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Have some of you never seen a single dystopian scifi film????
???????????
The idea that people on the fediverse would support this blows my mind.
Idiots
Or you know, you can let parents take care of their own kids. Stop telling me how to parent my own kids in my own house!
Also obligatory reminder, consumer home routers have had parental controls for years. You can use these functions to whitelist specific websites for your children, while simultaneously block everything not on said whitelist.
On top of this, this is the most privacy respectful option as it means no third party is snooping on what sites your visiting, no one is collecting analytics, and no personal information is made available to said third parties to be hacked and compromised, ultimately protecting you from any identity theft.
If parents could make responsible decisions then this would never have been an issue.
We could make it a form of child abuse for parents who let their kids on these websites.
Parents suck at parenting most of the time. That's why there are rules specific to minors in a lot of things.
Although for the most part they are terrible useless rules, like movie and game ratings which pretty much everyone that I know of ignores
There are a lot of things parents can do on their own, but their mental capacity is limited, and things like this make it easier. Peer pressure exists, this helps level the playing field. It also makes it availible to all parents, regardless of how they get their internet (not always a home router).
I can also always stop my kid from looking at advertisements targeted directly at kids as a parent. But it's a lot fucking easier in Québec where it's banned and I didn't have to deal with cartoons of cereal boxes.
Between public wifi's and companies harvesting the data of children; this goes way beyond you or anyone's ability to parent.
The notion that this is a failure of parents is just another lie social media convinced you so they could keep preying upon your children.
Don't trust you kid with public WiFi? Don't give them a device that can use public WiFI. Lock it down or lock it up.
Don't want to put in the effort to supply your kids with a safe device that gives them a filtered experience, well that just sounds like you don't want to be a parent.
Parental apathy is paving the way to a locked down internet.
While I agree mostly, you’re acting like getting their hands on an uncontrolled device is hard. Even a decade ago, an old smart phone could be had for a song. Hell, people throw away phones with cracked screens all the time. Then just hop on a neighbors WiFi and bobs your uncle.
Do I think that means all people should have to verify their age? Absolutely not. But this isn’t necessarily something that can be solved with “just be a parent.”
I don't see how uploading a picture with my personal information to every website I visit would be a solution to this through. Now what about enthusiasts that want to host a website for a blog (like myself) do I need to start to collect your personal information when you choose to visit my website? What will I be able to do with said information?
Instead a simple solution would be something similar to what libraries and librarians do.
Websites should be classified based on age brackets, genres, and any other useful identifying information similar to how books are classified in libraries.
I would propose that a local government funded initiative be setup that to allows the same equivalent of a librarian to curate the internet into defined whitelists based on these criteria.
From there parent then can choose or not choose to activate these specific whitelists either at the home network level or device level.
All this tech already exists, and for tech-savvy users, this functions basically the same way as a pihole or AdGuard, these can also be completely setup both in your home network and still function while out.
You're conflating UK age verification laws for accessing porn with Social Media bans in Australia.
There's a difference between prohibiting social media companies from providing services to 13 year olds and legally requiring companies to verify ID.
So how would any proposed laws be enforceable without some sort of ID verification (ie. Age verification) in place?
Or are we talking a simple "confirm you're not a robot button", but for age? Similar to what porn sites have asking if you're over 18.
Or would you prefer everyone including yourself need to upload something like a drivers license to access websites... Like Lemmy for example?
Yes, there is a difference, but one leads to the other. How do you think the bans will be enforced?
Force everyone back into the real world, that's where the important things are happening anyways.
People are so ignorant asking for Australia’s age verification. That’s basically asking Ottawa to take away their freedom.
I mean the better option would be regulating social media companies and forcing them to change their design to not be as harmful or addictive for all users, but that is a lot harder to do, especially as a small country that isn't host to any of those companies.
A social media ban for kids is not as ideal, but it's enactable now and will curb some harm.
The issue is how it will be enacted. It will invariably require transmitting personally identifying information across a network and for it to be stored somewhere for processing. Even if this is done as safely as possible with government systems, there is always the risk of data theft and exposure as well as excluding people that don't trust the government at all, like pretty much every Indigenous person I've ever met.
It as well provides the government with a system and store of information that could be used as tool of oppression.
Simple home router Whitelist enacted through a parental control setting.
Completely "local" and no personal information is given to a third party website.
Now the question is could we create a job/field were the persons responsible would curates and classifies each website? They could classify based on ages, genres and other useful tags.
What could we call these creators of information?
I mean, in an ideal world, you just implement it at the OS level. You don't need to send PII off device ever.
Why does it matter if it's a checkbox when you sign up or a number held by your OS? Leave the OS alone and hold parents accountable for the actions of their children.
The problem is that this basically makes these checks mandatory. You can choose not to use Facebook, but you cant choose to not use an operating system. Plus it might mess with linux development to have this at the OS level
People don't seem to be asking for age verification. They (we) want social media ban. There's no question about age verification in the survey, let alone intrusive software. When asked who ahould be responsible:
More than seven-in-ten (72%) Canadians agree that parents should be primarily responsible for regulating teens’ social media use, not governments.
