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Comment on Norwegian government to set 15-year age limit for using social media

Exactly!

It’s not about Totalizing Enforcement. What it changes is the cultural norm. Not right away but over time.

An age limit on alcohol never stopped anyone of any age to acquire alcohol, but it sets the societal bar for what’s acceptable. You don’t wanna be the parents that gave your kids alcoholic beverages at 13.

It’s always a little jarring how everyone very readily believes that the Scandinavian countries are the happiest in the world, but won’t believe that the incremental policy changes we implement here have any effect 🤷‍♂️

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Urist@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As a case study, we did this in 1988 with a smoking law that was incrementally improved with great success. It was controversial at the time, but is now generally regarded as such an obvious policy: no smoking in or around public transport, in bars and restaurants etc…

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sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

An age limit on alcohol

This has a very clear means of enforcement, since you can require age checks at the point of purchase and revoke licenses if someone violates that.

This law is a lot harder to enforce, because what exactly is “social media”? If the kids are all blocked from Facebook and whatnot, they could rally around the comments section of a local newspaper or something (or even something like Lemmy, which isn’t large enough to properly regulate). Kids are creative, and a lot of parents (at least here) are pretty oblivious to what they actually do on their devices.

So I’m skeptical of this law, but we’ll see how it plays out.

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- lightsblinken@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  its the point where people say “but a sneaky vpn will get around so we may as well do nothing” is equivalent to “my friend can buy me a sneaky drink so we may as well do nothing”… just because you can exploit a law doesn’t make it invalid. enforcement concerns are valid, but it seems reasonable to start with “i agree there is a problem” and go for the 80% rule
  
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That really depends on what the proposed solution looks like. My government implemented a similar law (included porn as well as social media), and the net result is that I either need to upload my government ID or use a VPN to access the site. I don’t trust these sites w/ my government ID, so I use a VPN.
    
    When my kids want to sign up for social media accounts (and I’m okay with that), I’ll teach them how to use a VPN to get around the law so neither they nor I have to upload our IDs, and they’ll probably teach their friends and whatnot.
    
    That said, if age verification checks were simplified to a debit/credit card payment authorization (and not even an actual payment), then you’d automatically prove that they’re old enough to have access to a debit/credit card, no government ID needed. The bank will check your ID, and if you’re a minor, the parent will have to approve the account. That would be acceptable to me, because maintains the bar for most kids, while still having a reasonable way for a parent to provide access without doxxing either of them (except the name printed on the card, that is).
    
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    virku@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Most kids get a bank account and BankID with it at 13. Implementing a solution to use it to verify if you are older than X years old would actually be less work than your proposed solution, both for the social media site, banks, the kids and the parents.
    
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