged propaganda. Not good for their business to have citizens that can actually think.
So your take is that social media is actually good for kids? Any citation for this?
Without access to that the children view of the world gets limited by what their parent's and their government said. It's just basic logic .
Anyway if you want to talk in papers,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK594763/
This says that social media have both GOOD and BAD effects on kids and teenagers. Both.
While this is obviously bad, I don't think there's ever really a total win or loss when it comes to this stuff. It's a constant fight. They'll bring shit like this in and it'll seem hopeless, then someone will bypass it and it'll go back and forth. Same as ad blocking or DRM or countless other things.
It'd be nice to not have to deal with it in the first place, but we'll deal with it sooner or later I'm sure.
I hate EU. Nothing but bad news from them.
There is a difference between psyops that make you think EU only does bad things and reality. EU has been the most successful peace project in history. It has lifted millions of people out of poverty too. There will always be political tensions and work to be done. We can never rest on our laurels but if you honestly believe what you wrote, then congrats you've been brainwashed by the Epstein class.
As an American, I envy their news
I don't know where u live but EU brings good things too. Go and ask the Brits who are mourning the departure they voted for 10 years ago. Of course there are a lot of things that could be improved but that is the responsibility of us citizens.
African folks love the kindness of Europeans.
African folks love the kindness of Europeans.
... is a statement which, even if correct, contributes absolutely nothing to the current debate. Feel free to open your own thread about it.
Are you trying to instruct me as an European? The posts above were about good and bad things in the EU and people who wanted to be accepted into it. Don't close your eyes when convenient.
It's not an age restriction. It's a mandatory ID for everybody. They know we hate them, and are afraid. Perhaps they should make a law against killer drones instead.
Strange title. Big tech lost huge on this. They want to advertise to your kids. These bans make sense to protect the vulnerable.
A) It's very unlikely to actually stop kids from accessing social media. VPN's, purchasing blackmarket accounts that have already been verified, classic fake ID's (in the age of AI generated images, no less). So they'll just keep building profiles for them anyway (it's already known they do this now for people not actually signed up with social media, their trackers are all over the web and it's easy to build a profile without concerted effort against it). Why do we always think "this time for sure forcing abstinence will work!"? It never does.
B) In addition to not actually stopping building profiles on kids, it now hands them a goldmine of information on adults. Mandates it, even. Data leaks are going to get a lot more "fun"...
How would a VPN help at all if you still need an ID?
And maybe I'm wrong but I find it hard to believe that kids will purchase black market accounts for this. Aren't the IDs verified by a gov database? Anyone selling the account would be legally responsible for it and identifiable.
This is different from pirating stuff where no IDs are involved.
They'd sell accounts with other people's ID? Those will inevitably get leaked. So for example your ID will get leaked and used and you'll be the one to face the consequences. This is not new at all.
Honestly, in 2026 do you really think this won't be subverted?
VPN to countries that don't require identification. Done.
Kids have been buying accounts for years now. It isn't new. See: WoW. This isn't anything new, just a new market for it.
lol regarding holding anyone legally responsible. Good luck is all I can say. The US doesn't prosecute firearms owners who claim a stolen gun that was involved in a crime, only in very clear (and especially stupid) cases. No chance this happens with social media accounts. Just none, on any wide scale.
And again, pretty easy to AI generate an ID these days... kids were doing this in the 70s and it was way, way harder back then.
And this is at the cost of mandatory handing of IDs to big tech that will inevitably leak. Are you comfortable posting a picture of your ID right here? If not, you should be no more comfortable handing your ID to Facebook.
I'm not willing up give up my right to privacy because someone else is a shitty parent, sorry. I'll subvert it because it's unethical.
The VPN works because you can use the service in another country that doesn't require digital ID.
Ah that makes sense.
Holy shit, is this what people actually believe?
That's honestly wild.
Literally 1984. Those who will refuse to sell their private info to big capitalist will be limited, thus they will be information restricted.
Not even close. This will fragment the internet and take power away from surveillance capitalists. A huge amount of people will simply disengage from the Epstein class brainwashing. I'm looking forward to it. The internet used to be way more interesting and fun when it was fragmented.
They ruined it now
Maybe more akin to Brave New World, and the "savages" who don't live in the fucked up society they created.
Just minus the soma holidays
Can we not stay up to date with what is happening without owning a social media account? I think the only thing we are missing is social media trends that change frequently.
Should be banning endless manipulative opaque algorithmic presentations for everyone.
Yeah. Honestly. For platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, mandate chronological feeds of only people you have followed, paginated at like 30.
And mandate they integrate with interoperability standards like activitypub etc so if they start manipulating feeds then we can just exit stage left without losing contact with people we like.
But... That would force them to provide a great user experience in order to retain users!! That's an unacceptable burden on the largest companies in the world!!
Require age verification only if you want to get algorithmic recommendations. That way you can still engage in the social internet anonymously as an adult.
The recommendation algorithms give American big tech way too much political sway in Europe and ideally they should be banned entirely, but age verification at least gives the appearance that this is "for the children" and not something with (justifiable) political motivations.
But its not age verification thats actually being implemented. It's identity verification mislabelled to take advantage of dumb legislation with yet more privacy over reach.
Now to ban it for all the other age groups, too. /s but only kinda
Kinda with you in spirit. How I think about it is... it is harmful for both adults and children. Esp in big-tech co form. FB, IG, TT, X, and w/e. There's a lot of research about it. But the cure can be worse than the disease. What the EU wants to do is not the right answer to address the immense harms of social media to our world.
Both the US and Canada have similar bills on boil. Both are also terrible ideas.
For sure. Reddit doesn't start "testing" it just for sport.
Where have I seen such worldwide concerted action among all governments and corporations. Ah yes, when China "leaked" a virus.
Did they save lives?
or
Did they put us in house arrest?
The fuck? What are you even trying to say here? Are you upset about the existence of a pandemic response?
They turned authoritarian without batting an eye. Worldwide. That's what they really showed themselves to be. Cancelled freedom and privacy, destroyed local business and handicapped the developing children of that time. And will continue to do these things.
And yes it was unnecessary. I know you want to read into this and say I was against "a pandemic response", but not "that" pandemic response..
Oh boy, you're one of THOSE dumbs.
And they put people in house arrest, because... ? I just saw tanks being transported on public-roads today. So the reason couldn't be to covertly move weapons: that goes on in public, in broad daylight and that transit sits alongside vans delivering ice-creams to convenience stores. So, the big cabal wanted to put people under house arrest... to do what?
Pick up a book. Pandemics aren't new and neither is the orchestrated response to them by governing bodies. History can be a good reference.
So they used medieval techniques got it.
Well they didn't, but concerning your teensy little pee brain of yours, could as well have.
I know they did the same in 1919, that's barely 20th century. And an entire century of medical progress early.
Maybe you can clarify what your point here actually is?
op seems to think that pandemic response is tradition based, rather than science based.
tradition as like in 1919 where people were told to put a rag on the face, ritualistic hand washing etc, and rushed novel vaccines with bacteria. Everyone died anyway.
Yeah I picked up the history book
They saved lifes.
Glad to have cleared that up for you ๐
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