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EU Rules Would Ban Kids Under 16 From Social Media (theguardian.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the has-its-pros-and-cons dept.

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."

26 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Good! by Halo1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, because gay kids seeking support online is valueless, right?

      They still can seek support online, also without parental supervision. This ruling only states that Facebook, or any other company or organisation, cannot require them to divulge their personal details (at least not without parental consent). And yes, that does sound like a good thing to me, especially for kids that may be insecure about their sexuality.

      --
      Donate free food here
    3. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      As an older gay man, I'm sure that if there was any form of support in the `70's it would of been a good thing. Fortunately kids who need support on these issues have resources in libraries, school counselors and any number of phone support groups.
       
      I approve of separating the younglings from some parts of the web, at least until their brains have stabilised enough not to believe they are evil scum if they're gay, or that as a muslim they must support DAESH, just because someone said so.
       
        It's not a bad thing to go outside, and see and interact with real people.

    4. Re:Good! by EmeraldBot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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."
    5. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:Good! by pruedz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. We should ban the vulnerable youth mind from bad influence, like the church, and any religious teaching too... /s

    7. Re:Good! by KGIII · · Score: 2

      You have that backwards. If you go outside, and not live in a basement, you can actually socialize with real people, like people that you know and stuff. You can make real friends that aren't just a "friend request" and people will give (albeit subtle) indicators that they like stuff. I'm gonna patent the idea, actually.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    8. Re:Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Isn't that what Trump is doing?

    9. Re:Good! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Funny

      Jaysus! It's depressing when people don't even recognize the Third Reich references anymore....

      Oh.... I thought that was a quote from Donald Trump.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    10. Re:Good! by Halo1 · · Score: 2

      Nevertheless, the West did come out on top, and therefore made the greatest contributions to human progress by far.

      And at the same time, we have also greatly damaged human progress in various ways (I won't speak in absolutes, because I'll frankly admit I have no idea who would "win" that particular contest for any given time period). E.g.

      • by making pretty much everything subservient to trade/GDP, we're wasting large amounts of human happiness (and thereby, ironically, also of GDP — burnouts, suicides, mental breakdowns, ...)
      • by primarily valuing hard science education and regurgitating large volumes of knowledge, we're not exploiting vast amounts of human creativity
      • by imposing our societal model on the rest of the world, we have thrown away centuries of social evolution and often replaced it with things that don't necessary work well in the same context. I don't have a link in English handy, but I recently read an interesting interview in Dutch with a simple yet telling example. Paraphrased: "In many of those countries, there were traditional systems that just worked. If person A stole a cow from person B, they went to talk under a tree and worked it out. We replaced that with a system of courts, lawyers and police officers. Now, the person with the biggest bribes wins and the other loses. We made those changes with arguments about democratisation, human rights and international justice, but in practice those people mainly see misery." (it's in the context of explanations for why there is a significant amount of unhappiness with the West in large parts of the world, and why the simplistic messages of the likes of Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Daesh at the very least get some grudging understanding there even when people find their methods abhorrent)

      I'm quite happy with my computer and the internet, but at the same time I think it's good to realise that there's more to human progress than just raw technology and power.

      I always found it ironic how islamic extremists demonize the West as the great satan, while driving cars, communicating with technologies and killing with weapons and explosives that are all products of western civilization.

      Beating the enemy with his own weapons, hanging the capitalists with the rope they sold, ... Nothing new under the Sun there.

      --
      Donate free food here
  2. Good! by feufeu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...and nothing of value is lost.

  3. It's not exactly as stated in the post. by Sique · · Score: 5, Informative

    The actual rules are that if the member states don't set an age limit, the default is 16. Individual member states thus can have lower age limits.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
    1. Re:It's not exactly as stated in the post. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Indeed and the bill also wants to harmonize the data privacy laws across the EU so we don't have another facebook incident over a court ruling.