This could be easily handled by placing the respinsibility on parents, like it is for many other things.
I've said this before and I'll say it again - it's much easier to answer my child's question as to why she's not allowed on social media with "it's illegal" when most of her peers hear the same at home, than some version of "it's bad for you" while most of her peers are allowed to use it.
But how do you uphold a social media ban based on age without some form of age verification process?
No thank you on submitting my ID just for it to be leaked in some data breach down the line.
I imagine like other laws that threaten warnings, fines and such for parents who let their kids do this or that.
No ID submission, def fuck that. If there's an electronic component it has to be gov't-run and it has to just divulge whether the user is allowed to use that service. Not share age, or other info.
But again, ideally I want a law that tells parents to not let children on social media. That would be enough to mitigate the vast majority of the damage. It would let rebels (parents or kids) do it anyway if they're smart enough to not get caught, while keeping the 80% away from it.
Who goes to prison now when a kid is found to be using social media?
And now what counts as social media? Is it only Facebook, or does it include things like WhatsApp, Mastodon, Instagram, Bluesky, Lemmy, a blog or chatroom?
You don't have to false dichotomy it. There's other options than prison. The gov't determines what's social media. There can be diff criteria. The determination can be made by a regulatory body similar to the CRTC that updates what counts as social media now and then.
LOL!
It has been known for a long time that social media is harmful for kids. If parents wouldn't parent properly for the good of their children before, then a toothless law (there would be no way to know children are using the sites) won't make them parent now.
How would sites know there are children using the services? How would the authorities know to issue fines? The only way these things happen is with some form of ID system.
Yes I'm looking for essentially a half-toothless law with punishment "if reported" like it is for the laws against leaving your child alone. Someone has to report you. If you're not reported, you aren't punished. Yet everyone I know complies with very few occasional exceptions, even if all of them think it's a stupid law. Even half-toothless laws can change the overall situation. All I need is the majority of her peers to have been forbidden social media. I can do the rest. If everyone she knows is on social... it's my word against the world and while I might be able to pull off argument that sticks, it'll be difficult.
This shifts responsibility away from the large social media companies, who are the ones doing the harm. It’s like punishing parents for letting kids smoke rather than the cigarette companies for advertising to kids
Completely agree. I just think an attempt to regulate the corpos would result in mandate for age verification by the corpos collecting IDs. There are obviously smarter ways to do such regulation, I just don't think a Liberal or Consrrvative gov't would go for such solution. That's why I'd be okay with shifting responsibility. It's not what I'd like but I'd tolerate it and it'll do the job I think.
Fair enough
I support a social media ban for people over 16 too. I notice the people criticizing this offer no solution except “parent better”. I’m surprised Lemmy has such a stupid and regressive take. I think if the story were about the results of this issue, such as a rise in misogyny or racism amongst youth people would rightly blame unregulated, corporate social media for landing us in the massive right-wing backslide we’re in right now.
Yet these threads are indistinguishable from the tech bro anarcho-capitalist solution to these problems of “fuck you, figure it out lol”. We’ve waited too long and the right wing has already poisoned Gen Z men and turned them into Joe Rogan loving, misogynistic, racist little monsters. The first generation in modern history to be more conservative than their parents.
I don’t love age verification either. It’s a deeply flawed solution to a massive, unchecked problem that is already unravelling decades of social progress. But I’m not hearing much in the way of alternative solutions. I would prefer massive regulation of all social media platforms, but that’s political poison and will never happen. So before you knee-jerk to “freedom and personal responsibility”, look at the world right now and acknowledge that we need to do better at a societal level. Then come with solutions, not just criticism.
I do think parenting better is a lot of the problem though.
You don't have to buy kids phones, and you can set up parental controls. Parental controls have always been annoying and imperfect, but nobody bothers to set them up. For years parents have been setting up Facebook accounts for their kids too to post photos of whatever, bit that conf just be a freaking email.
And even with a ban, social media doesn't magically stop being a problem when you're 16 or 18. 20 year olds are less happy with it. 30 year olds are too.
So yeah, I'm okay with a minimum age on social media, but everyone just faked that before. I'm okay with on device attestation of age, in theory, but who gets to decide what's "mature"? If Polievre had won we would be blocking LGBTQ and pro trans content already.
Seriously, this tech fucking terrifies me. It's end game for democracy, protests, gay rights, minority rights, privacy, controversial politicians, and any corporate competition.
So here's what I'm not okay with:
- building a (US run) surveillance state, where everything you look at and do is logged to your government profile
- having to apply for a wank permit, or sharing my own sure with the government.
- building a nanny state that can just block all access to LGBTQ different
- making it impossible for Canadian companies to succeed because of unreasonable regulatory capture
Poor parenting is arguably some of the problem, but it’s not a realistic solution. The right loves solutions like “personal responsibility” because they are basically excuses to do nothing.
It’s your fault that tech bro oligarchs have hijacked your child’s brain with billions of dollars in research to create the most addictive thing possible, just like it’s your fault that your child is overweight when they are constantly exposed to food that is engineered from the ground up to manipulate the pleasure centres in their brain. Is it true? I mean, a little. Sure. But are there steps we can take as a society to make that job less than completely impossible and a constant battle? Yes.
