Every country should set 16 as the minimum age for social media accounts

I think stuff like this, is trying to recreate a world that doesn't exist anymore. With whom, are you gonna go play in the woods with, that haven't already been bulldozed into housing and strip malls? Do you need to watch YouTube only on a parent's TV that's logged in, even for homework help? Some kids start working at 14 or 15: they can be trusted to work somewhere outside of home, but not online? What about Steam games? What about any games? What about hobby & fan forums, that have nothing to do with "grooming" or grabbing eyeballs? What's next, an Internet license?

- Will the ban in australia catch everyone, No. - Does this present some privacy issues, Yes.

But the reality is we needed to do something to combat what this is doing to our kids, while it might not be harmful content per-see there are serious effects its having to attention spans, warped perceptions of normality that these algos do to both normal folks, older folks and young children.

What i think the aus legislation does tho is give parents ammunition to enforce good practices on their kids that might have been difficult when "everyone at school uses tiktok etc".

Much the same way drinking laws etc give parents an ability to push back on underage drinking etc. It's illegal is a far easier argument to make to a teenager vs it'll rot your brain.

This is not a black and white issue and those that treat it as such do a dis-service to a serious problem, we need to iterate on smart legislation and controls (zero trust proofs for example) that allow for safe and open internet for everyone.

Surprised to see this seemingly presented positively on HN.

Social media "feels" like it should be uniquely bad for children but the evidence is low-quality and contradictory. For example, high social media use is associated with anxiety and depression, but which direction does that relationship run? Meanwhile there are documented benefits especially for youth who are members of marginalized groups (e.g. LGBTQ). Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of problems with the big social media companies. I just think they affect adults too and that we should address them directly.

But setting that aside, the practical implications of age gate laws are terrible. The options are basically to have an LLM guess your age based on your face, or uploading sensitive identity documents to multiple sites and hope they are stored and processed securely and not reused for other purposes.

But OK let's assume social media is always bad for kids and also that someone invents a perfect age gate... kids are just going to find places to hang out online that are less moderated and less regulated and less safe. How is that not worse?

I like that this article at least links to a document with the features they want under scrutiny, but they do avoid a definition, and nearly all networked systems have at least some of the features in the document[1].

Is google docs social media? It certainly has social features and I've been witness to cyber-bullying via a shared google doc.

What about Spotify? It has social features far beyond just sharing playlists

WhatsApp? Discord? MMS?

1: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GVO7sNuCNmNwqVK64PHQ...

I absolutely agree that gamified, algorithm-driven social media should be banned for those under 16. My issue is how that should be done. I sure as shit don't want to have to present my ID to look at dank memes.

The impacts of social media on children (and adults for that matter) are becoming more clear by the day but a question, I think, is is it the format/function or is it the algorithm to drive the feed that is the issue? So, for instance, pushing damaging teen influencers at a child's feed or pushing negative/polarizing content, etc etc. Could there be safe social media, that wouldn't need verification, if for instance the algorithm was 'dumb' and just showed friend feeds and feeds specifically selected to follow?

Or perhaps we should watch what happens in Australia and draw lessons from it? I have a hard time telling a teenager that they cannot socialize with people just because it is via electronic means. I also do not like teenagers identities manipulated for commercial ends. Though we have done this since the 1950s. Also shouldn't we ban MTV and rock and roll music in general? It's destroying the youth!

Is anyone else old enough to remember when D&D and rock music was supposedly ruining the lives of young people and causing them to worship Satan?

Great way to absolve social media platforms of any responsibility to moderate content.

"What do you mean we need to moderate our content? There's no kids on our platform, so moderation means limiting adults' free speech"

I'd go for 80 as the minimum. As if adults are immune to the depressing doomscrolling and skewed algorithms on social media

The question is, what falls in the scope of social media?

Would IRC count? And considering it's not entirely difficult to set up an IRCd server (you can literally run it on a spare computer or inside a VM), would the state be branding teenagers as criminals for doing so?

Am I crazy for thinking setting age limits is just a lazy half measure by politicians who don't want to actually draft meaningful legislation for social media?

Like the negatives of social media aren't just isolated to just kids and while shielding them from it is generally a good thing it still seems like putting duct tape over a giant crack in the foundation.

Forbid YouTube Shorts too.

This post appears directly above "So, you’ve hit an age gate. What now?". The irony

What counts as social media? Is discord social media? What about Roblox? What about youtube?

Many sites don't need accounts to access, is the account the issue or the access?

Re-posting an older comment of mine on the subject:

Here's a couple of arguments I had to deal with whilst expressing my support for electronics ban at schools including a blanket social media ban:

1) "Since when do we consider it OK for the government to intervene between the parents and their children and telling them whats good and whats not? They know best."

2) "Whoever does not want to use electronics at school grounds are free to do so who are we to constrain them? Also, forbidding things never works let them learn."

3) "I think you are underestimating children; if they see that what they are doing with electronics affects them in any way, they will stop using them. Lets give them some credit and let them make their mistakes."

All of which are anti phone-ban/anti-regulation/pro-liberal/freemarketeering masquerading as a product of independent thought.

There are two objectives that western regimes have for pushing these draconian measures: the first is to end the historically unprecedented era of free and anonymous political speech by ordinary people. The second is to prevent anti-imperialist arguments and perspectives from reaching the eyes and ears of young western people. Young people will only hear the perspectives taught in government school and on corporate media. No choosing a different perspective early in life.

