*France seeks to implement mass surveillance online by requesting age verification, but politicians wrap it in "we do it to protect the children" which is bullshit.
Protect your rights to privacy, stand up against such erosion of your rights.
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
174 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
41147 readers
168 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
"Protect children" bills never protect children
Sex offender registry?
load more comments
(4 replies)
Both could be true at the same time.
I’ve got four kids. I’d love nothing more than ban social media for them until 16. It really is poison for developing minds.
There are these crazy things called "parental controls". You've probably never heard of them, but they're on nearly every single personal computing device. OR, and hear me out. You could just buy a dumb phone for your kids until they're sixteen, and if they want to take pictures, buy them an inexpensive digital camera. It would be cheaper overall than buying them an iPhone. But no, that's probably too difficult for you, so everyone else has to give even more of their personal information if they want to use Facebook Marketplace or whatever.
Buy a dumb phone and make them feel ostracized from everyone else lol. Spoken like someone who isn't gen Z.
Let's say you do use a dumb phone. What about everyone else? Others have to make a lot of concessions in order to communicate with you in a group project for example.Best case scenario the group does its communication over social media and calls you directly. You're going to miss out a lot on communication.
There's also some aspect of "followers = clout". Basically what I'm trying to say is expecting your child to be OK taking a dumb phone to school while seeing everyone else with one may have a dramatic effect.
One, I'm not interested in making sure their coolest middle schooler. Well-Dressed and able to express their style through clothes, their bookbag etc. Two, I don't really want them in a bunch of group chats yapping constantly. Yes, they will miss out on a lot of communication but they don't need to be in constant 24/7 contact with anyone in elementary school and middle school. And finally, when I see them behaving maturely I may consider getting them a smartphone earlier. But if not they'll just be waiting until they turn 15. If they want to get on TikTok they can open up the app on the family room TV and they can be the same with YouTube.
I'm not going to go through every single scenario parenting in the digital age, but I have to be aware and I have to monitor. And over time the amount of monitoring I do will have to be reduced based on the maturity that they're showing but also out of respect for their autonomy.
But you know what's great about everything I said, you don't have to do any of that. You can give your kid the smartphone and let them get on FB messenger at 7 years old for all I care. And you know why I don't care? Because that's your decision and you can deal with the consequences or benefits of that parenting style.
Though I'll be honest, I'm not certain what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying you want the ban so you can give your child a smartphone without thinking about how they're using it? Or are you saying no ban and iPhones for preteens?
Lol. Yes it’s that simple.
Look, I’ve raised 4 kids. I run OPNsense with filters. I’ve enabled parental controls all on their mobile phone connections. My kids were and will be the last that got a smart phone in their year. I’m an active member of smartphone free childhood in the UK; I’ve engaged with U.K. members of Parliament on the topic. I’ve worked for tech giants whose sole purpose it is to create “habits” ie addiction in amongst children. Regardless I’m not talking about just my kids, I work in education and engage with multiple schools on the topic.
You come back to me when you’ve taken kids through the landscape they exist in today. What’s more, it is possible to verify age online in a way that doesn’t enable governments to see what sites you visit (not that they can’t already get that your ISP); of course I’m against government oversight of everyone’s internet habits. But both can be achieved; anonymity and age verification is possible.
It sounds like a pretty one sided view you’ve got there and maybe, just maybe, it could do with some nuance.
There is no such thing as anonymous data. It has been proven all data can be linked to you. The only data that is anonymous is the one they don't collect.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Im not sure what youre arguing here? its possible to control access well as a parent, but so much easier if the state force everyone on the internet to provide id in order to prevent teenagers talking to eavh other?
You yourself csn target what you think is harmful but a law will hit everything and everyone, and like i implied in the driveby about roblox still might not actually block something you find unacceptable.
This is just the wrong approach to achieve the goal.
Youre on lemmy! This is like the one place people will decry facebook, x, reddit, insta etc. But what your arguing for will end up with them as the only services that can navigate existing legally, and children will still work around blocks because they simply dont care about consequences for lying about their age.
load more comments
(9 replies)
load more comments
(11 replies)
load more comments
(7 replies)
You can.
You just don't want to either a) put in the legwork to do so, or b) be the 'bad guy' to your kids for doing it, so instead you just want the government to do it for you.
What's stopping you from setting up pihole or configuring your home router to block social media sites at home, or turning on parental controls on their phones and blocking the sites and apps?
load more comments
(6 replies)
I agree that big tech's social media is like digital heroin, not only bad for kids.
But it should be up to the parent to protect their kids, you also don't let them walk the park alone, why should you let them browse the web un-supervised.
There are parental tools to restrict your child's internet access, those should be applied by the parent.
Not every citizen should be under surveillance by the government under the rouse that they'll protect your kids, which they won't.
The real goal here is to detect people who go against the government and block them. While kids & criminals slip through the cracks by finding sketchy un-surveilled sites and messaging channels.
