Comment on France seeks to ban social media for children under 15

• FarceOfWill@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Because the line between “social media” and “talking to other people” is so blurry as to not exist.

  Also, and more importantly, the power of these companies is so great in effect youll only enforce that facebook etc. are the only ways of talking to each other that van exist legally and entrench the very problem you want to solve.

  For example, is whats app social media?

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  • sunbeam60@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Defining what is and what isn’t something is exactly what law has to do every single time it gets defined. I’m sure we can work this one out too.

    The size of the tech giants cannot be the reason to not attempt regulation. If anything, it’s exactly the reason to regulate.

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    • FarceOfWill@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      No im not arguing its hard to define, im arguing that youll have to ban children from whats app. Private minecraft servers (even ones owned and run by the kids) too. If you dont do this you leave a space for the tech giants to bring the targeted ads and then youll have to ban kids from each space as they move in.

      Any communication channel will fall to this if you take the approach of banning children from them one by one instead of stopping this behaviour by the tech giants entirely by legislating against targeted advertising directly. These services are just as toxic to adults.

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      • sunbeam60@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Ah I see what you mean.

        I suspect the EU will regulate in the same way it’s done other enforcement; if you are above a certain size, different requirements apply to you.

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• fantasyocean@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Who said that there can’t be regulations? The argument that we’re making here is that a ban that requires users to give out more information to companies that have a horrible track record in protecting user information is a bad form of regulation. I for one would be extremely happy if there were tighter and more severe penalties for advertising to children. Removing the profit incentive for any of these companies to have children on the platform at all.

  Legally requiring human review for things like YouTube Kids (which nobody should be using anyway, especially when the PBS kids exists) and having a harsh penalty if an Elsa gate scenario happens again, like it ever stopped but still.

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  • sunbeam60@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    There’s nothing in the EU age verification structure that requires you to hand more information to the places where you need to verify your age. In fact the system expressly prevents it.

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    • fantasyocean@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Right, and while I understand what you’re saying. The article is talking about the French legislature trying to introduce a social media ban, not a blanket ban by EU. That would be a different topic. Now I may just be a simple American, but it is my understanding that Nations within the union still have a sovereign right to create their own laws and set their own agendas. Now if you’re saying that the French president and French Parliament do not have the legal authority to go through with an Australian style age verification ban, then that’s good news.

      Regardless, as stated in the article, the French president is calling on Parliament to start debating a ban, and in this discussion, I think most people are just talking about what those bands look like in the rest of the world.

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      • sunbeam60@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        The article is talking about banning social media under a particular age. This is enabled by the new Digital Service Act, and specifically the Age Verification Blueprint within the European Digital Identity Wallet. The same discussion is happening all across the EU exactly because the EU now has shared standards defined for how age verification will work online.

        So while it’s true that counties can enact their own laws, like a US state can, they do so within a framework of European supranational regulation and they definitely cannot (easily) make national laws that circumvent EU directives. Well, they can, but the punishments and the hassle is severe.

        But very specifically these discussions are popping up all over the EU because suddenly the EU is actually putting in place the machinery that allows it to happen. So yes, it’s a French discussion, but one borne of and fed by the European-wide framework discussion.

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