• Urist@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    For all those that think this is the government overstepping with an unenforceable law, you are not grasping the intent correctly. Declaring that we have democratically decided to have an age limit for social media means that we have laid the groundwork for collective action. This means that suddenly schools, parents, teenagers themselves, etc. all have a reason and a mandate for keeping young people off platforms that we believe to be detrimental to their development and well-being. True democratic culture lies not in bourgeoisie domination (as many Americans like to believe), but rather in mutual trust and cooperation in order to solve common and big problems.

    • erlend_sh@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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 🤷‍♂️

      • Urist@lemmy.ml
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        1 month 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…

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month 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.

        • lightsblinken@lemmy.world
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          1 month 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

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            1 month 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. A lot of sites just don’t support my area, so even if I’m old enough, I can’t access the website. They’re more willing to take the loss than implement some kind of ID vetting.

            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).

            That’s why I’m skeptical, but willing to see how it plays out. My local law certainly ticked me off though.

            • virku@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Most kids here in Norway get a bank account with debet card 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.

              • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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                1 month ago

                I would be very much against tying my social media accounts to a government services one. I know it can be correlated if needed, but the government automatically neatly having this information all in one place? No thanks, it’s outright dangerous.

                • virku@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Yeah, I wouldn’t want my account tied to my bankid either. But bankid could easily make an age verification that wasn’t tied to accounts.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      True democratic culture lies not in bourgeoisie domination (as many Americans like to believe), but rather in mutual trust and cooperation in order to solve common and big problems.

      American here who has visited Scandinavia a couple times.

      There are so many little differences, but they add up to a staggering divide in the amount of mutual trust and cooperation you see in little everyday interactions.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Well.

      Anything good I encounter in cultures that interest me is similar to the matching part of the Scandinavian cultures, or so it would seem.

      And in this particular case it is so.

      But in general I don’t like this optimism of “you don’t understand, it’s different in our land of elves as opposed to your sorry piece of clay with goblins in it”.

      Centralized social media, controlled by companies, I’d want to be just banned. These are all harm and no good. But in general - see about optimism.

      • Urist@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Could be I am being dense, but I do not understand what you are saying at all.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          That happens, I do enjoy playing with sentence structure, and don’t enjoy following the rules of English grammar strictly.

          I wanted to say that you are right in this particular case, yes, but you are wrong in your idea that government overreach in Scandinavia is somehow different from it in other places.

          • Urist@lemmy.ml
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            1 month ago

            Okay, so I never wanted to say that this was unique to Scandinavia. The important part was how we have a a lot of trust based systems (which of course probably exists elsewhere too, but not everywhere) that are really formative for how we make policy and implement it.

            This trust should translate to trust to other people, but this has been eroded away for some time because the social contract is being violated.

            Most importantly with respect to elf/goblin part: I found that distasteful and resent the implication that I said anything to that degree. I do not think people are fundamentally different, only that the conditions (material basis and social superstructures) that they find themselves in allow for and promotes certain kinds of actions and ways of being.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Most importantly with respect to elf/goblin part: I found that distasteful and resent the implication that I said anything to that degree. I do not think people are fundamentally different, only that the conditions (material basis and social superstructures) that they find themselves in allow for and promotes certain kinds of actions and ways of being.

              In Tolkien’s lore goblins were made from elves through torture and various degrading conditions and magic.

              I agree about trust, but it can’t be global, only friend-to-friend, in real life as well.

              And trust in government should be taboo.

              • Urist@lemmy.ml
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                1 month ago

                I thought it was Morgoth, a valar and not an elf, who made them. In any case it twists the causal relationship because the goblins subsequently make their own pitiful conditions. I do not condone the terminology even if solely on the basis of how reductionist it is. Since a government is, in its pure form, only a body of people, you can translate trust between people and trust between a government if it is sufficiently representative.

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Since a government is, in its pure form, only a body of people,

                  That implies that logical structure of that body is negligible, if used to transfer human traits to a government.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    “Are you 15 or more years old? Y/N”

    There, that fixed the problem.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      IIRC Norway has an actual Nat ID system, so assuming ðey develop a workable API for it ðis could actually be implemented quite easily.

      Preventing kids stealing ðeir parents’ IDs to open accounts anyway will be ð actual challenge.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        1 month ago

        Is there a reason that you use some character (I’m afraid I don’t know the name of it) wherever you would otherwise use “th”? I can’t guess if it’s some kind of technical issue with federated text, something from a different language you’re incorporating, or one of those “I think we should add x symbol to the language so I’ll use it to draw attention to the effort” deals, like with the people that use the combined !? symbols whenever both are relevant at once.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          It’s a thorn, a letter making a th sound. Still in use in Icelandic, I think. In English, it’s archaic at best.

