Totally. Today’s social media is not the same as last years etc. Read Meta’s quarterly reports and they brag about Reels increasing time spent on site by 30% in a year. That’s not even considering the other ill effects like giving kids a firehose of all the worlds problems when they’re not yet equipped to handle that information, which causes them to internalize those things, making them feel like things are fucked, that they’re responsible, etc. It’s psychologically devastating. And so many other things! Let kids be kids.

Yes I think this is it. News headlines and Tweets and other social media posts mean that trends are much more global than they used to be. "Controlling kids' access to social media" is just trending right now, and that means it's getting attention all over the globe at the same time.

>political movements can be global.

You are saying exactly what OP is saying but just rephrasing it another way.

The more a movement crosses borders, the less likely it is to be based on the needs of any particular country and the more likely it is to be based on the needs of the transnational billionaire class.

Drinking age is not the only example, driving age is another good example and also the old TV rating system. What was considered taboo in America was often at the same time considered to be fine in places like Europe, or vice versa. But we never had a coordinated international push for censorship when it came to TV/movies like we are seeing with social media.

I can remember how much people used to deride mass surveillance and censorship in places like Russia and China and now here we are very quickly catching up to them in every way.

> The world is much more globalized now. Countries are watching each other, political movements can be global.

This is simply not true. The US puts pressure on countries to harmonize their regulations and laws to ours, unless it is to the US's advantage that other countries have different laws than ours. The world didn't suddenly get draconian drug laws through "political movements," it got them through diplomatic and funding pressures. The US often used those laws as excuses for military and intelligence interventions, or to build political organizations in those countries in the guise of antidrug organizations.

All countries do things like this, but the US is rich and dangerous enough to do it hardest. The US has decided that it wants everybody tracked at all times, especially online, and when it explains the advantages of this to the elites of other countries, they also like the idea.

Smaller European countries have also made it a cottage industry to fanatically push US agendas in places like NATO and the EU, because it gives their little homelands outsized influence (and bags of cash) to operate on behalf of the bully. For some reason, everybody in Europe has to care what e.g. Estonia thinks about something, although Estonia is just saying what the US wants Europe to be doing, and the US is financing Estonian candidates for European positions (and maybe even having Trump lobby against them to give them even more credibility.)

This attack on any sort of privacy online is not coming from the churches. There is no lobby group that it pushing it that doesn't get the majority of its funds from any number of governments, which is just government lobbying itself. The way democracy is supposed to work is that the people support something, and they then vote for candidates that will give it to them - but there is no visible constituency lobbying for this other than casual liberal cynics who aren't organized in any way.

As a comparison, in 2015 there was like 65-70% popular support for single-payer health care in the US. There were dozens of organized groups supporting it. It even crossed 50% among Republicans for at least a year. Not a hint of anything happened.

edit: Also Europe, like Japan, is one of those places that had a really emotionally tough time outlawing pedophilia and child pornography. They certainly don't care this much about the sexual aspect of child safety, at least. What Europe has never been behind on is the censorship of political speech. That is what can excite people.

We didn't need social media before it existed. If no one's on it, that sounds like the ideal situation for young kids.

> People have been drinking alcohol since time immemorial.

This is probably the reason why there is no unified age for drinking, because everyone came at it at different times from different place and have differing rationale including social, religious, cultural etc.

Social media is new and there is no cultural/religious rule for/against it. So 16 is the starting point someone decided (was it Australia or NZ?), and others are following since it's a good starting point. As time progresses, maybe it'll move up or down and different countries might take a different stand.

I'm on board with it too, but the timing and methodology is suspicious. We already got a "protect the kids" law to semi-block TikTok in the US, but it was really about protecting Israel's image (its sponsors even admitted). I hope it's not related to that.

If it was organic the wording and the definitions in these legislations would be wildly different, the timing would be all over the place, the age limits and the methods to provide ID as well. But they are not.

edited for tone

Why am I being forced to prove to my OS that I am an adult just because of your inadequate parenting skills?

In my current EU country, there's mandatory military conscription from the age of 17. And you're telling me you're only fit for social media access one year before being fit to drive tanks and shoot guns at people?

Look, I hate (Zuckerberg's) social media just as much as the next person and I would be happy if it were nuked from this planet, but firstly, a lot of this sudden age verification shit to "protect the children" is sus AF, leading me to assume their ulterior motives are surveillance and doxxing of anonymous online free speech, and secondly, I don't think we can put the toothpaste back in the bottle anymore similar how prohibition didn't stop alcohol consumption, it just moved underground.

As long as kids have smartphones, they'll find a way to use social media, or even make their own social media to organize parties, send nudes or flaunt their parents' wealth and bully the poor and ugly kids, the same way how they start drinking beer at 13 even though the legal age for that is 18.

Social media amplifies the worst of human nature, but you won't be able to change human nature. Maybe governments should regulate the amount and type of data collection social media companies can have from their users, instead of regulating their users.

why 'silly' conspiracy? Many cases of documented conspiracy in the past anyway.

Being on this social media (YC) people aware it's all about implementation and we should at least demanding better solutions. If you want to regulate/limit access of kids to social media just make that you have to be 16 years old to buy simcard - in many places in EU you already have to show ID to seller.

Allow parent to buy simcard to their under 16 year old children if thats what they want to and allow parents to decide at their home wifi if kid should have access to social media or not.

It’s pretext for identifying and tracking everyone. A inevitable ”byproduct” from getting your age by digital ID.

Like you observed the damage of social media is not unique to children. So a more sensible legislation would serve to help everybody from the harm of social media, not just children.

Second, age verification systems have a lot to benefit from a government contract.

Third, social media and ad companies would for sure prefer a blanket ban on children rather then a more careful legislation which e.g. ban targeted advertising, or further regulates social media from harmful patterns.

Who exactly has a vested interest in starting a worldwide conspiracy to [ think of the children ] in order to push [ nefarious measure ]? Difficult question that.