80
They keep doing this but don't ban platforms like X that work relentlessly to undermine their political system and pumps out CSAM
Liberal institutions are at a point were subservience to capital's fasciszation project overrides their self preservation. You see this with how the Democrats in the US are in constant, open disregard of the demands of a clear supermajority of their constituents, you see this in Europe were conservative and sucdem parties are enabling fascists even though it means they lose voters to them. Because they do not care about winning elections anymore, they do not care about preserving liberal bourgeoisdemocratism any longer, they care about fulfilling the demand of the dictatorship of capital and that demand is brutal, coercive, openly violent and overarching control of the masses through outright fascism. Macron, Merz, Starmer, they all work towards creating political systems that will eventually be wielded against their own parties once the fascists they have supported and elevated are handed over the palace keys. But they go along because the left will be hit first and because their masters in their towers of glass command it, and they are obedient lackeys that click their heels reflexively when the haute bourgeois shouts Sieg Heil.
God, this is beautiful…
Internet ID law in disguise. Soon there simply won't be any place to VPN --to-- that doesn't hit you with these demands.
People will be checking to see if their VPN has a server in the PDRK so they can get on line.
Would the EUDI (EU Digital Identity) wallet solve that?
The goal of the project is to create a digital wallet where people put their important things like ID, when companies ask you to prove you're over 18 they don't get your digital ID for it, instead they get a token from your wallet that says "Yes this person is over 18". The company validates that this token is real with the EU body. The idea being that the company does not get your identity and the government also does not know who the token came from, they only verify the token was real.
I've never seen it talked about here and wonder what others think about it. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/EUDIGITALIDENTITYWALLET/pages/694487738/EU+Digital+Identity+Wallet+Home
Does every single website you visit have to do this transaction?
If they have content that's only for over 18s?
It's essentially similar to a one-use password generator, the wallet generates the token (password) then central hub verifies it without either knowing the identity.
Maybe you'd only need to do it once with each site? Then the sites would assume the account owner is always over 18.
Well hexbear is a social media site. So does it have to participate?
The definition of social media can't just be a list of currently known big sites because people will just move elsewhere.
It can and will be and governments will be fine with 10% of people going elsewhere while the majority do not.
Whichever few countries hold out are going to have a bustling datacenter industry. Much like Tuvalu in the old days.
The west is just catching up to China which implemented screen time limits for under 18s a year ago.
There is a growing body of evidence that shows that social media use during development years is changing the way brains usually develop, we don't know what effect that will have 20 years down the line but it seems pretty risky to just let it happen and see. There's also plenty of evidence linking to social harm and depression.
Chinese limits:
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Children under 8 are limited to 40 minutes daily
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Ages 8–15 are limited to 1 hour
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Ages 16–17 are allowed 2 hours.
The west will come up with its own boundaries and it will spread everywhere because the science is solid, these services are genuinely damaging to attention spans.
Some evidence:
Kids that spend 3hours or more on social media per day have 2x risk of anxiety and depression.
Another study showing it causes depression
It literally changes the way kids develop parts of their brain, we don't know what the effects of that will be longterm.
There is a downside to outright banning it though. Social media use is well studied to drastically improve the quality of life for LGBT children who find important social support and communities. They show decreased depression and anxiety from their usage.
I like China's approach better because it doesn't impose a blanket ban, this means that the good side can still exist while the bad effects are limited.
How do they impose it?
Devices have a mandatory child-mode that tracks it. ISPs too which requires a login with account attached to a real ID. This wasn't really very difficult for China to implement though because they've used real ID for online accounts for multiple decades already with associated normalisation and trust.
I think you can achieve the same thing with a degree of separation through something like the EU's digital wallet initiative so neither the website nor the government actually gets an identity of the user. I have not heard criticisms of that but it also seems like a fairly new idea, some may emerge.
Mark Zuckerberg should be in prison, children should get to go on the computer.
children should get to go on the computer
Yes, but the school cirriculums should teach them media literacy. On computers that run a Linux distribution that requires you use command lines a lot.
The year is 204X in the United Soviet States of America. Its the end of my first term at Michael Parenti Technical Highschool, and I'm late for homeroom.
I make it to my desk just before the bell rings, and it looks like attendance hasn't been taken yet. I pull my Tuxbook T40 out of my bag.
It weighs like 20lbs, its battery light is amber, I'll have to charge it soon. Its been almost a year since I last plugged it in.
The room is a jumble of humming fans, idle chatter, and the sound of post codes from our laptops.
Our substitute is taking attendance on a note pad, he can't figure out how to launch the TUI for FOSSschool.
My laptop finally boots. It runs EdtechOS, some atomic Linux distro the Tech Education Workers Collective makes us use.
[ Welcome Student! You have (5) new message(s)!]
I type Mail into the terminal. EdtechOS doesn't have a GUI. Something about 'unnecessary allocation of labor'
its mostly junk. I have a message from my Political Economy teacher.
She gave my report on the socioeconomic conditions of the Second Great World Anti-Fascist War an F... She said its revisionist, and to see her during my flex period.
Amber.
Good bot
As usual, I think the stated message is good, but this will continue to be used as a pretext for the sudden and ever increasing clamping down of internet surveillance and censorship, which will overall harm everyone. 
VPNs for all
Children under 15 should only be allowed to use Microsoft Encarta from 1998 and then you can gradually increase the amount of computer they can use
When they're 17 they can use fark.
And Paint
This will probably make it easier for parents and cis people to abuse children, so I'm against it.
hexbear affected?
As expected they're just doing liberal platitudes.
Nothing is being done to protect someone's body image from predatory beauty industry. Nothing is being done to start treating bullying like a serious issue. Nothing is being done to reduce violence, just hide it.
I'm all in favor of actually making the world a better place and significantly limiting child's access to electronic devices connected to online platforms, but so far their actions haven't shown me that they value human lives over profit.
i dunno about kids, but i think most social media is harmful to people over 60. and people between 40-60.
should prob get on that.
I'm not entirely against reducing phone time but banning social media at the same time all those "AI" "friends" are on the rise, come on, seriously?
this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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