EXCLUSIVE: EU could announce social media ban for kids in September
Von der Leyen is expected to use her annual State of the Union speech to unveil plans for EU-wide age restrictions on social media
EXCLUSIVE: EU could announce social media ban for kids in September
Von der Leyen is expected to use her annual State of the Union speech to unveil plans for EU-wide age restrictions on social media
Depends what counts as social media. YouTube could very much be implicated as a social media. Reddit/Lemmy obviously. There’s a ton of legitimately educational material on both platforms. What about Steam? With chat/friends/community function, isn’t that a social media? Where is the line drawn?
How well have these studies accounted for neuro-divergence in kids (something Europe has generally done a pretty poor job accommodating)? What about kids with certain disabilities that put them indoors often if not essentially always? Isn’t the isolation worse for their mental health?
Is there not some point at which you really do just have to depend on parents being parents? I accept that some state involvement is necessary sometimes, but this really feels pretty solidly in the purview of something that should be up to parental judgement.
Youtube is a massive problem for boys. There may be a couple of educational things on there but it’s adjacent to awful recommended content.
I would debate the value of the “educational” content as well. We certainly aren’t getting smarter through the internet. Read a book, find a mentor, stay in school.
So is it worth losing access to Veritasium, Extra History, Professor Dave Explains, countless sources for learning programming…? This is like banning kids from TV because Jackass exists. It’s always been parents’ job to help guide their kids towards media that is more wholesome and fulfilling rather than tripe.
True of books, too, by the way… the written word isn’t an automatically higher art. Pulp has always been a thing, and anyone who actually does do a lot of reading can confirm there is a lot of tripe out there right now in book form.
Learning to use digital content is a big part of school. It isn’t the 70’s anymore. This is like pushing for abstinence only education… it is pretty much proven, from sex ed to drugs, not to work. You need to teach responsible use.
Youtube as a platform is trash (in my opinion). Not to say there aren’t some gems in there.
I’m not familiar with the channels you mentioned but trust your judgment. I would love to see a platform curated with high quality content.
“Hey mom and dad can I use ‘historyTube’” “Absolutely!”
Easy.
The analogies don’t really hold. Traditional Broadcasters have some standards. Jackass is Disney compared to the back alley swamp that is YouTube.
Think about the experience of going into a library or bookstore vs. YouTube, the content mix is not comparable.
The algorithms, content scale, and access is another world.
Nebula. It isn’t perfect, and it needs more creators, but that’s the closest I’ve come.
Well, not if it’s banned as social media, that’s the issue.
Broadcasters did because they had laws restricting their content. Cable very much did not.
My experience is that the stuff pushed by most libraries as their hot new items, things to read, general recommendations, are pretty much slop. Romantasy slop is a big genre all its own.
Which isn’t to say people can’t enjoy it, but it really isn’t much better than YouTube slop.
Now that, I agree is an issue, but that’s just as true for adults as we’ve seen. I’d have less issue restricting how algorithms are pushed than mandatory ID… it would benefit all of society, not just kids, and it’s actually a positive improvement on privacy since it disincentivizes profile building.
The Australian ban, and proposed bans in other countries (generally I only looked at a couple) aren’t targeting things like Nebula though, focus is on large scale user to user platforms.
I just checked out YouTube front page in a fresh browser and it’s several tiers below Romantasy in my opinion. You may have a more personalized experience, but the front door of Youtube is… nauseating.
The medium matters as well, the audio, visuals, length, like a sleezy, hyper active content casino.
Anyway, I cheer for any friction added to these tech companies because they are doing so much harm, so anything to slow them down.
But I do get the concerns around IDs and privacy (I personally wouldn’t provide any). I think regulatory capture concerns are real as well. My preference would be on targeting the recommendation systems, and also making the platforms liable for content they are broadcasting.
Is that really a good reason for banning its use for kids? Again, this is like shutting off library access because the stuff presented at the front is slop… my library presents slop at the front door, I don’t think that should stop kids from going inside.
I’d also point out at least my library doesn’t do any age verification or ID checks either.
I think this is cutting off your nose to spite your face though when it allows… mandates, rather, a huge collection of data. I’m not so sure big tech is really against this… early iterations of code to verify age were said to not store any data, but auditors found that to not be the case. That was walked back, but I find it very unlikely they won’t just do it again when there’s less scrutiny.
Especially since kids are likely going to just get on through backdoors anyway, we’ve likely done very little to stop data collection on them while handing them most adults on a silver platter. That’s in no way a score for the little guy.
I’m totally on board with fucking tech companies, I just don’t think this does it while simultaneously it fucks us.
It’s not at all comparable. If I go into a library and get a book on fixing cars, the librarian doesn’t follow me around suggesting Joe Rogan.
Kids books from the library don’t autoplay a pipeline of incrementingly extreme, dangerous or vapid content.
I don’t see the value in the data being greater than the cost of administrating a patchwork of varied regulations across the globe.
Most people access their libraries via digital platforms like Libby as well these days. Unless you’re just going full Luddite and we’re just saying no digital access to anything at all.
This is a very strange position from someone posting in this community. You don’t think, even assuming no ill intentions, there’s any security risk in allowing big tech to access, and likely store, official identification? Data leaks happen all the time. If you wouldn’t publicly post your identification information, you should see the value in that data.
Speak for yourself. I am, without a doubt.