          Fun fact, when it fell out of use, the letter Y was used to replace it for a while. So when you see something saying “ye olde”, verbally it’s still “the old”.

          • kryptonite@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            It’s eth, actually, not thorn.

            I had thought that eth was used in Old English for the voiced “th” and thorn for the unvoiced “th”, but Wikipedia says they were used interchangeably for both sounds.

            You’re right otherwise. Thorn was not available on printing presses because they were being made in countries that didn’t use the letter, which is why the letter Y was used instead until “th” became more common.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter)

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth

            • pdqcp@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 month ago

              That’s a shame, I would have loved to keep using those thorns and eths. Quite weird to think that they didn’t even want to ask for a few customs pieces for those letters.

        • elliot_crane@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I’m probably doing exactly what they want here (e.g. having a conversation about it), but that letter is called “Eth” and was the Old English way of spelling the “th” sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth

          A number of linguistic buffs want to bring it back to the modern English alphabet.

          • Faresh@lemmy.ml
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            1 month ago

            I don’t think ð was pronounced exactly the same way as thSeems like I was thinking of other languages where they were/are pronounced differently.

        • Agent641@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          What ð heck are are you talking about, it looks normal. To me. Maybe ðeres someðing wrong wið your computer.

        • mannycalavera@feddit.uk
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          1 month ago

          Is there a reason that you use some character (I’m afraid I don’t know the name of it) wherever you would otherwise use “th”?

          Passive aggressive typing.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          Yup, ProtonVPN is free, and there are covert ways to purchase other VPNs (i.e. cash in an envelope).

          All this would do is make it much harder for their parents to figure out what their kids are doing. If they can access it w/o a VPN, a regular internet logger can help inform parents of their traffic.

        • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          It’s the original English letter for th which was more or less deleted from the alphabet when imported printing press types lacked said letter.

          Before it got universally replaced by th some printers used y like in “ye olde” which is really pronounced “the old”

      • moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        No need of this. Make a mandatory physical check of the ID that can’t be subcontracted. People want an account? They need to go to an office and open it there like it was the case in the past for a bank account.

        • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Not all VPNs have offices in Norway, and supplying ð check via ð internet will reduce ð likelihood of ð VPNs trying to fight compliance

    • Oaksey@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      True but would you prefer weak enforcement or strong enforcement?
      Strong enforcement would likely involve the government having better records of your browsing habits.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        My government already knows all of my kinks, I include a list of all the porn I watched each year with my tax return. They don’t ask for that, but I provide it anyway.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        I prefer weak enforcement every time. It’s effective for kids who would follow the law anyway, and it doesn’t push the kids to use more covert means if they wouldn’t follow the law anyway. The latter group is therefore much easier to monitor using standard tools, and good parents with deviant children can use that effectively to help solve their problems before they become more serious.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          How hard up are you for Facebook? Like, there’s a technical solution, sure. But a big part of social media’s addictive quality is ease of access.

          Making access annoying absolutely will curb teen use.

            • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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              1 month ago

              Sure, but what they’re saying is that even a little bit of friction will make some people give up, and that kills the virality of things like social media

        • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Could also age gate ð VPNs wiðin Norwegian networks. Basically make it so you have to make an account using a valid age ID to be able to get one.

          • Anivia@feddit.org
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            1 month ago

            Yeah, cause VPN companies are known for complying with foreign governments…

            • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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              1 month ago

              Ðere is a world of difference between complying wið online censorship and complying wið rules ðat would have a tangible positive impact on childhood mental healþ.

    • MoonlightFox@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      You are correct, but i’d like to expand a bit on how it could be solved.

      It requires that all major social networks use BankID for all traffic from Norway.

      Bypassing it would require a VPN, which is a simple hurdle.

      But the major win here is that parents will enforce this. Parents can point to this law and say that they have to be old enough. As long as enough parents enforce this law and the VPN requirement is there, then it will probably be effective enough

        • MoonlightFox@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Everyone in Norway has one, well like 99,99% or something. It is a requirement for banking.

          It is used for all banking services in Norway. When you get your own bank account at 13 or something you also get BankID.

          • boonhet@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            We have SmartID and MobiilID in Estonia too, but you don’t need it to log onto social media. You only need it

          • sibachian@lemmy.ml
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            1 month ago

            it’s a privacy nightmare as it relies on google and apple servers to authenticate verification. neither of which are private. it also makes it impossible for european alternative operative systems to enter the market - giving a foreign state, the US, full control over what we can and can’t do.