      For those who don't know (warning: soap drama): Facebook was sued in Belgium about using tracking cookies even for non-members of facebook. Facebook argued then that it complied with the privacy laws in Ireland and therefor it should also apply in Belgium. They lost and now they say those cookies are for security and will block public facebook pages for everyone in Belgium. The belgian privacy commission contacted their counterparts and now France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain joined and are asking to apply the ruling.

      *dramatic soap drama voice*
      What will happen? Will facebook also block public pages in those nations? Will those nations back down for their facebook addicted non-member citizens?

    2. Re:It's not exactly as stated in the post. by Sique · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The age limit is just for when companies can start to ask private information and build a profile from them and sell them to affiliate companies and third parties.

      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).

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    3. Re:It's not exactly as stated in the post. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Will facebook also block public pages in those nations?

      We can only hope.

      Seriously, even if you don't despise Facebook, let's at least try to make privacy the default.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Social Media can still work by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 5, Informative

    The ban is about third party companies (adults) handling data of people under 16. So if a Social Media product was P2P, or e2e encryption and was unable to snoop on it's users, then it wouldn't be an issue. I'd like to see this extended to all people under 120.

    1. Re:Social Media can still work by horm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is not contradictory to his point.

  5. banning vs dysfunction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Is the really a good thing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The easy and obvious solution would be to not require fucking logins for everything. You should know. You posted anonymously.

  7. Re:Dinosaurs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    You should stop reading Facebook propaganda and get the actual news. For one "social media" isn't "the net", the age limit of 16 isn't mandatory, it's only the default if the member states don't set an age of their own, and all the kids need to get access to social media is either parental consent or they need to state that they are older than 16. And we all know how hard that is....

    Facebook lobbyists are once again blowing a small thing out of proportion to attack the agreement as a whole, which is far more dangerous for them. According to the agreement, companies can be fined up to 4% of their revenue for data breaches, and they are legally obliged to report data breaches, not doing so would result in a felony charge. That is what the lobbyists are after, but the "think of the children" card plays better

  8. Yes that would work by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  9. Misinformation propaganda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    For all of you falling for the "think of the children" narrative, you are misled by corporate propagande. What the lobbyists want has nothing to do with children, no one really cares about that. The rule change is largely just a declaration of intent, and a measure to make sure that all member states at least have a minimum age defined. If you read closely, the member states are still free to choose their own standard, the age 16 requirement only applies if nothing else is defined

    The real reason why the propaganda machine is running on full steam is the other provisions in the law, which would mean that it would become illegal to not disclose data breaches, hiding those would become a felony, and that companies could be charged with up to 4% of their total revenue for any data breaches. That is what the lobbyists are fighting against this draft law.

    1. Re:Misinformation propaganda by EmeraldBot · · Score: 2

      For all of you falling for the "think of the children" narrative, you are misled by corporate propagande. What the lobbyists want has nothing to do with children, no one really cares about that. The rule change is largely just a declaration of intent, and a measure to make sure that all member states at least have a minimum age defined. If you read closely, the member states are still free to choose their own standard, the age 16 requirement only applies if nothing else is defined

      The real reason why the propaganda machine is running on full steam is the other provisions in the law, which would mean that it would become illegal to not disclose data breaches, hiding those would become a felony, and that companies could be charged with up to 4% of their total revenue for any data breaches. That is what the lobbyists are fighting against this draft law.

      The data breaches part is especially interesting to me, and I highly hope this gets passed. 4% revenue is also a decent punishment, as that can add up to a substantial amount, and hopefully enough to actually be a deterrent to large and wealthy corporations for whom it's otherwise cheaper to just break the law and pay a measly €300 fine.

      --
      "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."
  10. They have already decided not to do this by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    Actually, it isn't even doing that. It was considering doing so, and has just decided not to. The first formal step to confirm this is expected tomorrow.

    The mandatory increase in age limit was opposed not just by tech business as you might expect, but also by online safety advocates concerned that it would backfire.

    Nothing to see here, move along.

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  11. I like it by Thraxy · · Score: 2

    Can we ban them from the streets as well? I'm tired of the little shits in this neighborhood.