I think it’s much easier to say to parents “just do this” than it is to do that when you have a real person in front of you pleading that your rules are way worse than their peers and will serve to alienate them from everyone they know.
Parental controls are not a solution, let’s get real. You can buy a SIM with data and a functional internet device for less than $50. Hell, you can get castoff devices for free. You can get free internet access anywhere. Parental controls are a tool that you can and should use to increase barriers, however they are not a panacea.
Regardless, the argument here still boils down to “wait for people to fix themselves and get mad when they don’t”. This is never a solution. We don’t say to people “just eat more iodine and you won’t get goiters”. We put iodine in shit that they eat and solve the problem.
I agree, this solution is painfully flawed. I don’t know what to do though, and I sincerely believe our fear of regulating online content has landed us in this current mess. I think the path we were on before Trump, deplatforming hateful content, was actually pretty good. You could see the temperature change as Nazis, misogynists and Trump himself were kicked off platform after platform and relegated to their own crappy little corners of the internet.
Then this shit came roaring back, Musk bought Twitter, Zuck went full facist and Trump came back into office and everything went to shit. In the space of a year, we now have the richest man in the world on one of the biggest social media platforms and the most followers amplifying literal Nazis, white supremacists and misogynists on the daily. You spend 10 minutes on YouTube watching gaming content and you will have videos from every right-wing influencer in your feed competing for your attention.
It’s so, so bad. Forget happiness stats, we’re letting the far-right brainwash a generation and make them actual Nazis under our nose and we’ve done fuck all about it. We will look back on this period as one of the biggest generational losses of control we’ve ever had and it will take decades to undo the damage, if we ever can.
I feel your concerns here, I really do. I have them all myself. I don’t want harm to come to marginalized groups as a result of tying online activity to a real world ID. But I’m not aware of anywhere to start that has any political support besides here, and I truly believe that letting this continue unchecked will be far worse for us in the long run.
It’s not correct to say social media is why kids are turning right wing.
A massive societal failure to meet boys where they are or engage with them for decades is largely at fault. Not parenting boys is a problem. Shutting down men’s issues discussions falsely as misogyny is a problem.
The right wing podcasters went and saw that these kids were lost and they lied to them and sold them out. That’s why we are where we are.
And those kids will be able to listen to Spotify or watch YouTube and will have no issue with finding Joe Rogan or Andrew Tate without ID. That’s not social media at all, it’s broadcast and hosted websites. Tate even offers a school to teach kids for fees and takes in millions. That won’t be getting tied up in social media bans either.
I just can’t watch us go “the only prevention is spying and giving up all personal autonomy”. It’s the subject of nightmares and 80 years of dystopian books. But now Meta is paying billions lobbying to track everyone everywhere and we fucking love it.
If your kid will go to the lengths of buying burner phones, SIMs, and hoarding devices to get past your age restrictions, they’ll go to the effort of using a friend’s ID or buying a fake one too.
There is no perfect solution here, but the presented age restrictions are orders of magnitude worse than doing nothing if you ask me.
These problems are not pure social media problems, they’re societal problems we can’t keep pretending are just due to bad people tricking kids on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok.
I think the issues you describe are arguably part of the situation, but we saw a massive increase these right wing, bigoted attitudes almost overnight. That doesn’t just happen because boys and men are neglected. Men enjoy massive societal privilege and power, married with some expectations and pressure. Mostly put on them by other men who benefit from retaining that power structure or who are deathly terrified of change. It’s toxic masculinity in a nutshell.
The position you describe is frequently dismissed as misogyny because it is one many misogynists hold. Men have had to give up privilege and make space for women, are no longer the centre of the universe and all things must cater to them, and that’s why they are easily swayed to right wing talking heads who tell them actually, society has failed you because they think women and minorities are more important than you. We think you’re great as is, so you don’t have to shut up, give up anything or make space for others. We’ll put you back where you belong, right on top. I can’t sympathize with that. It’s just hateful selfishness, pure and simple.
Kids don’t find Rogan or Tate. It’s shoved in their face by social media companies because it’s engagement bait. Social media is the starting point. I can’t stop people from seeking these things out, there will always be a group. But deplatforming this content from social media will massively reduce the number of people that are exposed to it. Short of that, removing children from these spaces will do the same, at least for them.
I don’t think this is worse than doing nothing. I think we have seen where we’ve come in a couple years. This is so much worse than anyone could have imagined. If it helps, I would much prefer deplatforming of hateful content enforced by the social media companies with harsh penalties and strict regulation. Pushing these people to the corners of the internet does help, nobody gives a fuck what happens on Truth Social for example outside of Trump’s ramblings. I agree that Meta amongst other companies is trying to push toothless legislation that will only further their ability to track and sell each individual user’s data. I also agree the idea of “submit your ID to every social media company” is about the worst shit imaginable and not a solution. So I don’t think we fully disagree.
But I’m not willing to turn a blind eye to it, and I’m not waiting for idealistic solutions like “parent boys better” to magically solve everything.
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
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