4 comments

  • aquir 1 hour ago
    Good! It is a bit too late, the damage is done, but it's better sooner than later! It took me a lot of effort to keep my daughter away from it but it worked! Social media is like opium or cocaine; better not start using it because there's no way out!
  • aestetix 14 minutes ago
    Here is another idea for how to solve this:

    Why not produce a second kind of phone that is for kids. Maybe have it linked to their parents accounts on a hardware level. The kidphone is physically restricted somehow to only installing certain apps, so that parents can ensure they are safe.

    This approach would put the power back into hands of parents, keep the kids safe, and also prevent all this intrusive age verification stuff from happening.

    Also it is a lot easier to police. You could physically look at the phone the child is using to make sure it is a kidphone. If not, then they are committing a crime, similar to a child smoking a cigarette.

    • blitzar 9 minutes ago
      > Why not produce a second kind of phone that is for kids

      It exists, it is called an iPhone or an Android phone.

      > This approach would put the power back into hands of parents

      They have it ... they don't want it. They don't want to say "no", they want to be friends not parents to their children.

      • xenospn 6 minutes ago
        Most parents are completely powerless when faced with pressure from their kids. Or even worse, their kids’ friends.
  • bradley13 4 hours ago
    As usual, this has nothing to do with protecting children. It is all about forcing people to identify themselves on social media.

    Free speech in Europe is under serious attack.

    • user____name 2 hours ago
      A lot of it is also wrangling Big Tech, which is increasingly an existential geopolitical risk.
    • ben_w 4 hours ago
      I'm old enough to remember when the big names in social media sites decided to copy Facebook's "Real names" policy, which they added themselves for better targeted ads.

      If this is an attack on free speech, the war was lost 15 years ago, even in the USA. Of course, given what's going on in the US right now, one may well respond "yes, the US did lose sometime around then".

      For now though, I'd be more worried about all the verifiers leaking PII due to vibe coding and competent attackers.

      • expedition32 18 minutes ago
        America is run by tech bro billionaires.

        Europe doesn't really have a tech industry and the CCP has the balls to jail them.

    • wormpilled 27 minutes ago
      The silver lining could be that people just spend more time in the real world, discussing important things. Which is definitely good for peoples autonomy and freedom. That's why I'm not too bothered by AI slop for instance, making the internet a worse, less rewarding/novel place in general.
    • beardyw 4 hours ago
      So how would you protect children?
      • jamesnorden 1 hour ago
        That's the responsibility of their parents. Your reply exemplifies exactly why this kind of thing is presented this way, anyone questioning it is immediately asked why "they don't want to protect children", it's the perfect kafkatrap.
        • jbs789 22 minutes ago
          I’m going to guess you are not a parent…? I think the problem is a bit more nuance than you are making out…
      • jjgreen 3 hours ago
        Make child possession of a phone illegal, jail the parents who do not comply.
    • belter 3 hours ago
      Free speech is not a concept that exist in Europe, at least not in the USA form...I dont say it as critique just as a factual statement.

      Free speech as understood in the US, like rooted in the First Amendment protection against government restriction, does not have a direct legal equivalent in Europe. Most countries balance expression against other rights like dignity, public order, etc...

  • 9875325996435 1 hour ago
    And the far-left state media applauds whatever the regime does.
    • stuaxo 45 minutes ago
      The what now ?