Norway Set to Become Latest Country to Ban Social Media for Under 16s (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0182328278
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/04/24/1649232/norway-set-to-become-latest-country-to-ban-social-media-for-under-16s
- Source link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/norway-government-plans-social-media-051028496.html
> The bill comes after "overwhelming" demand from the public, the government [3]said Friday. It plans to bring the legislation to parliament before the end of the year. The limit will apply up until January 1 the year a child turns 16 with technology companies responsible for age verification, the government said. "We want a childhood where children get to be children," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said in the statement. "Play, friendships, and everyday life must not be taken over by algorithms and screens."
"Children cannot be left with the responsibility for staying away from platforms they are not allowed to use," Karianne Tung, Norway's minister of digitalization, said in the statement. "That responsibility rests with the companies providing these services."
Recent Slashdot coverage of countries instituting or proposing social media bans has included [4]Australia , [5]France , [6]Austria , [7]Indonesia , and [8]Denmark .
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-24/norway-wants-kids-to-be-kids-with-social-media-ban-for-under-16s
[2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/norway-government-plans-social-media-051028496.html
[3] https://www.regjeringen.no/en/whats-new/norwegian-social-media-age-restrictions-law-on-track-to-be-introduced-this-year-this-is-how-the-age-limit-for-social-media-will-work/id3157276/
[4] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/09/2112230/millions-of-australian-teens-lose-access-to-social-media-as-ban-takes-effect
[5] https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/26/01/28/2233210/french-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-social-media-use-by-under-15s
[6] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/27/1826207/austria-plans-social-media-ban-for-under-14s
[7] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/03/06/2116214/indonesia-to-ban-social-media-for-children-under-16
[8] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/15/0120247/like-australia-denmark-plans-to-severely-restrict-social-media-use-for-teenagers
Weird (Score:4, Insightful)
It's almost like there's a conspiracy between all of these governments to force adults to provide ID before they can post online.
Re: (Score:3)
> welcome to socialism. no free speech in norway.
Just better of life in almost every other metric.
Re: (Score:2)
So it's weird that the suicide rate is so high (though Wikipedia claims it's a little lower than the US).
They're 71 out of 184...lower than their neighbors (Score:2)
> So it's weird that the suicide rate is so high (though Wikipedia claims it's a little lower than the US).
WTF are you talking about? [1]They're 71 out of 184 [wikipedia.org]. They're significantly lower than the Russia and the USA. Did you think we don't have the internet here and could easily lookup your bullshit statement?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
Re: (Score:2)
OP can count only to 6
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You've got to factor in Seasonal Affective Disorder. Norway is far from the equator, so they have a large amount of that compared to countries closer to the equator.
Not sure how important that is, as there are now reasonable ways of treating it. (I don't know the details, but it's largely bright, wide spectrum lights...so not too difficult to do if you've got electricity.)
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imagine thinking that
Indeed (Score:2)
Yeap, as if the teens would not be able to communicate online...
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Age limits for social media are being discussed and have been proposed or implemented in 17 European countries, the EU, Canada, the US, 3 countries in Latin America, 4 in Africa and 9 in Asia. Age limits vary slightly but are usually 15 or 16, and then there is the question of how to define social media.
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they are conflating two very different issues: safety and mental health.
- safety is addressable by access restriction, but:
-- success and risk depend on tech implementation and regulation
-- risk of false sense of security
-- it's all or nothing, meaning it also restricts access that is potentially positive
-- it's common knowledge that the vast majority of child sexual abuse happens in family circles
- mental health is not really addressable by access restriction
-- it's mainly addresable by parenting, educatio
Re: (Score:2)
> ...personally, i think the whole thing is a red herring to control public opinion and discourse, the intended target being adult citizens
That's an odd take considering that social media is provided solely for the specific purposes of controlling and influencing peoples opinions. You'd think a freedom-loving person like yourself would want to insulate people from that kind of intense, addictive influence until they've had an opportunity to form opinions of their own.
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> social media is provided solely for the specific purposes of controlling and influencing peoples opinions.
because social media is about the only medium where that works both ways, which is exactly why control is so urgent, moreso since it is progressively replacing traditional (mainstream) media which has been already captive for decades.
it's also not only to silence opinions, they already can do that to a considerable extent (banning, shadowbanning, exclusion, bots, influencers). personal identification would also allow swift action on individuals (mind, they already do that too, but only to people who expose
So they effectively created a game (Score:1)
..where kids find workarounds
Kids are smart and good at finding workarounds
Making it harder might make it more desirable
parents and environment (Score:1)
First off, there's loads fishy about letting the corporations do the checking, that's just wrong in many ways.
Second, you say what about the parents? Well, what about them? If you think parents can avoid their 15 y.o. from doing much of anything that they're really set on doing, you've no idea of parenting.
Now, the really good thing about such bans in my experience was that our under 16 kids couldn't be asked by others to, for instance, join a WhatsApp chat. Meaning, no teacher could use that as an offi
Re: (Score:2)
> They don't have the cash to buy their own phone.
They might. Jobs are not the only way to get money. And used/refurbished phones can be gotten for next to nothing.
> They also pay for the cellular carrier.
Don't need an active cell plan to just use wifi.
Your assumptions are bad but your point is still correct. Most parents know nothing about their children or how to be a parent and should not have them. Most don't even want to be a parent and would rather the government parent for them.
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I was going to reply seriously, but
> ... If you cannot control your fucking children then stop having them or at least stop whining ...
... all I can say is that you sound like someone who shouldn't have any kids nor be near kids in any capacity. Also, I don't think you actually got my message, if you even read it.
How am I supposed to pick up chicks now? (Score:2)
My hunting ground! They be taking my hunting grounds! Well, I can always troll the boba shops. /s
worse than smoking (Score:2)
Social media is worse than smoking and possibly drinking. At least we can treat the physical addiction of smoking, and to some degree the psychological addition.
Our society and our institutions don't have great tools for mass deprogramming people who have been psychologically manipulated by media and tech for their formative years.
Societal collapse is a well-documented phenomenon in human history, and there is likely nothing special about our world culture that makes us any more immune from collapse than a
"That responsibility rests with the companies..." (Score:2, Interesting)
What about the parents?
Re: "That responsibility rests with the companies. (Score:2)
That was my first thought too.
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Realistically most parents aren't monitoring what their kids are doing online. When my kids were in grade 7 and starting to complain that all their friends had devices (and cell phones), I was shocked to learn that many of the kids in their grade had already seen Deadpool. This is an R-rated film, and specifically it has explicit sex scenes and a ton of gore. I'm OK with parents making decisions for their own kids and even watching an R-rated film with them if the parent has OK'd it (I watched the Matrix
Re: "That responsibility rests with the companies. (Score:3)
I don't care if they do or not. It should still be the parents' responsibility and if someone should be punished for their children's actions, it should be them.
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I didn't say 'no parents', I said 'most'. Also, you're posting on slashdot so your 5 parents that you work with are highly likely to be working in the tech world. Sure, people who understand technology are more likely to be skeptical of social media and AI and are going to teach their kids online safety and are going to limit it. But that's certainly a minority of parents. The vast majority of non-computer people will go onto google, type a question in, and 100% believe the entire AI blurb that it spits
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Parents cannot fight the social media companies, which have armies of psychologists working on making their products more addictive. Adults are in as much danger from social media as kids are, IMO.
I want a blanket ban on the business models used by social media platforms. No "engagement+surveillance capitalism" business models should be allowed; they should be illegal. For everyone, not just for kids.