Slashdot Mirror
EU Rules Would Ban Kids Under 16 From Social Media (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader sends word of new data protection rules up for vote in the European Parliament which would make it illegal for companies to handle the data of children aged 15 and younger. Currently, such data processing is prohibited only for kids 12 and under. This would affect European teenagers' ability to use Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and many other social media services. This amendment has been opposed not only by the tech companies involved, but by many child safety experts as well:
Janice Richardson, former coordinator of European Safer Internet network, and consultant to the United Nations' information technology body, the ITU and the Council of Europe said: "Moving the age from 13 to 16 represents a major shift in policy on which it seems there has been no public consultation. "We feel that moving the requirement for parental consent from age 13 to age 16 would deprive young people of educational and social opportunities in a number of ways, yet would provide no more (and likely even less) protection." Larry Magid, chief executive of ConnectSafely.org, said: "It will have the impact of banning a very significant percentage of youth and especially the most vulnerable ones who will be unable to obtain parental consent for a variety of reasons."
...and nothing of value is lost.
You're assuming that's something they actually need. They don't. People in general survived just fine before social media became a thing. It's not a necessity.
I'm not sure if banning social media for children that age is a good thing, but having seen and heard what it has become, it does seem to magnify some dysfunctional social interactions happening at those ages.
Even before the internet, teens went through a period of trying to measure and compare their social standing, but social media seems to have created a caricature of that. Now, it is "directly measurable" to them: my selfie got 50 likes in one day, and yours only got 28. People said, "OMG you're pretty!" to me, but only "you're pretty!" to you. Teens are getting obsessed with constant, real time monitoring of these things - by some attempts to measure it, checking likes to their selfies as much as every 2 or 3 minutes throughout their entire day. In class, waiting for the bus, it doesn't matter.
It's hard to see that as a healthy thing. Of course, it's tempting to view anything new and different as bad. It happens with every generation: rock and roll, computer gaming, etc. Still, I can't help but think this is different. This is:
* Permanent. What you put out there, good, bad, or ugly, stays out there. If it's embarrassing or hurtful, it will be used against you potentially for the rest of your life, rather than being forgotten as stupid shit used to be. Your name will be forever attached.
* Commercial. It's used to build profiles of kids to advertise to them, which will follow them through life.
* Direct. It seems to magnify whatever "popular vs unpopular" axis that has always existed at those ages. It makes the popular feel more so, and the unpopular feel even more alienated. And kids can be very cruel to the unpopular.
I'm not sure social media is anything good for kids, but somehow, banning it doesn't seem likely to fix those problems, either. Maybe the better approach is to help them deal with it in better ways. Like it or not, it's here to stay, and it is changing our culture. Best to try to to improve how that change happens.
The easy and obvious solution would be to not require fucking logins for everything. You should know. You posted anonymously.
I'm sure that the 15 year old's with a smart phone would all obey the rule and not use a false date of birth
The European youth needs discipline and direction. They are the heirs of the greatest civilization that has ever existed and will ever exist, after all. Obedience and a sense of purpose are important values.
Aside from the fact there is no "European" civilization (different parts of Europe are incredibly different, and you should know that), you are severely underestimating the east. Japan has more cultural wealth to it than most give it credit for, and has lasted (in a fairly contiguous form) for well over 2000 years. China's been around for over 10000. Korea has a history of almost 6000 years. All of them have a deep and complex culture, easily at the same level of Western civilization, and they've made many very important contributions. Native American tribes are among the oldest in the world, with many stories passed down through many thousands of years, and an immensely unique (if difficult) language. Africa falls into much of that too, with the world's very first humans having come from here, along with a wealth of natural resources. The Middle East has an almost as long ago history, with the world's very first civilization being founded here, and is filled with historic artifacts (or should I say, was). So yes, there is much more to the world than the little strip of land up north, and I say this as someone who is half from there.
And really, this is all irrelevant anyway, because there is no greatest civilization. You cannot objectively measure the greatness of a society, only its relative impact on the world, and that changes according to the viewpoint. I don't see why we have to get into arguments with labeling: it is stupid to think yourself better than someone else merely because yours has more inventions, and about the only thing that's useful for is measuring the level of someone's worldly ignorance.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Yes, as usual this is just more anti-EU tosh from Slashdot.
The EU isn't banning kids from doing anything, it's banning companies from harvesting personal data on kids who aren't old enough to give consent to have their data harvested.
The fact that means social media would have to stop providing the service to kids under 16 is a function of the fact sites like Facebook insist that they must collect personal information. Kids will still be perfectly well allowed to use such sites if they can use anonymous aliases, and if their data isn't harvested to build a profile on them. They can still advertise to them, it just can't be based on personal data.
The fault here is entirely on social media companies for insisting that they should be able to collect every bit of personal data about every person no matter what. As you say this law actually protects kids not old enough to give consent more than anything - a social media site requiring personal data is a far greater risk to a kid than a site that allows them to provide no personal data because there's always a risk that that personal data will be leaked.
This is actually less restrictive than America's COPPA which has been active for 15 years now, the only areas it's more strict is in the fact it uses an age of consent of 16 instead of 13.
I don't see the problem here, but as usual big tech abuses it's hefty media presence to play the victim and blame the EU again.
For that, any company needs parental agreement until the age limit. Any company that doesn't ask personal information and does not require them to access the services it offers is free to accept any user at any age (if the services itself don't violate any other age limits).
I agree. We should ban the vulnerable youth mind from bad influence, like the church, and any religious teaching too... /s
Isn't that what Trump is doing?