And if you really think your government gives a damn about your kids safety, then I urge you to look in the epstein ph/f-iles
Is something nobody discusses out loud is the fact that literally in you internet service where users can post is covered by these laws, they're not microtargeted at Instagram or anything like that. Also politicians explicitly say things like this is meant to stop transgenderism or this is about Gaza out loud
I appreciate the nuance. Thanks for a thoughtful answer.
You’ll see from different answers I’ve made to the reactions on my first comment that I also approach this with nuance.
I know many people that work in government. Not the US government, but across Europe. I can’t answer for the US government. But I can tell you first hand that the people I know aren’t in it to gain some kind of Orwellian control.
When I last spoke to a U.K. MP about this he was in fact understanding the complexity here, and the lens that many people want to see it banned and many see it as governmental overreach. Decent, hard working people are trying to balance these tough choices where I live. I’m sorry if that isn’t the case where you live.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Why would you not just want social media to be better regulated by the law? You can't seriously believe that your children are going to have no access to social media, even with an age ban, unless you intend to lock them in a room and home school them till they're 18.
The absolute binary inability for children to access social media shouldn’t be the litmus test for whether we should try.
Some children manage to buy lottery tickets or gamble for real money online. Some manage to buy alcohol even when they’re underage. Some manage to buy cigarettes. Inadequate parents will even sometimes support this.
But we aim to create an environment where that is difficult. And by doing so we shape culture. And culture shapes patterns. My aim isn’t to remove the harm social media perpetrated on children, but to reduce it. All law works like this - speed limits are routinely broken but most drive sensibly.
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(8 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
France seeks to ID everyone using social media.
I am fine with children not having access to social media but not at the cost of my privacy. If they could implement it without requiring me to submitted any identifying info just to watch some reels, then I'd be all for it.
Whenever this comes up, it feels like a play to harvest people's data and / or to slip additional laws into place under the guise of "protect the children".
On one hand I don't think it's terrible to try to guide kids more. I think parents should be doing more parenting tbh. If a parent wants to put parental locks in place, they can. Even blocking specific sites from being accessed entirely. I think the bigger issue is people don't understand how to use computers so they think there's nothing they can do lol.
On the other I think it runs the risk of preventing kids from accessing information online, finding safe spaces online, and isolating kids more than they already can be. It also limits things like teaching kids about technology and how to use it safely.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Classical bingo to authoritarism
It's only to protect children It's only to protect against terrorism It's only to protect against rapist It's only to protect against murders It's only to protect against deterioration oups, it's everyone except the upper class
This is how personal data bills and fingerprint/adn collect bills have evolved
We did the same thing w cigarettes, and to cocaine in coca cola.
Kids brains aren't developed yet, give them a chance.
Social media is bad for kids because it amplifies social comparison and algorithm-driven validation, which can undermine self-esteem and mental health during critical stages of brain development. It also displaces real-world socialization and sleep while exposing kids to content and pressures they’re not developmentally equipped to process.
load more comments
(9 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Do it, save the youth.
Yea like as much as I'm concerned about government control etc... Social media is actively doing irreversible harm and needs to be treated like digital cocaine it is.
Wouldn't this just wind up being a de facto ban on the platform we're using right now? How could Lemmy implement an age verification system? If social media platforms that dont comply with age verification are banned, then by default there goes most of the fediverse.
How could Lemmy implement an age verification system?
I don't think that it would matter much. Assuming that the legislation applies to the Threadiverse and doesn't have some sort of exception, it'd still be effectively unenforceable, because most instances don't operate in France's legal jurisdiction, and I imagine that most users, even in France, don't really care whether their instance is in France or not.
load more comments
(1 replies)
If headlines were honest: France seeks to prohibit early teenagers from social interaction with peers unless they are good at doing it offline.
If I hadn't had the Internet in the years before my 15th birthday, this would in my retrospective opinion have amounted to near torture.
Can we finally get politicians who grew up with the Internet into power? How many more years must people the age of Macron be allowed to make these kinds of decisions? 😟😡
There was a point, about 10-12 years ago now, where The Algorithm™ took over social media entirely.
If you were around before that, you would have noticed the shift. Your friend's comments and posts started to get intermixed with "other stuff" , and eventually you could scroll endlessly and not see anything from your direct friends, or friends of friends. Forever.
What decided what you could see? Why, The Algorithm™ , of course. So, at that point right there, that's when a direct and consistently biased feed of someone else's opinion about what you wanted to see got pumped into people's brains. And you can bet it's going to be designed to be handing out the most engaging things that it can find for you, to keep you scrolling away on their platform. But it doesn't matter a fuck if what its handing out i's mentally harmful to you personally, as long as you're engaged.
And just like schoolkids in the USA reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, reinforcement of whatever The Algorithm™ wants (simply: more engagement) becomes pretty trivial when it's crammed into your head consistently from a young age. Lacking any other reference points, children are the ones with the least amount of defenses against all of that shite.
These kinds of laws worldwide are trying to stop that kind of thing from happening, because they can't stop the source directly. Social media companies hold too much sway over the population and the economy now, it would be political suicide to try and go toe to toe with them.
In my opinion, The Algorithm™ as it stands now is a cancer that needs to be cut out of social media by any means possible. Whether there's anything left remaining after that is debatable.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›