“We have unleashed a monster,” Mette Frederiksen tells Danish lawmakers.
Because nobody in this comment section are going to know this, as they are just looking to dog on danish politicians (which they deserve and is based), please remember that Denmark has a universal digital ID system. If you are a citizen, you have a digital ID. It is not hard for, say, Facebook, to authenticate you once with this ID. It does not leak information continuously, and a self-respecting platform, unlike Facebook, can simply keep a boolean in their database for “is age verified” after asking the ID system what your age is.
The only real issue here is that users have no granular control over what information is taken out of the ID system, so Facebook could just take your full name, address and age.
It’s also not going to be applied universally, because for one danish politicians don’t know that the internet exists outside of TikTok and facebook, but also because that’s not possible to implement.
If you are a danish citizen, and you’re smart, you go to borger.dk and apply for Name & Address Protection. Then even MitID can’t leak a lot of that information. It’s free and easy.
Thanks for the info I didnt know Denmark had a digital id system. Kind of makes this an easier pill to swallow, imo.
Makes me wonder, what do they think is the appropriate legal punishment for a 14-year-old caught logging in to Instagram?
Simple. You punish the legal guardians of that child.
This would be surprisingly efficient because 90% of parents that I’ve met have no idea how harmful this shit is. It’s insane really.
Here comes the deanonimisation of the internet by fascist surveillance capitalism oligarchs. Soon you will be a criminal if you even think about the fact that privacy was once a basic human right.
Alright but let’s forget the how for a sec. I think this is not a bad idea to limit social media for kids.
It’s not that the idea is bad. It’s that politicians and especially at the moment Danish politicians, don’t have a f**king clue what they are proposing. This coupled with the Danish proposed chat control, won’t be enforceable
“I need privacy not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are.” - Stéphane Bortzmeyer
Should be the parents decision to ALLOW the government to ban social media for a child.
Can’t wait to see how they plan on doing this if chat control goes through. Everyone will have migrated from the mainstream apps to a more sinister and darker part of the world wide Web.
Knowing Denmark probably by mass surveillance. „Protecting“ children by sending their data directly to foreign intelligence would be up their alley.
Almost correct. What should be banned is algorithmic social media. Non-algorithmic is just fine also for kids.
Its pretty hard to have a social network without an algorithm.
get all these posts and arrange them in chronological order is an algorithm.
That would mean regulating the companies, you know, the guys with all the money.
The EU has no problems doing that.
Is it though? Even non-algorithmic social media has downsides.
No. The algorithms, created to maximize ad-profits, are the ones promoting “engagement” which due to human nature always means anything that polarizes will be shown higher up in feeds than calm rational discourse.
Yeah, very true. But non-algorithmic social media timelines are also bad for mental health.
Why do you think so? What data supports that statement?
(I’m old enough to have grown up with non-algorithmic social media)
There are multiple known possible negative effects of social media, not all off them caused by algorithmic feeds. Development of a negative self-image is the first thing to come to mind.
That, too, is caused by the algorithms. Else you would not be constantly fed with unattainable body images etc.
I think too many are unable to picture what algorithmic-free social media even looks like. Mastodon is a start, then you have Pixelfed (Instagram) and Loops (Tik-Tok) you can try as well. It’s really that different.
But don’t you think that even without algorithms, people on social media would have the urge to falsely portray their lives as perfect (or at least exclusively post about the positive aspects thereof) - leading to jealousy, FOMO and negative self-image for some of the viewers?
Would be a good start.
What should be banned is collection, storage, aggregation and trading of personal data. Social media needs to be unprofitable. The surveilance economy is not good for free societies.
The companies would still engage in it. But then you at least have something to hit them over the head with.
Does this include places like discord? Because lonely autistics who are bullied IRL like I was are gonna have a bad time.
Same for trans kids, or gay kids, or anyone that doesn’t fit the norm.
I understand that social media can have detrimental effects on everyone, especially the youth. But let’s stop pretending like social media is akin to heroin, with no potential benefits. Social media is a great place for some people, teens and preteens included, to find a sense of community and belonging.