On the idea that this is needed to “protect children” it is the job of parents not the state to decide what media their children consume. If you want to make that easier for parents then regulate and mandate parental controls and make sure parents always have the choice.

This too shall pass.

In 2050 people will say "Do you remember social media?" and someone will say "Oh yeah, those online systems where everything you said was used to build a marketing profile of you? Where every picture you posted of your girlfriend / wife / sister / daughter / aunt / grandmother or child was taken by some weirdo and turned into porn? Where our kids hung out and were radicalized by fanatics and foreign powers?"

"Oh yeah, whatever happened to them?"

If this were to take effect with the bulk of social life taking place digitally we can expect minimum voting ages to be decreased the same and in the case of the US, the age of consent for sex to be standardized in the same direction too with a deemphasis on 18 as the de facto minimum at the cultural level.

And we can expect 15 year olds to hit the workforce full-time around then too I reckon. Or younger. Imagine 9 year olds stowed away in Waymo taxi trunks with socket wrenches and cyberdecks.

Whenever this comes up people point out, 'Come on, let parents decide for their kids!' -- I sympathize with this argument, but let me explain why I don't believe that actually fixes the real problem. For reference, I'm gen-Z, COVID hit while I was in highschool, and I have seen and to this day see Tiktok / Reels / Shorts used every day by my friends (and to some extent me).

I may not be having kids for a while yet, but if I had teenagers today I would absolutely move somewhere where it is not legal for kids to have social media accounts. The underlying problem is that this isn't an individual problem, it's a social one! If a teenager's friends all have social media, he is going to be left out! It is going to severely hurt his life. Even if he never watches short-form video (the main component of social media I think is detrimental), his friends will! When I was in highschool sometimes my friends and I would get together and we would be bored, have no clue what to do. Instead of messing around doing random things, a couple of them would just open up Instagram reels and bam, afternoon wasted. If the half the group isn't trying to do something, you aren't going to do anything. Contrast this with before I was a teenager and before phones, I vividly remember me and my friends just exploring and doing random things. It's just a different experience and I think social media needs to be banned for everyone for it to be effective.

If something is unacceptable for a 15 year old, it is unacceptable for the majority of the adult population too. I do not support age restrictions on information in any form. If you don't want your kids to do or view certain things, that is your problem to solve. There are plenty of parental control options and apps already, we have had legislation proposed to label adult content, the reason all this verification crap keeps getting pushed is because corporations want your full identity to sell and fascist supporters want to dox everyone and their ideas and activities for the government to control and punish people for.

Is this ban actually effective and going to be enforced, anyway? My 15-year old niece just returned from Australia where she reports she was definitely still able to access Tik Tok and Instagram while in the country. Her similarly-aged Australian cousins thought it was all a bit of a joke too, apparently.

I am not a fan of governments controlling the internet and of Australia in this regard in particular, but Feature 4 makes it all acceptable to me. We shouldn't ban all of web 2.0, people, including children, have right to talk to each other, but gamified, attention-leeching design is absolutely harmful, and I would be happy to see banned for everyone

> Every Country Should Set 16 as the Minimum Age for [Manipulation] Media Accounts

FTFY.

That is the real problem, no? The combination of surveillance, analysis of the surveilled data, very active feed manipulation based on that surveillance, and indirect business models that both finance and direct the specific manipulation.

Kids should be social. They should connect.

I think we do a grave disservice to our ability to reason about online safety by letting "social" be applied to what is largely interaction with adversarial/amoral value extracting algorithms, model-in-the-middle intermediating human connections, as if the result was any kind of natural social behavior.

Just ban social media entirely. You would find a lot benefits to society for doing exactly that.

Maybe the problem isn't the teens. Bullying is bullying no matter where it happens.

Profiting via dark patterns is despicable, whether it's preying on teens or the elderly. How many elderly people are fed distorted, sensational news and believe it wholesale? At least our teens have learned to be skeptics.

Instead of punishing the innocent to gatekeep a system that is one of the most important innovations in history, maybe we should focus on the root cause: the crappified, ad-based internet that glorifies "clicks" above all else.

We might have to face the fact that "free" accounts have become too expensive. If the cost of a free internet is a business model that monetizes outrage and addiction, it's not working. I don't love the idea of paid-only access or enforced identity, but applying a single standard to everyone might be better than what we have now.

I still believe in the free internet, and I know what I want to do to build it: Make excellent content. Teach good things.

I want to prove the value of an open and positive system.

Good luck trying to enforce this!

I think it would be much easier to pressure the ~ten companies or whatever to implement policies.

Does it worry anyone else that this is all actually a government attack on anonymity?

I have 2 kids and I agree under 16s shouldn’t be on social media.

But everyone then has to prove they’re 16+

Is this just stealth digital ID cards?

Or am I conspiracy theorist?

Honestly it should be even older than that. Should be 21. Let's not let easily influenced teenagers on what are effectively mass advertising platforms designed to make the likes of Mark Zuckerberg even more money.

It’s hard not to blame Meta for this.

Did they really need to push the evil lever to 100% just for engagement? Or could they have pushed back on shareholders just a teeny bit, in the name of long term legislative freedom?

No, social media companies need to fucking moderate.

I don't really like how western governments are coordinating all these massive law changes together. Something distinctly sinister about it.

People under 16 should not be permitted to socialize or express themselves, nor should they be allowed to hear words from adults at all, not just online.

/s

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It’s better to just ban social media all together. It clearly doesn’t provide enough good value to society, regardless of age.

This would disadvantage young business owners, cutting them off from a crucial marketing channel for businesses in the modern age.